traditional kids’ dough has been taken to a new level with fun dough, an innovative range from promo one which combines the popular play activity with the benefits of organic essential oils.
managing director katrina doney was inspired by her children to create the product as they learnt the alphabet by making shapes out of dough. she wanted to enhance the experience kids had while playing with the modeling substance by adding some aromatherapy benefits.
after thorough research into the types of oils that could be used for children, doney came up with the scents and colours of the dough by deciding what emotional qualities people would like for their kids.
“of course everybody loves to have calm children hence the organic french lavender which has a calming effect on children and everybody loves that, so i then blended it with the colour blue because blue is a very calming colour and then i went on from there,” she says.
“i thought about how else we’d like our children to be so obviously happy. happy is blended with organic lime and mandarin oils and they’re very uplifting notes, which awaken the brain when absorbed from the warmth of the child’s hand when they play with fun dough. so we went ahead and we now have six different blends of organic essential oils in fun dough.”
the other designs are smart which is yellow with lemon and grapefruit oils, balance has sweet orange oil and comfort is green with tea tree and eucalyptus oil which makes it perfect for children with colds as it has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.
magical is the newest addition and is pink with silver sparkles and scented with organic lavender and ylang-ylang.
the tiny fun dough range of 200 gram jars was launched recently and has been a hit with retailers looking to stock products for children’s party treat bags. also available in a 350 gram jar as well as a cylinder with five colours and a kit with cutters and stampers, fun dough attracted so much interest at the melbourne august gift fair that 1.2 tonnes were sold.
it has also made waves overseas with interest from a japanese distributor.
“i certainly have heard back from our retailers that people do really love the dough and the types of comments we get back are that it never dries out so it lasts about eight hours out of the jar – which is quite unusual for dough [and] people really love the fact that it’s really soft – we actually use sunflower oil in it which is high in vitamin e so that’s really lovely for kids obviously for adults as well but for kids’ skin.”
fun dough is non-toxic and made from food grade ingredients. the product has also been a hit with adults who remember playing with dough with an unpleasant smell when they were younger.
promo one is working on a new scent to add to the fun dough range and plans to launch it at the sydney february gift fair.
