Cleanup Soap

Friend and Dieline reader Angie submitted this great project by Parsons graduate Hideaki Matsui. Conceived in 2006, Cleanup Soap uses innovative design to promote positive social change. $2 from the $8 suggested retail price of each bar is donated to the Cambodia Landmine Museum just outside Siem Reap.

Here's a more detailed explanation and history:

With a simple act of washing our hands, we can help wash the earth clean of landmines. Cleanup is a new line of all-natural soap formed in the shape of landmines. Cleanup raises funds for landmine removal and survivor assistance and also promotes awareness of the global landmine crisis.

Soap can be molded into any shape, and soap diminishes and disappears with use. From this Hideaki created a very poetic metaphor for landmine removal - as the soap disappears, so do the landmines. Through its use, Cleanup enables people to participate in the campaign against landmines with a simple, everyday occurrence.

Cleanup was chosen for an innovative social entrepreneurship collaborative between Parsons and Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy. ... Two of the Milano students, Alison Keehn and Benjamin Packer, incorporated in August 2007 as the Social Entrepreneurship Network, Inc. (SEN), to bring this and other civic-minded products to market.

Much thanks to Aimee Majoros for providing the images and information. (More images after the jump.)

Comments

[Emma]

Awesome!!

[Erin Vale]

What a cool product shape!

[Randy Ludacer]

Wow. It gradually dawned on me (as I read your post) what that soap was in the shape of. This is certainly a worthy and important cause. It's disgusting to think of these deadly booby-traps still claiming victims even after the war is done with.

Although the idea that by buying something for oneself (essential a "selfish" act) can be transformed into a socially responsible act of charity is highly suspect to some, I suppose one could make the case that it's almost like a tax. Not enough people reach into their pockets to send money in for good causes. If a portion of their purchases were levied for a better purpose, then that's good thing. Right?

I guess the suspect part of the transaction is when the consumer is supposed to get this warm and fuzzy feeling about having done something really good for others. Because if you look at it another way, the consumer had $8 to spend and decided to spend $6 on himself and only $2 for the landmine removal.

What do we think of the little landmine in the lower case "p"?

[Mário]

Really nice, but I have to try to see if it holds ok. The design is not very organic.

[AK]

What do you mean by not very organic?