![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_plays_dollsIf you've bought Mattel dolls in the last ten years or so, you may have noticed that while dolls made in China are pretty much what they always were, dolls from Mattel's Indonesia factory have the insides of their heads coated with a glue made from pine sap resin. Frequently, this glue softens up and seeps out through the rooting holes in the vinyl heads, coating the dolls' hair with sticky, pine-scented goop that collects dust and dirt, makes the hair look greasy, and makes the rooting look sparse (as instead of spreading out and blending, the individual plugs stick together). Brushing cornstarch or an absorbent powder through the hair, then brushing it out, has been used as a stopgap measure; I tend to wash my Indonesian dolls with hot water and clarifying shampoo, which has always worked pretty well on new dolls, fresh out of the box.
Recently, and I blame Creamodreamo on tumblr just as I blame Creamo for the fic I posted a couple days ago, I got myself a Signature Toralei on eBay who was missing a shoe, a tail, and her and Sweet Fang's scarves, and who was in need of a bit of TLC. I like to think I'm pretty good at rehabbing dolls who don't have MAJOR structural issues and I've been managing minor Indonesian glue seepage on my other dolls with nothing but the usual clarifying shampoo and dye and fragrance free fabric softener, so I wasn't at all intimidated. I washed Toralei's hair.
And I washed Toralei's hair.
And I washed Toralei's hair.
And it got better, but mostly I was just cleaning dirt out of the pine resin that was saturating it from root to tip. Eventually I said "I'll come back to this," and took care of the black staining on her nose and ear, which was a lot easier when her waxy-sticky hair stuck to itself and stayed out of the way. I picked up the Fearleading Trio to give her a body with a tail (and get some uniforms, and offer Fearleading Toralei's head to a friend of mine), and let her alone.
As I was wiping the store-brand Clearasil off her face after two days in a warm spot, I said to myself, I said, "Don't the resin doll people say to wash your hands before handling your doll because oil breaks down resin over time?"
Now, Toralei wasn't perfect. For $35, I was fine with her not being perfect. I had her outfit, her purse, her kitty, her diary, her hands-- I figured, if I ruined her head, the Fearleading Trio is a shelfwarmer at my Toys R Us and it's not like I couldn't use a full team's worth of uniforms.
So I coated her head inside and out with baby oil. I worked that stuff into her hair, I squirted it inside her head and smooshed it around, I was terribly thorough before I started washing it out with clarifying shampoo.
As I was rinsing the inside of her head (fill with hot water, squish a little, squirt out into sink, repeat), I noticed that there was this... gunk coming out of it. This pale yellow slime that was thicker than water or baby oil, that required some work to rinse down the drain.
The resin glue inside her head was dissolving.
I rinsed and washed and rinsed and washed and finally decided I was done messing with her for the night, so I let her dry to see if her hair would end up tacky or if I'd worked a miracle.
When she dried, there wasn't a hint of that waxy tackiness in her hair, but it was greasy as hell from all the baby oil. Turns out my old standby of clarifying shampoo doesn't work really well at removing inorganic oil. (Part of the problem could have been that my hands were coated in baby oil, too.)
Tonight, I tried hot hot water and plain old Dawn dish soap. They use Dawn to wash off animals that've been in oil spills; if it'll clean up crude oil I figured it'd clean up baby oil (the main ingredient is white petrolatum). I scrubbed her hair (gently, but I got all the way down to the roots), I soaped up and rinsed out the inside of her head again, and then I filled a tupperware bowl with hot dish-soapy water and let Toralei set for ten or fifteen minutes.
Pulled her out, washed again, conditioned with fabric softener (comb through hair thoroughly, let set for a few minutes, rinse thoroughly), and let her dry.
She's not perfect; her stripes bled enough (before I got her) and washed out enough (after I got her) that I know full well she's never going to be perfect. But her hair is soft and clean and not sticky, clumpy, or greasy at all. It has volume, where before it was totally flat unless you wooled it up, and then it kind of just stayed there.
I've got a couple other bait dolls with glue seepage issues-- only Dawn of the Dance Clawdeen's is half as bad as poor Toralei's, and she's got oil setting in her hair as I type-- and I'll keep experimenting and reporting back. (I'll also report back if Toralei's head melts from the inside out, but I don't think it will.) Please please please if you decide to experiment with your own dolls, remember that:
1. I don't know how safe this is long-term (I'm pretty sure it's okay or I wouldn't have done it, but don't trust your expensive dolls to the 'pretty sure' of some internet weirdo).
