Monday 5 December 2016

wallflower

The particular recipe (flour, water, salt, mineral oil and boric acid) and consistency for Play-Doh was developed originally in the 1930s as a cleaning compound for wallpaper brought to the market by a Cincinnati soap manufacturer to dab up the soot from coal heating.
It wasn’t until the modelling “clay” had become nearly obsolete in its first role that it was suggested in 1954 (by an individual who never received any credit or compensation) that it might make a fun toy. Relatedly, bubble wrap (a generic trademark, proprietary eponym from the Sealed Air Corporation) was invented three years later not as a packaging material but first as a new sort of mod wallpaper before a brief redesign as insulation for greenhouses. Apparently, future generations of the cushioning film will not reward the senses with a satisfying pop—which might have made sense when it was a wall decorating but now feels as if consumers are being cheated out of something.