Hello hello! I'm still waiting on my new bottles of sealant which is driving me crazy. I'd really love to finish up the girls I have partially done and start new ones as well. In the mean time I decided to work on trying to salvage some other dolls I have laying around. I have about 15 dolls that are what you'd consider "custom bait". They have damaged face paint, missing parts, or fried hair- perfect for wiping and starting fresh. In this post I want to talk about the best way I know how to fix up greasy doll hair.  

I'm sure anyone who is interested in vinyl dolls is familiar with the awful state their hair is often in when unboxed. Above is an example of a horrible case. Sometimes it's so greasy that it can't be saved and it needs to be chopped all off. It's such a hassle to have to remove hair and replace it with a reroot or a wig so I like to try my best to fix it.

There are a few methods to removing the grease. I think the most popular is probably the baby powder method, shown above. By sprinkling baby powder in the doll's hair and brushing it through it's able to absorb some of the grease and remove most of the sticky feeling. Although this method works most of the time, I really disliked the idea that whatever residue which caused the doll's hair to get greasy was still in there and was only masked by the baby powder. Below is a photo of what the hair looks like after I've brushed a few coats of baby powder through it. As you can see, it's still stringy and, even though it looks a lot better, it still feels sticky. Also, the baby powder is so hard to brush through dark hair like Draculaura's. It's always visible no matter how much I work it through the hair. It makes dolls with dark hair look dusty and dirty.

I decided to try something new. Ater brushing baby powder through the dolls' hair I doused it with rubbing alcohol and then rinsed. It actually got most of the remaining residue out. I repeated this twice on Clawdeen and her hair turned out almost new. I'm actually very shocked! It's almost like it was never greasy to begin with. Here are some photos of what the hair looks like after the two rounds of the baby powder and rubbing alcohol "treatment".

There is no more sticky residue and the hair is separated and isn't stringy. It looks as good as new! This seems to be a fix to the stubborn grease problem. My exact steps were....

It's a super simple process that really makes a huge difference in the quality of your doll's hair. It might be hard to tell from the photos, but it feels so much better! I think I'll continue using this method to fix my dolls' hair in the future. It'll definitely save me from having to rewig or reroot a lot of dolls!

I hope this was helpful to someone looking for a better solution to the greasy hair problem! :)

Hello again! Today I'll be sharing some progress photos of a Lagoon Blue Monster High doll I've been repainting. I am really having so much fun with these repaints. It's renewed my love for the hobby and it's motivating me to be more active in the community again! 

Hello again! I'm very excited to be posting again. I have so much newfound motivation. I hope that once summer hits and my day job gets tiring that I will be able to keep this productivity up! I'm really having a ton of fun with this ~ I've decided to file these Monster High customizations under the tag "Monster High Makeup". Let's consider it my new series!

For today's post I'd like to share with you my work on an Operetta I've had for a while. If I'm correct, I believe this is the first wave release of Operetta. She's always been one of my favorite sculpts; she's so unique! Unfortunately, this girls' original hair was disgusting greasy from the adhesive used to hold the style in place. I wasn't able to remove it with dish soap, rubbing alcohol, or fabric softener. Even my attempt at straightening her hair with boiling water was unsuccessful because there was such a thick coat of grease. I gave up and had to remove her hair completely. But no worries! I want to eventually work on rerooting her. 

Above are two photos from the early stages of the repainting process. I'm a very impatient person, so getting used to this process taking several days to complete will definitely take some getting used to! The first image is after two layers of pencils, pastels, and sealant. The next photo was taken after the third or fourth layer. This is such a time consuming process because of the dry time alone. 

I think her look really started to come together once I began darkening her pupils. It brought so much life into her face and really motivated me to continue working on her! Looking at these two photos, which are just one layer apart, there is really such a huge difference! It's incredible what such a simple adjustment can do to the overall look.

What made me even more impatient was having to wait till the very end to highlight and add shimmer. I was so excited to dust the doll with this gorgeous gold interference shimmer powder from PearlEx. I also used a more pigmented gold shimmer in her face sculpting and a tiny bit of iridescent purple shimmer in her eyes. It's so gorgeous and subtle!

And finally, here is the complete look! I added two final layers of sealant, glossed her eyes and lips, and added white highlights to her eyes. I am absolutely in love with her! I was originally planning on rerooting her to sell.. but I'm thinking now I'll keep her for myself! 

Repainting dolls is completely new to me. I'm working on finding the best tools and supplies that produce a high quality result and suit me well. For this repaint my supplies were as follows.

I'd like to get some new supplies soon. It would be nice to update my pastels and replace the cheap off-brand ones I have with some a bit nicer. The ones I have now work alright, but I'd prefer something a bit softer and easier to blend. I'd also like to try a gloss or varnish that is specially made for dolls or figures. I'm excited to experiment with new supplies on my next repaint!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by my little blog! I hope you have a wonderful day~ See you soon!

I decided to try my hand at something I've always wanted to do: repaint a Monster High doll. For my first attempt I chose Howleen. She's one of my absolute favorite characters and I couldn't resist giving her a new look. I did a quick mockup in Sketchbook to plan out the repaint. I deviated from it quite a bit in the end, but overall I kept the general idea in my mind. I made her a purple wig out of yarn wefts and it turned out a lot better than I expected. 

I also ran into quite a few problems when repainting and rewigging this girl. I realized I chose one of the most difficult dolls for my first attempt. Not only does Howleen have ears to work around when gluing on wefts, but she is also darker skinned which made building up colors during the repaint a longer process. I still wasn't completely happy with the vibrancy of most colors- especially the white. I ended up using gouache to fill in the whites of her eyes, but it was accidentally reactivated with the gloss I used. It ran into her corners and down to her waterline. It was an absolute mess! Lesson definitely learned for next time. 

Overall, I'm happy with the result. I need a lot of practice, but the process was so much fun it will barely feel like practice at all! I'm really excited to work on another doll. I'd also like to maybe buy some alpaca fiber to make wigs out of or possibly some loose fibers to try my hand at rerooting. 

I suppose these new adventures will be a reason to try and keep up with this blog. We'll see where it takes me! Thanks for stopping by!