Play-Doh For Your Creator

Play-Doh - whatever you do don't put it in your mouth​​​

My daughter who is six is a big fan of Play-Doh, that salty coloured putty that you buy in plastic tubs. It’s great for making all sorts of fun creations from Play-Doh cup cakes in a cake shop to Play-Doh worms to Play-Doh vegetables or even Play-Doh voodoo dolls of Mammy and Daddy:-/ But whatever you do don’t be tempted to put Play-Doh in your mouth, even though it smells really yummy. The salt content will burn your tongue off and make you vomit instantly. It actually contains Boric Acid! Funny that because I always wondered why they made it smell so nice? Surely the first thing millions of kids everywhere will try to do is eat it before they realize?

From wall cleaner to kids toy​

Play-Doh surprise eggs - very weird, very weird indeed!​

Anyway so what the hell is Anton writing about now you are probably wondering?

I wanted to share an interesting modern day phenomenon where digitalization is really helping some old school toys that have pretty much been around for the last 70-80 years. Did you know that Play-Doh was invented from a wallpaper cleaning product developed in 1930’s America?

“Play-Doh is a modeling compound used by young children for art and craft projects at home and in school. Composed of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil, the product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S., as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s.[1] When a classroom of children began using the wallpaper cleaner as a modeling compound, the product was reworked and marketed to Cincinnati schools in the mid-1950s” - Wikipedia

So apart from making voodoo dolls of her parents my daughter also like to surf Youtube for Play-Doh videos on my iPad. When I first saw these user created videos I was not sure whether to let her continue watching them. I guess I was expecting them to start innocently and then deviate radically and shockingly into some depraved Play-Doh fetish cult, or even worse the weirdos in the videos would start playing with inappropriate shapes and insertions of one kind or another. That may be OK for a very niche group of adult viewers, but clearly not the kind of world you’d want your innocent six-year-old daughter getting sucked into;-)

However I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to see that all was normal and these videos were actually quite good fun, well made and rather educational. They also struck me as very social and actually for a child rather inspiring as they provided lots of tips and cool things to do that would spark the imagination and draw kids back to the physical Play-Doh experience time and time again. 

There is one video in particular that my daughter loves (see link below) The host of the video spends 9 mins opening up Play-Doh surprise eggs to reveal the toys inside. Very weird, very weird indeed, but my daughter watches it over and over and then or course tries it herself with her own Play-Doh and our stuff. Where are the car keys dear, where's my watch, have you seen the plie of loose change I left on the table?