A Soap Bar and loofah Combined for kids
Super Sudzer and subsequently Buddies was Johnson’s attempt at designing a kid-friendly soap bar to make bath time more enjoyable. The unique concept for the soap was that it was something fun and easy to handle for young kids with the tagline E-Z grip.
I remember having original Johnson Kids Super Sudzers around 2002. Some of the earliest memories I had was holding one of the blue berry-scented bars in my childhood bathtub, and I couldn’t tell you why but the soap bar looked appetising as heck. I had to take a bite out of it! I also remember shaking the soap bar around in the loofah packaging, creating 2 big pieces that sloshed around in the netting. It had a similar feeling to that of the Airhead candy pillows that we’d create.
2003-04 Facelift
To create less brand confusion for customers and give the Super Sudzer bars an identity, they revised the packaging to appeal more for families, identifying this is for kiddos. Information is hard to pin for date-accuracy as most of these products are long gone. The Bars themselves can be found periodically on second had sites like eBay with the back of the packaging photographed to show 2004. The below YouTube video date’s the product line to 2003.
Johnson's buddies 2005-2011?
A drastic rebrand to re-title the product as a bathroom companion for kids. “This is my buddy” was Johnson’s new tagline for Buddies easy-grip sudzing bars. They did away with the flavors as a probable precaution from previous instances of kids eating the soap bars. Like me
the 2010s Unaesthetic facelift
Another sad example of companies simplifying their visions down to lifeless husks in hopes that the previous loyal brand zealots will continue to buy the product. Where’s the charm? this looks like a packaging design for kids who are sick. They also brought back the scented berry breeze flavors of soap bars. But instead of this new version using the iconic blue loofah, it’s a dull purple soap shell. Reviews on Amazon point to this release window being around 2014.
A lot of millennials and zoomers are starting families. With today’s nostalgia crazed society, this would be a NO BRAINER for Johnson&Johnson to bring back to the mass market. However if it isn’t obvious already, companies are focused on safe boring products that just sell. So long are the days of creative products.