Translated from the original Spanish article. Read in Spanish
The world's most famous modeling dough… was born to clean walls. Before it was a toy, Play-Doh was a cleaning product.
The soot problem
Cincinnati, United States, the 1930s. Many homes were heated with coal, and the soot dirtied the wallpaper.
At the company Kutol Products, a developer named Noah McVicker created a soft, non-toxic, clay-like dough made with water, salt and flour. You rubbed it over the wall… and the grime stayed trapped in the dough.
No customers
But then came gas heating and, later, washable wallpaper. Walls didn't get as dirty anymore, and nobody needed that dough.
The company was on the verge of going bust. They had a product that worked really well… but that nobody wanted anymore.
A teacher's idea
Then along came Kay Zufall, a preschool teacher and sister-in-law of Joe McVicker, from the family that owned the company. She had read that you could model with that cleaning dough, tried it with her pupils for crafts… and the children loved it.
Her idea: sell it as a toy. She even came up with the name: Play-Doh, something like "dough for playing".
The name Play-Doh came from a preschool teacher, Kay Zufall.
From school to the world
The family created a new company for the toy, Rainbow Crafts, which made Play-Doh from 1956. It first reached schools, only in white. Then came red, yellow and blue.
It was such a success that the brand changed owners several times. Since 1991 it has belonged to Hasbro, one of the world's largest toy companies.
A smell with an owner
There's a detail almost nobody knows: Play-Doh's smell is trademarked. In 2018, Hasbro got its scent recognized as a registered trademark in the United States.
The official description speaks of a sweet, vanilla-like fragrance, with a hint of cherry and the natural smell of a salted wheat dough. In other words: the smell anyone recognizes with their eyes closed.
Since 2018, Play-Doh's smell has been a registered trademark in the United States.
Today more than two billion tubs have been sold. Not bad for a wall cleaner nobody wanted.
This story is also a video
We tell it in a short video on our channel (in Spanish). Subscribe: there's a new story every week.
Watch the video on YouTubeNow, be honest: did you ever taste it… even just a little?
Tell us in the comments on the video.
Sources (in Spanish)
- Historia del producto, Kutol y Kay Zufall: Wikipedia, Play-Doh, y Wikipedia (inglés), Play-Doh.
- Origen como limpiador de papel tapiz e invención accidental: Smithsonian Magazine.
- Rainbow Crafts y los cambios de dueño: FOX, «A brief history of Play-Doh» y Wikipedia.
- Registro del olor como marca (18 de mayo de 2018): Smithsonian Magazine.
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