2. I do not think baby oil would be remotely good for flocking. Don't try this on a doll you can't finger-scrub the hell out of.
3. HOT water. Hot as you can stand from your faucet.
4. Grease-cutting soap. Clarifying shampoo (which I ordinarily swear by because it takes factory oil out of brand-new saran) doesn't seem to cut baby oil.
5. If you need to soak the doll in soapy water, use hot water and let her sit totally submerged for at least ten minutes.
6. If the doll's hair doesn't squeak when you're rinsing it, it's still got baby oil in it.
7. If you attack the inside of the doll's head with baby oil to dissolve the glue, wash and rinse and wash and rinse until no suds at all squirt out of the neck hole, earring holes, or rooting holes.
8. Please don't use this on a rare or expensive doll. Use a cheap doll, use a bait doll, use a doll you don't care about, use a doll who's destined for a re-root if her hair can't be saved. Do as I say, not as I mad science in my bathroom.
And naturally, I didn't take half as many pictures as I should have done, but here's as much of the story as I can tell in images:
Toralei as she was when I bought her. You can see the dullness from the old glue.
Baby oiled up-- no more dullness, her hair is very shiny, but at this point it was greasy and stuck together. Very sleek, but not remotely clean. For some reason, my camera decided to focus on Fearleading Toralei, instead.
And here she is tonight, fresh as a daisy and smelling like clean dishes (Fearleading Toralei has been beheaded in preparation for a trip to Texas to live on Catastrophe's body). Her stripes look REALLY washed-out, but while some of that is from the million times I've washed her since she arrived, a lot of it is because her hair is fluffy and soft, and the stripes will darken up once I gel them together for some unity. (They're never gonna be perfect and I'm okay with that. I kind of wish I knew what I could use to touch them up, but from the purple cast it looks like the original stripes were just permanent marker or something.)
Cat Spit: Because You're Worth It. Toralei demonstrating that her hair is soft now, and will bend even with her itty bitty hands in it, instead of just shoving up straight in wild clumps.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.
Recently, and I blame Creamodreamo on tumblr just as I blame Creamo for the fic I posted a couple days ago, I got myself a Signature Toralei on eBay who was missing a shoe, a tail, and her and Sweet Fang's scarves, and who was in need of a bit of TLC. I like to think I'm pretty good at rehabbing dolls who don't have MAJOR structural issues and I've been managing minor Indonesian glue seepage on my other dolls with nothing but the usual clarifying shampoo and dye and fragrance free fabric softener, so I wasn't at all intimidated. I washed Toralei's hair.
And I washed Toralei's hair.
And I washed Toralei's hair.
And it got better, but mostly I was just cleaning dirt out of the pine resin that was saturating it from root to tip. Eventually I said "I'll come back to this," and took care of the black staining on her nose and ear, which was a lot easier when her waxy-sticky hair stuck to itself and stayed out of the way. I picked up the Fearleading Trio to give her a body with a tail (and get some uniforms, and offer Fearleading Toralei's head to a friend of mine), and let her alone.
As I was wiping the store-brand Clearasil off her face after two days in a warm spot, I said to myself, I said, "Don't the resin doll people say to wash your hands before handling your doll because oil breaks down resin over time?"
Now, Toralei wasn't perfect. For $35, I was fine with her not being perfect. I had her outfit, her purse, her kitty, her diary, her hands-- I figured, if I ruined her head, the Fearleading Trio is a shelfwarmer at my Toys R Us and it's not like I couldn't use a full team's worth of uniforms.
So I coated her head inside and out with baby oil. I worked that stuff into her hair, I squirted it inside her head and smooshed it around, I was terribly thorough before I started washing it out with clarifying shampoo.
As I was rinsing the inside of her head (fill with hot water, squish a little, squirt out into sink, repeat), I noticed that there was this... gunk coming out of it. This pale yellow slime that was thicker than water or baby oil, that required some work to rinse down the drain.
The resin glue inside her head was dissolving.
I rinsed and washed and rinsed and washed and finally decided I was done messing with her for the night, so I let her dry to see if her hair would end up tacky or if I'd worked a miracle.
