However, Play-Doh started off as a wallpaper cleaner created by failing Cincinnati soap company Kutol in 1956. The non-toxic, malleable clay-like compound saved Kutol for another 20 years at least. As sales in wallpaper cleaner plummeted, the product was reimagined by its owners as a children’s toy, thanks to a family member taking it into the nursery where she worked to make Christmas decorations. Children loved it, so it was reformulated and repurposed and first sold as an off-white dough before the infamous red, yellow and blue dyes were added. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
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