Kathrine Nero: The secret history of Play-Doh, created in Cincinnati

Scent might be the strongest of the senses, bringing back long-forgotten memories in an instant. Pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving. The first hyacinths in the spring. The smell of my high school band room: Old reeds, teenage hormones and never-cleaned trumpets. That last one may not be one you want to make into a candle.

There’s another scent that I can conjure up in a split second – one I had no idea had its beginnings right here in Cincinnati.

Play-Doh.

Just saying it takes me back to kindergarten where we became mini-Matisses with the colored dough. And the smell. Oh, the smell.

Acrid and comforting at the same time. Which kind of makes sense when you find out that Play-Doh as we know it started its legendary life as a wallpaper cleaner.

From wallpaper cleaner to child's toy, and Cincinnati's role in that transformation

The year was 1933 and Cincinnati’s Kutol Products was a soap manufacturer tasked with creating a cleaner that could take coal residue off wallpaper. A non-stick putty-like consistency worked perfectly. And that’s the way it was sold until the ’50s, when natural gas furnaces didn’t require wallpaper cleaner.

Kutol’s Noah McVicker was faced with a problem: lots of putty, not a lot of need. His company’s premiere product was bordering on obsolescence. Until his nephew Joe McVicker and Joe’s sister-in-law Kay Zufall stepped in.

Zufall was a nursery school teacher, and she realized her students enjoyed making art projects with the putty – and the cleanup was a lot easier than modeling clay.

And so Play-Doh was born.

The wallpaper cleaner was repackaged in 1956 and sold to Cincinnati-area schools under the name Rainbow Crafts Co. But at first, Play-Doh didn’t come in a rainbow of colors at all. Red, yellow and blue were soon added to the original white. Now, there are more than 60 shades on the market, not to mention the lovely brown our kids have created when they combine one too many colors.

So, what exactly is that Play-Doh smell?

So back to that smell: what gives it that pungency? Our homemade versions are basically water, flour and salt. As for the real deal, Play-Doh won’t reveal all that’s inside those little yellow cans. “The exact ingredients of Play-Doh Classic Compound are proprietary, so we cannot share them with you,” it reads on its website.

Play-Doh was patented in 1965, but obviously someone had the same obsession with its aroma that I apparently do. Hasbro (which acquired Play-Doh’s parent company in 1991) marked Play-Doh’s 50th anniversary in 2006 with a limited-edition perfume – promising that fresh out-of-the-can smell. 

But it didn’t stop there. Hasbro now has trademark protection for that sweet and salty smell. Its filing claimed Play-Doh had “a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough.” Cherry. That’s the olfactory undertone I’ve been trying to figure out.

Play-Doh, the putty initially meant to spare grandma’s floral wallpaper, was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. Now, almost four generations and billions of cans later, kids are still playing with Play-Doh in the form of advent calendars, makeup palettes and much to parents’ chagrin – slime. Same yellow can, same familiar smell – and the same good, clean fun.

If there’s a Play-Doh candle out there somewhere, send it Kathrine’s way. Otherwise, catch her on The Enquirer’s Facebook page weekdays at 10 a.m. for Coffee Break with Kathrine.