When she dried, there wasn't a hint of that waxy tackiness in her hair, but it was greasy as hell from all the baby oil. Turns out my old standby of clarifying shampoo doesn't work really well at removing inorganic oil. (Part of the problem could have been that my hands were coated in baby oil, too.)
Tonight, I tried hot hot water and plain old Dawn dish soap. They use Dawn to wash off animals that've been in oil spills; if it'll clean up crude oil I figured it'd clean up baby oil (the main ingredient is white petrolatum). I scrubbed her hair (gently, but I got all the way down to the roots), I soaped up and rinsed out the inside of her head again, and then I filled a tupperware bowl with hot dish-soapy water and let Toralei set for ten or fifteen minutes.
Pulled her out, washed again, conditioned with fabric softener (comb through hair thoroughly, let set for a few minutes, rinse thoroughly), and let her dry.
She's not perfect; her stripes bled enough (before I got her) and washed out enough (after I got her) that I know full well she's never going to be perfect. But her hair is soft and clean and not sticky, clumpy, or greasy at all. It has volume, where before it was totally flat unless you wooled it up, and then it kind of just stayed there.
I've got a couple other bait dolls with glue seepage issues-- only Dawn of the Dance Clawdeen's is half as bad as poor Toralei's, and she's got oil setting in her hair as I type-- and I'll keep experimenting and reporting back. (I'll also report back if Toralei's head melts from the inside out, but I don't think it will.) Please please please if you decide to experiment with your own dolls, remember that:
1. I don't know how safe this is long-term (I'm pretty sure it's okay or I wouldn't have done it, but don't trust your expensive dolls to the 'pretty sure' of some internet weirdo).
2. I do not think baby oil would be remotely good for flocking. Don't try this on a doll you can't finger-scrub the hell out of.
3. HOT water. Hot as you can stand from your faucet.
4. Grease-cutting soap. Clarifying shampoo (which I ordinarily swear by because it takes factory oil out of brand-new saran) doesn't seem to cut baby oil.
5. If you need to soak the doll in soapy water, use hot water and let her sit totally submerged for at least ten minutes.
6. If the doll's hair doesn't squeak when you're rinsing it, it's still got baby oil in it.
7. If you attack the inside of the doll's head with baby oil to dissolve the glue, wash and rinse and wash and rinse until no suds at all squirt out of the neck hole, earring holes, or rooting holes.
8. Please don't use this on a rare or expensive doll. Use a cheap doll, use a bait doll, use a doll you don't care about, use a doll who's destined for a re-root if her hair can't be saved. Do as I say, not as I mad science in my bathroom.
And naturally, I didn't take half as many pictures as I should have done, but here's as much of the story as I can tell in images:
Toralei as she was when I bought her. You can see the dullness from the old glue.
Baby oiled up-- no more dullness, her hair is very shiny, but at this point it was greasy and stuck together. Very sleek, but not remotely clean. For some reason, my camera decided to focus on Fearleading Toralei, instead.
And here she is tonight, fresh as a daisy and smelling like clean dishes (Fearleading Toralei has been beheaded in preparation for a trip to Texas to live on Catastrophe's body). Her stripes look REALLY washed-out, but while some of that is from the million times I've washed her since she arrived, a lot of it is because her hair is fluffy and soft, and the stripes will darken up once I gel them together for some unity. (They're never gonna be perfect and I'm okay with that. I kind of wish I knew what I could use to touch them up, but from the purple cast it looks like the original stripes were just permanent marker or something.)
Cat Spit: Because You're Worth It. Toralei demonstrating that her hair is soft now, and will bend even with her itty bitty hands in it, instead of just shoving up straight in wild clumps.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-24 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-25 12:11 am (UTC)First, if your dolls have kanekalon hair (Ghoulia, Spectra, River-- basically, ghosts, zombies, Venus, and pink-haired Howleens), this works like one-and-done, no matter how long their hair is. The baby oil lifts right out with the first round of dish soap. Saran-haired dolls (almost everyone else) take a lot more hot water and scrubbing and rinsing and letting dry and realizing there's still some oil in there, especially if they have long hair. You may need to re-wash two or three times.
Second, the baby oil can strip color from mylar tinsel, though that's more of a risk on dolls like Sweet 1600 Draculaura, with colorful tinsel. Gold and iridescent doesn't seem to fade.
