Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve documented several examples of the cooking-meets-family entertainment product trend propelled by toy makers like Bandai and Takara Tomy (see here and here). The products do keep coming, but they are hardly new and novel anymore. Bandai’s latest Savon à la Mode, however, takes the trend in a new direction: to the bathroom. Like the popular food preparation toys, Savon à la Mode turns a chore into a game, and in this case the task is hand washing.

Released on June 27th, this brightly colored set includes all the tools and material necessary for kids to make their own “aroma soap” in attractive fruit or dessert shapes. The kit is part of Bandai’s “Hobby Girls” collection, which includes sets for other crafty projects like weaving wristbands and studding accessories with rhinestones. The marketing cleverly combines this DIY spirit with an appeal to precocious little princesses who covet grown-up looking bathroom products. And might those covetable bathroom products be these ones we blogged about ages ago?

Savon à la Mode is also a neat way to promote hygiene for kids, which is attractive for parents too. As for the French title, which certainly gives a fashionable slant to the product, the word “savon” (pronounced “shabon”) plus the Japanese word “tama” (“ball”) means “soap bubble” in Japanese. Savon à la Mode retails for ¥3,990; Bandai plans to sell 100,000 items by the end of March 2010.