The Rise of Handiwork

Why blog about soap?

My point exactly.

Can you imagine blogging about American soap, its considered design, its carefully chosen ingredients, its gorgeous wrapping that might seduce you to place it on a shelf rather than fling it into a drawer? Not so much.

Look, then at Tamanohada Soap, from Japan. It's made from palm oil and palm kernel oil. It's round, but indented slightly on one side so it doesn't roll around. It bespeaks handmade. It's fragranced, but so subtly that have to hold it to your nose and make it into an experience. It can go into a photo shoot. It reminds you that the human body is about curves, and you slow down and take in the experience more thoughtfully. It's a reflective soap (what else would you expect from the Japanese?). It comes in threes in an egg carton of styrofoam that is a gorgeous reinvention of a known form, as is the soap. It's about scarcity, but it tells you it's worth hunting down, even at $9 a ball. In fact, having read about Tamanohada in Wallpaper, I politely hounded a Japanese business partner until he sent his wife out to find out, and even she had trouble finding a shop that stocked it. Now that she has, she feels in on the secret. 

That's what successful branding will be about in this decade: not about being like everyone else, but about finding your own niche. About discovery. About the temporary and the scarce. About wise choices. Next thing you know, you're soaking in it.