Third, do NOT do this on any doll whose face-paint is peeling even a little bit. The baby oil is okay on dolls with well-adhered paint, but if it's peeling or lifting, the oil just hastens the process of the doll losing her face. (And that's half the reason I'm looking forward to seeing Reboot Draculaura in person. Poor Killer Style Draculaura, you were super-cute and now your eyes are falling off.)
I hope it works for you as well as it works for me!
No glue, will hair fall out?
Date: 2019-07-18 07:44 am (UTC)I just bought a bunch of MH-dolls for my kids (okay, and for me) and pretty quickly I came across the glue seepage problem. I’m really appalled, that Mattel seriously sell this s... to kids, in this day and age, were there is so much more focus on the harmful consequences of various substances in our industries. Okay, sidetrack...
I’ve been searching the internet for methods to get rid of the stuff and your method appeals most to me, since the seeping glue will dissolve completely. But I’m wondering what it will mean to the hair’s ability to stay where it’s supposed to. Will it fall out when brushed? Should I glue inside with something else?
Hope you still check your blog, I could really use your answer.
I have tried the powder-method on Twyla and saw instant results, but it bothers me that I know it’s temporary and that the yucky resin glue still is inside...
Best regards
Tine (from Denmark)
Re: No glue, will hair fall out?
Date: 2019-07-18 09:22 am (UTC)Okay, so, actual answers to your questions!
In your specific situation, what I'd recommend is using the baby-oil-and-Dawn method on the hair outside the dolls' heads, letting them dry super-thoroughly, then dumping some cornstarch inside the heads to help dry any glue left in there.
Specifically this is because a) I know for sure that baby oil, Dawn, and cornstarch won't hurt your dolls and would have to be grossly misused to hurt your kids, b) I would be SUPER LEERY of using another glue inside the head of a factory-rooted gluey doll, c) I don't know if it will fall out with regular handling by children, and d) since de-gluing Toralei I have had the same problem twice using glue inside a doll's head and I don't recommend it without caveats anymore.
I feel like A doesn't need any real explanation, so.
B) Ordinarily, glues like Aleene's Fabric Fusion are fine to use inside a doll's head to seal a punch-method rooting job. They don't react badly with the vinyl and they're waterproof and wash-proof so, hey. All good there. (Which begs the question of why Mattel didn't use one of those glues, but collectors have been asking that for years.) But on a doll with factory hair you've removed the glue from, I'd always be worried there was a glob of glue or drop of oil trapped in there, having a slow-motion chemical reaction that could take years to show on the outside.
C) The dolls I've used glue on the inside of their heads still have all their hair... but I'm a 40-year-old doll collector who displays more than plays and has LOTS of dolls and several other hobbies, and if the hair fell out in chunks my reaction would be "Oh well, time to do a re-root!" I don't know how they'd hold up to normal play for kids, or how old or how hard on their toys your kids are, so I really can't guess if thoroughly removing the glue would cause balding problems for you.
and
D) So, twice, while scrubbing the used baby oil out of a doll's head, I've had problems with the doll's face paint starting to lift away. Once I was able to save the face with some paint and sealer, and once... well, the doll is clean now and my niece is two and doesn't care if Draculaura has her birthmark or all her eyelashes. I doubt it's the oil itself that's the problem-- I get more oil on the face when I'm cleaning the outside of the doll's head-- but between the oil, the soap, the hot water, and the constant squeezing and agitation, possibly even bits of factory mold-release that didn't get properly cleaned off... Yeah, I don't really recommend oiling inside the doll's head unless it's a doll you can replace if things go wrong.
But hey, that said! Since I mostly just use oil on the outside of the dolls' heads now, I can say that I haven't actually had any cases of recurring glue seepage, not even on the dolls who came to me with the worst glue hair, not even after-- hang on lemme google for a Fahrenheit/Celsius converter-- 38C weather or 80% humidity. Several dolls have even gone through boil perms without fresh glue seepage.
It might only take once, and I'll be honest with you, as someone who could just up and do a re-root if one were needed: a second oil-and-Dawn treatment is still way faster and easier than a re-root.
I hope this helps!
Re: No glue, will hair fall out?
Date: 2020-05-19 06:50 pm (UTC)Sorry for the very delayed reply, I thought I wrote you back, but apparently I never pressed “send”.
So! I did try the “oil all over the place”-method and Draculaura looks weird now...no white in her eyes, no birthmark and so on. So yeah, the process took a toll on her paint. Plus her hair is still kind of oily.
