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Being Positive about Yellowing

May 5, 2020

    1. I also collect vintage dolls,as in, stuff from the 60s and 70s so faded plastics, ghostly white sickly faces, melt, yellowing and other such things are pretty normal for me.

      I own a few secondhand resin dolls that are definitely yellowed, but honestly I don't think it's unattractive a colour. Inthe case of two of them theyre still normal human-like tones, just more sallow than they once were (and some people ARE that sort of skin tone) and with my newest secondhand girl she's more a pale cream sort of tone which isn't unappealing. In isolation she actually looks fine to my eye, but put her alongside dolls who still have their red pigment and she looks ghastly pale. I think over time she's lost her red pigment but it's even across her whole body so who the heck knows? She's pretty old.

      But hey, so what?

      I gothed her up and embraced the pale lol.

      I kinda feel like yellowing is part of owning bjds and something we just have to learn to live with if we're going to collect them. Much like with vintage dolls, expecting them to be perfect with soft hair and vivid paint and no age defects is unrealistic and part of the charm is that organic aging I think. Consider it like.. patina lol.

      resin yellows, that's just what resin does. I don't consider it a flaw so much as just a normal side effect of the material used.

      At least nowadays it's fairly predictable. I have a nylon printed doll here who was dyed green and somehow is turning purple! Now THAT is bizarre and unexpected.
      I haven't a clue how the chemistry on that works but there ya go.

      I do however feel bad for people with the older resin that got SUPER unpredictable, like turning bright canary yellow or tans that turned greenish, that wasn't something you could really predict and would have been quite disappointing.
      but most resin now seems to be a lot more stable and the natural mellowing of it is just part of the pigment settling.
      I dunno, I just sorta see it as normal. bjds haven't finished "developing" when they get to us lol, that takes a few years for them to settle into their proper colour.
       
      • x 7
    2. I used Colgate and Arm and Hammer
       
    3. I had ordered a secondhand doll whose previous owner said "there's yellowing, but it's not that noticeable" and in the photos, yeah, it looked pretty normal. Then I actually get the doll and oh boy, was it YELLOW. I'm not talking like, slight undertone type stuff, I'm talking like, this doll's skin looks like a sick person's or a zombie's. The yellowing was very uneven too, which made it look worse. It's pretty unsightly, not gonna lie.

      The positive thing is that you can still take photos of yellow dolls and cover up the yellowing via good lighting or even photoshopping the doll's skin tone. They're not real people going out into the real world unless you take them to a doll meet. But I am also someone who likes to look at pretty things and it makes me sad seeing my doll is actually super yellow in real-life. Thankfully, there's methods around yellowing, whether it's brightening, sanding, dyeing, or even covering up uneven yellowing with clothes. Once I get my new restringing tool I'm going to take this doll apart and sand away to see if that'll help!
       
      • x 4
    4. My roommate and I have a Resinsoul Feng we picked up at a yard sale, and he'd been in his box for nine years before we got a hold of him--when we first saw him, we thought his original skin tone was some kind of a normal yellow or oriental? Our surprise when we looked at his box and found him listed as a white-skinned doll was Pretty Significant. But somehow, he's managed to yellow really consistently? It's very even, save for a few tonal differences on some small parts like his elbows or his feet--I was trying to figure out how badly yellowed he'd gotten on my own, and I didn't figure it was as severe as it was, but when I found Resinsoul's sample palette, it became pretty obvious.
      Still, I'm pretty fond of his new skin tone. When we get him blushed and all that, we both figure he'll look just fine! I don't see any reason to try and repaint him or anything, and neither does the roommate. So in his case, it doesn't bother us! I don't know how I'd feel about getting one of my grail dolls only to have them turn yellow on me, though, so I guess it's a bit of a case-by-case basis.
       
      • x 1
    5. :shudder Not turning this into a workshop discussion, but when such methods are mentioned I think it is important to also mention that any bleaching of plastic will always also result in some change of material quality, like making it more brittle.
      Also, I think it was the Volks "doll clinic" experts who reported that de-yellowing procedures often result in even faster yellowing afterwards. And from personal experience I can say that chemical procedures with bleaches can have quite unexpected and unwanted effects, even if you follow a tutorial that was seemingly successful. Resin mixtures differ, even from batch to batch, and so many things factor into this and change the outcome.

