Jen knew that she was onto something selling an all-natural soap for dogs at her local farmer's market. The idea started when Zola, Jen's boxer/pitbull mix, developed skin allergies. Using a homemade soap seemed to ease Zola's itch and improve her skin.
At first, Jen was using a generic paw-shaped mold she purchased from an online retailer to make the soap. In order to grow the business, Jen realized she needed acustom branded soap mold.
With concept art in hand, Jen turned to prototyper and product designer Fredrik Perman. After making a detailed computer design of the paw shape, Fredrik printed a plastic model using a 3-D prototyping printer that could be used to create silicone molds. When it came to choosing a silicone, Smooth-On's OOMOO 25 was a natural fit for the project.
"After a few hours of investigation," writes Fredrik, "we decided to go with their OOMOO line of 1:1 mix ratio silicone rubbers. The OOMOO line cures faster and provides high detail without the side effects of air bubbles (without need of vacuum chamber) in the final mold."
Jen's line of dog soaps, Pawfect Suds, has been a success ever since. Fredrik shared these pictures with us of the process in action.