So I tried the baby powder/cornstarch method. Lots of washing, conditioner, drying, cornstarching and repeat until the hair felt great. And as you said, dump a giant load of cornstarch inside the head. It worked wonders.
But then suddenly during the process of cleaning a LOT of dolls, my hands broke out in a crazy rash, as severe as I haven’t experienced since childhood. I have a contact allergy. And even though you wrote the word and I know what it means, I didn’t put it against the danish translation (we are somewhat confident in English in Denmark, so l don’t translate the words, but just know what it means, just as my own language - does that make sense?). But when I got the rash, it dawned on me. I’m allergic to pine sap and you said the glue was pine based! I haven’t cleaned any dolls since and my rash has disappeared again. And now I’m weary about giving my kids the dolls with gluey hair even after cleaning them. I’m even considering taking the cleaned glue ones away. The more you’re exposed to an allergen, the higher the risk that you develop the allergy. And this allergy was pretty annoying when I was a kid and spend a lot of time outside. Unfortunately I don’t climb trees as often anymore, but at least it means the allergy was dormant until Mattel’s stupid glue came along.
I wish, I could reroot them all, but I wouldn’t know how. Maybe I will try it on face off Draculaura one day.
So unfortunately the glue isn’t really safe for human use and had I been American I would have sued Mattel😆
Thanks a lot for the very useful reply, it did work greatly with the powder.
Best regards
Tine
Doll head glue
Date: 2021-04-10 09:25 pm (UTC)I have also been a collector of Barbie for years and was turned off in the past when I came across a few dolls with leaky glue.
What I wanted to ask you is why is some of Barbie's hair still a little moist (I feel a residue) is it a gel because I read in your post they stop using the glue after 2017.
And, are Simba Steffi Love dolls heads of hair sealed in glue or are they chain stitched?
The glue thing had really turned me off as I was tired of washing Barbie. I don't want to even purchase any more because of this issue.
And, are you positive that Mattel no longer uses glue within Indonesia or at all?
I purchased some Barbie's recently with a residue in the hair (not sure what it is). I phoned up Mattel they said it may have been glue seepage. It was the Ken fashionista with long blonde hair. They claimed none of the fashionistas have any glue inside the head so I don't really know.
Can you shed a little light for me because like I said other Barbies beside the fashionistas I have felt a residue of some sort on the hair. Do you know whether or not it is glue seepage or just a hair gel lotion?
That is why I tried a few Simba Steffi dolls hoping they didn't have this same issue. Are the Steffi dolls free of glue I cannot really tell because I feel something but don't know whether or not it is just debris from the packaging.
Thank you in advance.
Re: Doll head glue
Date: 2021-06-28 08:02 pm (UTC)Current barbie hair could feel moist/slippery because of product in the hair, or because of lubricant from some aspect of the manufacturing process. A thorough washing with either clarifying shampoo or dish soap like Dawn ought to take care of it.
I have absolutely no idea about Simba Steffi dolls, as I have owned one Steffi, back in the 1990s, and she had wired microbraids instead of fiber hair. Simba toys may be produced in different factories or even countries than Mattel toys. So I have no clue. Sorry!
I haven't purchased many Mattel dolls since Monster High faded out, but all the ones I've bought, regardless of country of origin or hair fiber used, have had their rooting jobs secured with a little strategic melting.
If what you're feeling in the hair is just kind of slippery and oily, like straight human hair that hasn't been washed in a day or two, it's probably manufacturing lubricant. If it's greasy and sticky and smells of pine, that's the Indonesian pine-resin glue. Indonesian and some Chinese dolls right at the end of the glue era used something that feels like a high-temp hot glue, stable enough not to affect the hair unless you try to boil-style it, but it sounds like that isn't the issue you're having.
Unless you're trying to preserve the original hairstyle exactly as it came, though, it's always safe to wash your dolls' hair with cool water and a basic shampoo (clarifying shampoos strip out organic oils and hairstyling products the best) or a degreasing dish soap like Dawn (which will remove manufacturing lubricants, but not Indonesian resin glue).
I hope this helps!
Thank you 1,000 Times
Date: 2021-10-27 10:59 pm (UTC)I had tried and failed with:
Powder
Fabric softner
Dish soap by itself
Goo gone (also stinks)
Oxyclean
Thanks so much!
Re: Thank you 1,000 Times
Date: 2022-05-22 09:31 pm (UTC)