Tottoo's Keeping Children Safe
Virginia Lu found a lost child crying at a Redskins football game last season, and thought it could easily have been one of her five youngsters who got separated in the crowd.
So, the North Potomac resident invented a temporary tattoo for tots, called Tottoos, which are aimed at helping lost children to reunite with their parents. Totoos is a copyrighted product that is rubbed on a child’s body, usually an arm or a wrist, and can include a contact number for a parent or school and any medical information.
‘‘I’m so into safety and always knowing where my kids are,” said Sarah Hechler, of North Potomac, who uses the product on her three boys when they go to a birthday party or an amusement park. ‘‘[But] it only takes a split second for kids to squeeze out of your hand and you don’t know where they are. At least you have a feeling, I haven’t totally lost them, there is a number; there is a way for someone to contact me.”
Lu, who runs the company called Tottoos.Org with her husband, Willie Lu, use special Food and Drug Administration-approved ink and medical adhesive for the product so that doesn’t irritate the skin and won’t come off in water.
Customers can have anything they want printed on the Tottoo, but Lu recommends that no one use the child’s name or address for safety reasons.
Lu invested more than $10,000 in starting the company. The money went into experimenting with materials, obtaining a patent and a trademark for the product and printing brochures and fliers.
She began first by selling to friends in her community and then expanded to Internet sales. Lu, a stay-at-home mom, works approximately three hours each day on Tottoos.Org.
Photo from Tottoos.Org.
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