The Great Fake Sophie Debacle ...

Two months after Wiggles was born I decided to invest in THE MOTHER of all teething toys.  The most famous, the most revered, the teething toy with the best reviews in the whole history of ever.... yes I spent several of my pennies on a Sophie the Giraffe teething toy for my baby girl, as quite frankly she deserves the best.

Vulli who make Sophie designed her in 1961, the design has never changed and she has a fabulous retro look to her.  All their Sophie's are made to exactly the same specification. We ordered ours from Amazon and I wasn't disappointed.

She LOVED her.  In fact it was love at first nibble.  She liked to squeak her, dribble on her, squeak her, wave her about oh yes, and squeak her.  In fact she loved her so much that I had to wash her several times as she'd got a little mucky from being dumped on the floor, stuffed under her bum and bounced on, you know, that sort of thing.  I don't know if you've ever tried giving Sophie the Giraffe a scrub, if you haven't but you need to here's a tip for you - cover the squeak up or it will suck water up into it's body and never squeak again!  Thankfully a friend of mine imparted this little nugget before our Sophie arrived so despite being washed a lot, she always retained her squeak.  I did notice however, that our little Sophie seemed to have faded quite a lot though, but I put this down to me scrubbing at her and didn't think much more about it.....

UNTIL.....

Two friends of mine popped over with their babies.  They both owned and had brought with them their little ones Sophie the Giraffe teething toys.  I had never seen another toy up close and was a bit concerned to discover that theirs were both identical, but that they looked quite different to my own.

Despite some pretty heavy gumming and subsequent washing theirs had all their spots and they were much darker in colour.  The shape of their toy's eyes were quite different and they each had very pink cheeks which our Sophie doesn't have. Their toys were also notably smaller than ours and the colour of the rubber was quite different.  Theirs were also almost white, ours is a yellow colour.  The legs of the other giraffes were also quite a different.

See....

On the left we have Exhibit A - Sophie the Giraffe - photograph courtesy of the Amazon website.  On the right, our Sophie.  The suspected Faux-phie.

Alarm bells started ringing, if every Sophie was supposed to be made to the same specification how could ours be so different? I'd heard of knock off handbags, shoes and that sort of thing, but surely no one would stoop so low as to produce a counterfeit baby toy? I emailed Amazon as soon as possible, on the Sunday afternoon explaining my concerns. I heard back from them by 9.00 am the very next day saying that they had received my email, they were taking it very seriously and they would investigate and get back to me. In the mean time I was welcome to a refund, but they wouldn't be able to give me any indication as to how long this enquiry would take. I wrote back saying I was happy to wait. This wasn't about money, but safety, I just wanted to know my baby hadn't been poisoned with a counterfeit Sophie the Giraffe!

 By 1 o'clock the same day I received a response from Amazon. They had tracked their supply chain back to the Vulli factory in France and were happy that our toy was genuine. Not only that but they had contacted the factory and raised my specific concerns with them. The factory had advised that the Sophie the Giraffe toys are made in plaster of Paris moulds, each mould can make ten Sophie's before it needs to be replaced, hence the subtle differences in size and shape. Then each Sophie is hand painted, hence the differences in depth of colour.

 So it transpired that I was having an irrational mummy panic and that I'd been accusing two perfectly reputably and frankly enormous bloody great big companies of flogging knock off and potentially poisoning my child.  Ahem... But instead of just ignoring me, or wafting me away like the wally that I am they dealt with my query sensitively, thoroughly and quickly. And I was really flippin grateful, if a little embarrassed!!! I am so pleased we have a Sophie and not a Faux-phie!!!

Have you ever been caught out with a counterfeit? Or made an international muppet of yourself? I'd really like it if someone said it wasn't just me!!