       
      • x 5
    6. It's a natural part of the life of the resin the doll is cast from, so I accept it. I do have a few different thoughts/opinions about it:
      • I tend to buy the "pink" tone if it's available. This way the doll will become a more cream/neutral tone as it yellows, instead of banana yellow.
      • Coating the entire doll in MSC UV-cut can help reduce the rate of natural yellowing, by providing a protective barrier.
      • I've observed that some studios must use a better quality of resin, because they will yellow less quickly than other studios. For example, I have Luts hands on a Mirodoll body with a Leeke World head. The Hands and body were made in the same year... and the body began to show noticeable yellowing in less than a year! It used to be a good color match hybrid, lol.
      • I give my dolls a Polydent bath every couple of years to lighten the surface and deep-clean the parts.
      • I'm wary of fantasy colour resins because I remember the days when some dolls were turning green over time....
       
      • x 6
    7. Aw I had no idea!
       
    8. My first doll will be turning 13 this summer, and he has changed from near paper white when I got him to a creamy almost normal yellow color and honestly? I think he's prettier now than he was when he was pure white.

      I don't keep my dolls in boxes, hidden in closets. If I don't have my toys and collectibles out where I can easily see them, then I don't enjoy them. None of my dolls (BJD or off topic) are in storage, so I do expect things to happen- light yellowing, chipped faceups, staining, maybe even a little scratch here and there. I agree with some others in this thread--it tells a doll's story and gives them character. Unless the yellowing is horrible--like green or banana yellow and drastically uneven--it doesn't bother me in the least.
       
      • x 5
    9. I honestly do not understand how one can be intolerant of yellowing. I admit, back in 2014, I myself was feeling controversial towards it, but I was a completely different person back then, a very immature and misguided one. But I don’t understand exactly such an attitude as total intolerance.

      This is an irreversible and inevitable process. More rigid to one, less to another. This can be compared to scars and wrinkles - no matter how presumptuously you are trying to avoid it, every day you only become older, so does your skin, and the wounds turn into scars, just as it always has been and will always be. Of course, you can resort to medicine (and in the BJD case - to sanding, bathtubs of sodium and peroxide and other de-yellowing methods), but the fact remains that it will happen sooner or later.

      The doll does not get worse from it! It takes on a story. Perhaps this is damage. But this is good damage.
      And frankly I don’t see a single problem in our hobby (whether it be chips, cracks, disproportionate hybridization or the notorious yellowing) that a skillful and cunning owner would not have solved.

      I believe that any "flaw" can be competently beat and turned into an advantage.
      And this is not only about dolls.

      upd.: read a couple of posts above. Idk about the whole community, but I don't consider any yellowing "ugly", "ghastly" or whatever. How about the beautiful green of the CP and others?
      Even if it's uneven (no pun intended), even if the doll has turned banana yellow or greenish, this is not a problem if you do have the vision. A proper faceup and/or blushing, a character change perhaps may make it look so much better. And don't forget that most of BJD parts are replaceable, so if your doll's hands no longer have the same color as its face, you can get new ones.
      @purple_monkfish I second you. big time.
       
      #29 Synchytrium, May 6, 2020
      Last edited: May 6, 2020
      • x 9
    10. I got a doll in a similar state a few years ago; his listing described his yellowing as "even, no yellowing or no noticeable yellowing," but when he showed up he had a banana tan. Thankfully, only the surface layer of resin oxidizes and reacts to UV, so after a light sanding he was nice and even again. Still, I hadn't signed up to buy a project doll, so while it was only a minor project, I wasn't particularly pleased with the seller's dishonesty. (And I probably would have still bought him if the damage was disclosed, but with a bit more of a discount to cover the damage.)

      On the other hand, I have a number of dolls of similar age to him, that have been kept out on display (but out of direct sunlight!), and while they've mellowed, it's very even--and some of it is just a little surface level dust that's accumulated over the years that cleans off nicely. All the NS ones still look quite lovely; as for the WS ones, yes, they're now a lot creamier, but some of them I do really like the looks of now that they're much less stark. There's just a couple where I'll need to use some blushing to push them back toward white again because their characters are supposed to be much more white, but it's a factor of owning them and I don't see it as any big deal. No more major than the head that doesn't match anything and needs to be adjusted with blushing.
       
      • x 3
    11. I’ve Never done brown yet (I’d espect Meanae would have advice on It because she does a lot with dye), but rule of thumb is to think of dye as like watercolour—ie:translucent, so the brown you’re going for will skew a little yellow unless you neutralize it with another colour. I recommend doing a test piece to get your dye to the colour you want, and not sanding the doll in advance, because sanded resin tends to take dye differently, as do mods in other materials (apoxie, milliput)
       
    12. Such wealth of information here, I love it! Thank you all for sharing your tips!
       
    13. Somehow I'd never really considered dying a doll, and that's honestly a cool way to try and turn yellowing around! I'd be interested to see how it looks long-term.
       
