Josh Friedman, chief marketing officer of Dr. Squatch, on a new collection of soap that draws inspiration from the galaxy far, far away.
Dr. Squatch is adding a new ingredient to its natural soap: a touch of Star Wars.
“Our brand aims to reinvent how guys approach the shower experience,” Josh Friedman, Dr. Squatch chief marketing officer tells StarWars.com “And Star Wars seemed like the perfect way to tap into something we could make really exciting, in a way that we haven’t done before as a company.”
The result is a limited-edition box set of four soaps, all based on classic characters -- Wisdom Wash (Yoda), Only Hope Soap (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Dark Side Scrub (Darth Vader), and Ruthless Rinse (Darth Maul) -- and available exclusively on DrSquatch.com starting July 11. Dr. Squatch approached the collaboration as an opportunity for storytelling with soap through the Star Wars lens.
“We oriented the collection around a core theme in Star Wars, which is light versus dark, Jedi versus Sith. So that’s where we started with it,” Friedman says. “We wanted the right balance of iconic characters with sufficient differentiation, and also a strong ability to make it into a really exciting and unique soap concept.”
Each soap, which StarWars.com was able to sample, is visually unique, with colors corresponding to its character inspiration. The Yoda bar is a beautiful emerald green; Obi-Wan a serene blue with brown swirls (clear references to his lightsaber color and robes); Darth Vader a deep red with black swirls; and Darth Maul a shade of crimson. But it’s in the scents and textures that the creativity really shines and themes come through. For example, the Obi-Wan soap is gentle, with a pleasant, calming fragrance; on the other hand, the Darth Vader bar has an aggressive scent with hints of amber and charcoal, and a coarse exfoliating sand baked in.
“Our goal in general with scent and color ingredients was to create a really differentiated aesthetic, texture, and scent for all the soaps, while staying true to our commitment to naturalness, quality, performance,” Friedman says. “With design, the color was a no-brainer, though we wanted to find the right balance of swirl colors versus [bar] colors, and fit that to the characters in the appropriate way. The ingredients were all inspired by the characters’ personality traits, setting, lore, etcetera. The exfoliation is a particularly unique element of this, where the dark side is exfoliating and the Jedi are all smooth. It’s another way to separate the experiences. Same with the scents. I think that leads to a very different shower experience.”
Every aspect of the release was developed in full cooperation with Lucasfilm. “Star Wars is such an exciting franchise. We have a lot of fans on our team, and so we had a lot of ideas. It was very collaborative from the onset. I think the Lucasfilm side was also excited to do something a little bit different,” Friedman says. “Some of the elements that we think are particularly unique, and we worked closely with the Star Wars team on are, of course, ingredients and the design of the bar itself. But also the packaging. We have very unique packaging for the soap box itself, plus secondary packaging that makes it much more of a collector’s item.” The companies also worked together on a clever commercial filled with in-jokes. (“You smell like you slept inside a tauntaun” being a personal favorite.)
While Dr. Squatch targets its products to men, Friedman is quick to note that the company’s releases are for the whole galaxy. “Women can also use our products. We encourage anyone to try it,” he says. “There aren’t that many products of this type that have built something like this with Star Wars. I think everyone will love it.”
Dr. Squatch Star Wars soap arrives July 11 on DrSquatch.com.
