It began with lunch in a mainstream-enough restaurant, and now its creators want to take it mainstream. GS Wipes creators Steven Wasserman and Greg Cox hope to bring to mainstream markets that after-pleasure hygienic wipe and a similar product, Dr. Tanner's, for leather goods – sexual and otherwise – after finding success with the adult novelty audience since GS Wipes premiered in 2001.
But it won't be easy, Wasserman said.
"It's a little bit difficult to take mainstream," Wasserman told AVN.com about GS Wipes, which have been repackaged as Pleasure Wipes. "Dr. Tanner is a lot easier because it doesn't necessarily connotate sexual promiscuity, but people just have to start thinking outside the box. It's just hard to get your foot in the door there."
Still, the pair have done well enough for something which jumped up as an idea based on a lunchtime accident, when the two did lunch at the Tony Roma's beneath which they happened to work and a waitress inadvertently dropped a moist Handi-Wipe type of cloth into their laps.
"The subject turned to sex, and that's where it was all born," Wasserman said, after the partners pondered why it was that cleaning up after such pleasures wasn't as simple as things like airbrush and camera angling usually makes it look. "And then we added a scent to it to make it different than the average baby wipe," he said. "It's larger, thicker, and more absorbent. We just wanted to tweak it for more accurate cleanup."
GS Wipes premiered in April 2001, and proved a hit at shows like ANME where adult novelties were well enough represented. In a bid to help the product appeal to those "who don't get the adult novelty or are easily offended" by the packaging, even if they liked the purpose for which they were made, GS Wipes were given a secondary packaging as Pleasure Wipes.
In fact, it was while attending their first ANME show, Wasserman said, that the idea for Dr. Tanner's came to himself and Cox. "(We were) trying to get an idea of what we would encounter doing an Erotica LA show," he said. "My partner saw a lot of leather vendors, and we noticed there was not really a product like this to clean and condition leather novelties and clothing. We were looking for the fetish market, but then we wanted to cross it over to mainstream as well."
Dr. Tanner's is as useful for standard leather clothing, boots, car interiors, sofas at home, handbags, and wallets, as well as adult leather clothing and accessories.
"It was all born of sex, absolutely, thank goodness, than God," Wasserman said.
For more information, to obtain free samples, or learn about other products, visit GS Wipes on the Web.