    14. I have a tendency to prefer yellow-toned to pink-toned skin anyway, so for most of my dolls a little yellowing doesn't bother me at all. I do, however, have one doll I bought specifically to represent a character that should look pure snow-white, so I won't be terribly happy if/when that one yellows to the point I can't ignore it.
       
      • x 2
    15. When I started getting into the hobby I was more worried about yellowing than I am now, because I thought that most dolls will turn a very ghastly shade of banana-like yellow.
      But over the last three years, I've learned that good quality resin will more likely just turn into a less pinkish color - which can still look good in real life! And I know for a fact that my dolls will yellow over time no matter what, so instead of worrying and only taking them out like once a week I enjoy them thoroughly by having them out on display in a cabinet and having my favorite doll always sit next to me on the desk.
      Over the years I've owned dolls by many different manufacturers but as of now, I've settled on a collection focused on Volks dolls (I just love their aesthetics!). It's kinda comforting to know that their resin is UV-protected and is known to yellow evenly - and yes, this was another reason for my decision to only collect dolls from this company.

      But all in all, I think that one shouldn't worry too much about yellowing since it will naturally happen over time - it's best to enjoy your dolls and see the yellowing process as a part of getting old together and a reminder of all the good times you had <3
       
      • x 3
    16. I do mind yellowing (and my cats), so I keep all my resin dolls in my closet ever since I purchased them. The oldest is a CP VDES head sculpt from winter 2004-05. I see some mellowing in some of them, for example my CP VDES and my SoulDoll Paris were a lot more peachy when I first got them, and now they don't seem to have such strong red-undertones, but they are not yellow and it's not uneven -- the whole doll looks exactly the same color, except for the parts that have been blushed/faced-up. I think most of them might have mellowed out a lot more than I can tell just by memory (mine sucks), but I don't see yellowing or discolored areas on any of them (yet). They've never been exposed to sun light, and never been displayed, and I rarely play with them for more than two hours at a time. Not because I don't want to play with them to prevent yellowing, but because I like to take them out only when I feel like it; like when I want to take photos of them, or want to sew or make a wig for them. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy with them staying inside their boxes, in my cool dark closet.

      I have a lot of old Barbies from when I was a baby, and they haven't yellowed either, so I am hoping that because my resins are never exposed to sun light or other strong sources of UV-light, they'll loose some of their pigmentation but won't discolor or yellow unevenly. I don't think I'll hate them if I get to see them turn butter-yellow, but I am hoping I'll die before that happens. Not because I rather die than see it happen, but because I think that being as old as I am, and having prevented exposing them to anything that will speed up the yellowing will keep them from me seeing it happen. I at least hope so, but I'm okay if I am wrong and actually see them turn neon-yellow. I don't mind blushing them to look less like a lemon, and more like pale-pinky-plastic. DX
       
      • x 3
    17. Not a problem for me! She looks like ivory, which goes with her old-timey styling. To me, it adds an element of age and depth to a doll’s look if it’s even.
       
      • x 1
    18. I see yellowing as an inevitable part of this hobby and while I can't say that I love it I do accept it as part of the dolls and just go with it. My older dolls are quite yellow when compared to new resin but after a while, I don't notice it so much and thus don't really care enough to worry about it a lot. I do keep them away from light (they live in my closet) but will leave the door open to see them when I'm in the house. I'm far from bothered enough by their yellowing to try to "fix" it so yellow they stay and yellower they will eventually become.
      It does make buying option parts like new hands a bit more challenging though but that is what it is.
       
      • x 2
    19. I have a doll that "Super uneven yollowing" from the start when I purchased him from second hand shop. I just happen to like his mold (And perhaps his price too :lol:). But his yellowing does help me deciding his personality and some of his story. I still have him with me and never hate him a bit.

      [​IMG]

      Sometime the color do tell a 'story'. And some yellow tone also make the doll look nice.

      But, if you feel that you can't love that doll anymore it's not anything bad. You can re-home him any time you like if that will make you feel better.
       
      #39 xxxsaturnxxx, May 6, 2020
      Last edited: May 6, 2020
      • x 1
    20. Yellowing or mellowing goes hand in hand with joining the hobby. At first the thought of spending so much money on something that will turn "imperfect" upset me but then I thought to myself. "are you going to stay the way you are now forever? No wrinkles and other signs of age? No? Then deal with it." lol. Plus everything in life breaks down over time, and I mean everything. So we should all try to not worry about it as much as we can.
       
      • x 3