Doll Arrival and Cleaning!

I bought a Resinsoul Shi body at a decent price on DoA. She is rather stained, as the previous owner dyed her yellow to match a Volks skin tone. I thought I was going to whiten her using the bath method, but plans changed!

Before we get to that though, let's watch the box opening video!

Wow, okay, that is really yellow! I can fix this! Right? I started out trying to whiten her using baking soda and whitening toothpaste. This has never worked, honestly, but I was willing to try it again. After 24 hours of soaking, the body was still just as yellow as it was before. Ugh.

I tried using a magic eraser on it, but that was taking forever and needed a lot of elbow grease...I mean a LOT of elbow grease.

Then I remembered I had some very fine automotive sanding paper from a previous project that I never got to (heh, story of my life). The 1000 grit sandpaper worked WONDERS. Take a look!

Look at that difference! I took the hips out of the whitening bath to compare the before and after and WOW was this doll YELLOW. Here is the same piece sanded:

The parts pictures on top have have been sanded. The parts to the left have yet to be sanded. Look how dirty that water is already! Ew! I was wet sanding by the way to minimize/eliminate dust.

What a change! The process still took a lot of elbow grease. There are still yellow areas in the cracks and creases because those areas are almost impossible to get to. The process took an entire day plus the following morning. My hands were cramping so much that I had to just stop.

This is why I suggest never dying a doll. It never turns out well in my opinion. Blushing it to match is a much better option and totally removable. Instead of using MSC, use liquitex sealer and an airbrush so it won't chip away in chunks (it will merely scratch instead).

I might try this with an older Doll Leaves body I have. I have a set of twins with non-matching skin tones. ((´д｀))

Anyway, check out the cleaning video!