When was playdough invented

While heading the company in , Cleo met with representatives from the Kroger grocery chain who were reportedly looking for a wallpaper cleaner to sell in their stores.

At the time, burning coal was a common way to heat homes, but it left soot that was hard to clean off the wallpaper. All consumers had to do was roll it across their soiled walls to clean the soot and dirt.

It was a big hit with the kids. They rolled it out and used cookie cutters to make shapes, which Zufall dried out in her oven to make ornaments. Originally an off-white color sold in one-gallon cans, the modeling compound was soon available in red, yellow and blue and in smaller packages.

This was a land mark time for Play-Doh as it has reached a global level of distribution. How did Play-Doh as a business grow? It is composed of flour, water, salt, borax , and mineral oil. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the s.

It hit the market in , and has been a popular play toy ever since. One smell most people remember from childhood is the odor of Play-Doh, the brightly-colored, nontoxic modeling clay. McVicker wanted his product to reach a larger audience, not just schools, but he lacked a substantial advertising budget. His creativity prevailed once again when he introduced his new line of Play-Doh to Bob Keeshan, otherwise known to the television world as Captain Kangaroo.

Keeshan loved the product and made an arrangement with McVicker to use Play-Doh at least once a week on his show. Sales skyrocketed, and Rainbow Crafts struggled to keep up with the overwhelming demand for this new toy. In , accessories became part of the Play-Doh line when McVicker hired two engineers to develop a product that could be used in multiple ways.

The Putty line includes metallic and glittery tints. The recipe has gone through minor modifications over time. At one point, the amount of salt was reduced so the product would not dry out so quickly. But, for the most part, the mixture has remained the same. According to Bensch, Zufall is the mother of this time-tested toy. For her students in nursery school, she was looking for a suitable alternative to modeling clay, which could be messy and difficult to work with for young hands.

Zufall had read an article about using wallpaper cleaner to make holiday decorations and thought that might just do the trick.