It is believed to have been born to amuse the children, yet the play-do modeling paste was not a toy at the start. Its first very different mission is likely to surprise you.
Play-Doh is one of the best known toys around the world. Since 1956, this soft and colorful plasticine has found its place in classrooms like at home. Children use it to shape animals, invent characters or give life to all kinds of creations. It stimulates their imagination, develops their motor skills and is even among the basic supplies in kindergarten. In a few decades, she became a must -have planetary.
However, this international success was not planned. When it is developed, the objective of his inventors had nothing to do with the world of educational games or childish creativity. The flexible texture, the malleability and the recognizable odor among all are today associated with childhood, but originally, the dough was absolutely not intended to fall into the little hands.
It is in Cincinnati, in Ohio, that it all starts. In 1956, Noah McVicker and his nephew Joseph, researchers at Rainbow Crafts, a company specializing in soaps and detergents, worked on a new household product. Their mission: to develop a material capable of cleaning the wallpapers without damaging them. The result is an elastic paste, which mixes and sculpts easily and which, to their surprise, amuses those around them. They then modify its composition to make it a reusable and non -toxic product. Joseph’s sister, teacher, decides to try it with her students: the experience immediately seduces children … and their parents. The cleaning dough has just turned into a revolutionary toy. They are not aware of it yet, but they have just invented the Play-Doh plasticine!
At the end of the 1950s, there was only one pot of 675 grams of broken white plasticine, but it is an incredible success in the shelves. Modeling paste crosses the Atlantic Ocean and arrives in Europe: France, England, Italy … No one is resistant! Quickly, the range extends and grows by offering the different primary red, blue and yellow colors. The pot is then replaced by a smaller format. Today, there are more than fifty colors and shades as well as metallic and glittery colors. More than half a century after its creation, it remains one of the symbols of the creative game and continues to occupy the toys, proof that an invention born for the maintenance of the house can become an icon of childhood.
