Before and Afters - Share Yours!

[tackygoods]

Please post your before and afters on this thread.  Big or small, whole rehab or just a refreshing....and tell us how you did it!

I will start.  Here is Ideal 14" Sonja Henie doll before and after.  The crochet ensemble is "Bare Back Rider" by Mary Hoyer.....

Here is Before:

[me_merc60]

My doll hair secrets: 1st, you have to love the doll like it's your daughter and tell her you're going to help get her beautiful again. Sounds silly but that is the mindset you have to adopt. I actually talk to my dolls as I'm working on them. As long as they don't talk back, we're good. LOL!!

OK, so I wash the hair with regular shampoo, then put in some WEN and very carefully comb through (Beginning at the bottom without pulling, which frays the hair - Carefully undo any tangles with a straight pin), then rinse out. I put a dab of WEN in before final combing, kind of shape the hair how I want it, and just let it air dry for the most part. The WEN works as a detangler / conditioner / setting lotion but doesn't get sticky or leave residue/buildup over time. Plus it smells awesome.

The MA baby in pink dress (is that the one you're referring to?) - I just combed her hair into place. After her hair had completely air dried, I used a teflon coated curling iron on a light setting (about 10 out on an iron that goes to 30) to smooth out the hair and put in a little flip in back. This makes the hair shiny and smoothes it out. You just have to be patient. Be careful not to burn (melt) the hair or the doll's face/neck.

Gumdrop - I just combed it out and tied a ribbon around her head to hold her bangs down as her hair air dried. I did the same with the  Sayco boudoir doll, except I put curlers in her hair. Gumdrop's hair is naturally amazingly silky smooth and dead straight. However, her hair is also very brittle at the scalp and falls out easily. I try not to comb her hair at all. I love her silly face!

[me_merc60]

Nice job! I want to adopt the first one - She's so beautiful.

Is that last one a HoneyMates doll? We were just posting on this one yesterday!! Here's the 1959 Sears catalog page:

[chocashopaholic]

Great job, everyone...

I think that adopting orphan dolls and giving them new life, is one of the best parts of collecting.

Here are some of mine..

Before: Anne Shirley with a wild wig:

After:




This is an Armand Marseille/ Kopplesdorf toddler:

Schoenhut, Before:

After:

[tackygoods]

Unbelievable talent, everyone who posted!  Yes, I use Wen too!  I tried it for the first time when I realized it only broke my scalp out when I used it on me and had a whole bottle left that my daughter wouldn't use either!  So cheapskate as I am, I started using it on my dolls and was blown away by the results.

Choca, could you share your secret again about the blown out dolls eyes!  I think that secret alone will save countless dolls from the trash bin and back in the arms of owner's who will love and cherish them!

Chaplin, you are the goddess of giant dolls.  You can officially have that as your title! :)....terri

[nieve]

I love, love, love seeing the talent and care that you all have.    I try to clean up dolls also, but I'm very much an amatuer at it.   To get a good result it has to be a doll that has just a lot of surface dirt, no real skill involved.   I got real lucky with this one.    I usually have bad luck trying to fix eyes that are white inside.   Even if it looks like I succeeded, it comes right back.   This one only had white on the OUTSIDE of her eyes that wiped right off with a wet tissue!

[me_merc60]

Chocashopaholic,

Wow! Your talent blows me away and goes into the "restoration / doll hospital" category. This is something I hope to be able to achieve someday. I would love to learn how to take a badly crazed and chipped composition doll and fully restore her - Of course, at the feet of a master like you!

Like Nieve, my before & afters only consist of cleanup & dressing. One of my favorite dolls (composition head, celluloid hands, cloth body) had her nose (and cheek) bashed in - I carefully put some water soluble Aleene's Tacky glue around the crack of her nose because it was so bad it actually fell out! With that, I'm done! I don't want to touch her face because the paint is so perfect otherwise. For now, she looks like this ((before & after):

By the way, this doll's limbs are jointed and her body is stuffed with straw. I literally had to BEAT the dust out of her, like an old rug. Every time I hit her body, a cloud of dust flew up. I ended up vacuuming her, surface wiping down her body, then vacuuming her a 2nd time!

As a side note, I do generally & very carefully fill in any cracks on composition dolls with Aleene's applied with a thin needle to prevent further flaking & chipping. It works very well & dries clear! A professional restorer told me that because Aleene's is water soluble, it can be easily wiped off when the time comes to professionally restore. So there is no harm in using it for this purpose. Do you agree?

