advice to your past self

I would set and stick to a budget!

 

@CPow sometimes the red pigment fades and they turn greenish. My first doll's face, hands and tops of her feet, are all a lighter greener color than the rest of her. I'm not sure how to fix or hide it.

 

Wow, good to know! My dolls are exposed to indirect sunlight. I hope that's not too much light!

 

Don't waste entire nights of potentiel sleep over search for a potential doll when you know perfectly that you won't be able to get the money for several years.
The dolls that you have found will probably be discontinued before you can afford it.

 

Discontinued doesn't mean that you won't be able to have that doll. A lot of us have found dolls we wanted but were discontinued.

 

I'll correct this by: discontinued and really really REALLY rare on the second hand market-

(I've spend too much of my time on this, 14 years ago XD)

 

I would say to myself to stop with 10 dolls or less. I'm very overcrowded with dolls, and with very limited display area, they tend to get piled on top of each other sometimes. Not good.

 

Make sure my first doll was in sandable resin (the resin that is colored all the way through, instead of a layer of color on top). Much more forgiving to mistakes and scratches, which is very important for first time face up attempts and doll "upsies" that are bound to happen with the first doll (like scratches, they can be sanded off eventually).
My actual first doll was the non sandable type... I managed to damage her "skin layer" the first time I tried wiping a face up... And the damage was done with cotton ball and brush wash... Luckyly it is on the part of the face plait that goes under a wig anyway, but still - lots of upset.
Turns out they are WAY more delicate that I ever imagined.

 

Good to know!! Thank you.

 

Research more, even the stuff you think you won’t have any interest in.

I had no interest in Dollfie Dreams because they all looked same-y and somewhat “off” to me (and to some extent, I still feel this way), but one day I came across DDS Alice Kuonji and it completely changed my feelings towards them. If I had discovered her earlier this year, I could have bought her NIB for a very affordable price, and maybe wouldn’t have gone down the bottomless rabbit hole of buying obscenely expensive Azone clothes (which admittedly look really plain compared to Volks’ offerings).