Nieve,

I, too, have purchased dolls with something that looks like White Out on their eyes. Very odd! You have to work it out of their eyelashes in chapters using an old toothbrush. I knew of a woman who came home from work one day to find that her mother did that to all her children's stuffed animals and dolls because they were "looking at her." Needless to say, she never asked her mother to babysit again! This was obviously a case of mental illness.

Curious person that I am, I asked others about this practice of whiting out a doll's eyes.  I heard some incredibly creepy and spooky things!! Mind you, they don't jibe with my own spiritual & general belief system. I walk in the fear of the Lord, not in the fear of spirits and principalities, so I don't put any personal stock in what I heard...But brace yourself...

One woman told me that some dolls have "bad spirits" attached to them, so you have to white out their eyes to contain them or they will "attack you and your household." Yet another person told me that dolls whose owners died as children contain the spirits of the children and it's "cruel" to clean and revamp these dolls because it "gets rid of the deceased children's spirits"

I try not to be too critical of others' beliefs...to each his own! As for me and my house...AMEN!!

[nieve]

I have never heard of anyone doing that!    If they are afraid of the dolls, just give them away!   My doll did not have white out, it was a mold that easily came off, and had fortunately, not entered into the eye. 

[edjw]

The white stuff on the doll's eyes is mold. It can usually be easily removed by using a hairdryer!. Blow warm air from the dryer at the doll's eyes to heat up the eyes. . Be careful not to get too close or too hot so you don't overheat the head and damage the face. After a few minutes, the mold will melt and disappear. This works when the mold is inside the eye and you can't wipe it off.

[nieve]

I have aimed a hair dryer directly into my doll's eyes, different dolls, using different heat levels, different distance away, tried everything, and have NEVER had it clear up an eye problem.   Maybe once I thought it did, but it came right back.    I don't know what I'm doing wrong.   I'm sure I did it long enough because my fingers were burning from trying so long, as the shorter time didn't work, so I tried longer,    There must be more secrets besides just blowing into their eyes, actual details about distance, time it takes, and level of heat, because nothing I did worked!

[quiet_lady45]

Hi Nieve, 

If it may be of any help, this is what I do with the hair dryer.

Cover all the parts of the doll face with a damp, well wringed face cloth. (ONLY hard plastic or vinyl head. NEVER compo.)

Cut a square of strong white paper, or very light cardboard and roll it in a cone form.

Put the small end over the eye you want to "treat".

Direct the air, not too hot, not too close at first, through the larger part of the cone and... go lightly and be patient !

Usually, it clears the cloudy eyes and melt away the waxy, moldy residue.

And yes, it will eventually come back, but not always.  I did a doll's eyes about two years ago, and it is now a little blurry.  But never as much as before.

I do not take the credit of this method.  One of our "doll magicians" gave that trick years ago... and it works !

[the-coultergeist]

What a great thread to look through and to use for ideas and reference.

Here is my contribution....  i didn't do this one, I paid to have her done....

Casey becomes the elusive Becky doll that Mattel never mass produced.

Before After

[shirleys809304]

Nice!!

[nieve]

when you say 'go lightly', what do you mean?    Do you mean on low instead of hi.... or to rest off the heat for a few seconds every minute, or not to do it for longer than x amount of minutes?    I mean, at what point does one just say, this isn't working?

[quiet_lady45]

I  start with the blower on "low" , through the larger part of the cone, for seconds not minutes  (10-20 seconds...  I must say I never really counted)  to warm the eyes, and let cool about the same time.

I do this a few times, then put the heat higher and shorten (?)  the time, probably no more then 10 seconds.  I do not want to damage the glassene or the plastic of the eyes or the eyelashes.

A minute is a very long time to hold the hot air non-stop on the eyes.  The paper cone is acting like a funnel and it "concentrates" the 

warmth.

The closest I go is about 10 inches.

And I go on for as long as it takes to clear the eyes.  I did this operation a few times and some residues are harder to remove. Some took 3 or 4 operations to clear properly. 

Here is a photo of my 15balHH doll Michelle I did recently.  Her eyes are not "crystal clear" but for now, it will do.

They had a white film on the iris, thicker in the corners.  I will give her a break and start again later.

Good luck, I hope I could help you more.  Maybe the doll you tried to repair had a different problem than that waxy/moldy film ?

[marym52]

I love before & afters! I'm a collector with champagne taste & a beer budget-- and the dolls are SO grateful after I make them over.

Here are a box lot of Madame Alexanders before:

And after. (Poor Polly still needs a hair curl & new eyelashes):