Being Positive about Yellowing

While I would not go out of my way to expose my dolls to UV, I feel some nostalgia over yellowing with time. It's like a well worn sweater, something loved and has stood with you for a while.

 

This is such a beautiful way of putting it. I never thought of yellowing in this manner before but now that I've read this, it makes my older dolls that much more special. Thank you for sharing this sentiment!

 

I haven't had my bjd for a long time, so it doesn't show any signs of yellowing. But one of my off topic dolls that I bought second hand was clearly greenish. I tried around for a long time until I found out that the color purple (especially the soft shades) made the greenish skin tone look quite natural. So now she is wearing all shades of purple, from the wig to the shoes. The doll looks exquisite and elegant now and is very dear to my heart. Overall, I really enjoyed experimenting, so I look forward to the yellowing of my bjd very relaxed.

 

I’m a purist and think that yellowing give “personality” for dolls and books. Sometimes I search for yellowed things on purpose.

 

This is kind of why I avoid buying WS dolls... natural and (most) tan dolls yellow in quite a natural way I find, so I have no problems with it at all! I still try to avoid it by keeping my dolls in a dark space away from sunlight when I'm not playing with them though. Whenever I see WS dolls that are yellowed though, I personally really don't like the color it creates so I avoid that.

 

I've been collecting for 12 years, and still don't have any "butter yellow" dolls. At most, they've mellowed a bit - even the white skins have only become somewhat creamy over time...and I actually love that - it somehow makes them more 'mine'.

To be honest, I expect that I'd be upset if if I saw signs of serious jaundice in my crew, but if it happens, there are some fabulous tutorials like this one on how to combat the issue. There are no absolutes!

 

Hi
With older dolls we know it will eventually happen
but when taking photos its really easy to make them look "new" again. (Tons of great filters)
I don't think of it in a bad way unless planning on selling an older doll, they may be worth a bit less but as a collector it doesn't bother me.

 

I personally don’t mind yellowing at all for my dolls. but it is a real pain in rear if you have a floating head that needs a body. The match will never work unless you can find an equally suitable yellowed body or you have to cover it somehow.

 

I don't have any experience with BJDs as of yet, but with other resin dolls for me it depends on a doll - how even did they mellow, what shade they turned are there patches? Some of the dolls I dealt with only looked more natural after a bit of yellowing, so it was not a problem.
But if yellowing really bothers you, you don't have to put up with it - customization is the key. Restoring old dolls is not unheard off, some people make a hobby out of it
So if we are on the subject and sharing tutorials:
Would work beautifully in combination with the method celga linked if you need to correct the color further.

 

I actually have mostly only bought WS or very pale skin dolls with the idea that yellowing will certainly happen but when it does, i'll add some pink dye to it to turn it into a NS doll later on! I ended up going through that in a 2nd hand doll i bought that had some yellowing. With dolls that end up unevenly yellowing, that i'd probably end up trying some partial sanding then dyeing, but I for now i don't fear the future

 

I'm honestly not thrilled about seeing my dolls yellow, but I've kind of just accepted it since it's inevitable even though I have kept them in their boxes in a cool and dark place. Some people see yellowing as a beautiful thing since it's the aging of the doll. I always try to see it that way whenever I feel kind of bad about it and it really does help.

Two of my dolls are about ten years old. I bought them secondhand. One of them was already yellowed when I got her and my bigger dolls head has yellowed a lot! I had her since 2015 and it is pretty noticeable when you compare pictures from 2015 to today. Her face up is precious and I don't want to wipe it off to de-yellow her head. Eventually I will have to do that, but not any time soon!

 

I think it's because I collect antiques/vintage items that are non-BJD related which helped me with the mindset of caring more about what the item means to me versus the visual quality of the item. That, and going into the hobby I was prepared for yellowing that I'm fine with it after 13 years. All of my dolls (except for 5) I'm the first owner of so I knew what they looked like mint from the box to now. I actually don't mind the yellowing at all as to me it shows how we've grown old together.

It's kind of like, "Would I throw away a first edition Jane Austen just because the cover isn't that great looking after hundreds of years?" or "Well, I guess I have to get rid of that Ferrari because the paint is not that perfect anymore..." If you find it precious no matter what it looks like, keep it and find new ways to appreciate it over the years. If you no longer find joy in it, sell it so someone else that has been yearning for it can love it instead.

 

Omigawd! I saw your post way back when and am still amazed at what a wonderful job you did with her! It goes to show what ingenuity and some time and effort can do with restoring a doll.

 

my thought process is like "oil paintings yellows overtime, especially that punk da Vinci's" and "yellowed doll, i would want to turn them into someone who stepped out of an oil painting". im very married to this idea and would probably do it as my fourth doll project.

 

Omg I had no idea you could do this!!! Thank you for this comment

 

I only read the first post about yellowing, so I have no idea how others have responded.

Many of my dolls are Japanese, so a bit of yellowing to them is fine. It fits their personalities.

Others I have are simply older dolls that I managed to find on the secondhand market, so they were older to begin with. I managed to find on the secondhand market three two and a half Luts/Cerberus Project (in)famous Beauty Green boys from around 2005. Considering that they are a vampire, a merman and a Goth, again, it fits their personalities.

I also have a few older dolls that are mellowing rather nicely. Their characters may not be Japanese, but I don't care if they mellow/yellow, as long as its pretty even.

But I do have one doll that I'm not sure if she's mellowing/yellowing. Bettie Page, my Dollmore Catish Girl - Rule the Cat World Red Reaa. She's a glow-in-the-dark doll, and it doesn't seem to me that she's yellowed or changed color in any way, despite being from 2014. I don't know if her chemical makeup makes her different from the others.

Edit: After reading everyone's posts, I have some further thoughts about yellowing.

Many of my first dolls, I bought second hand. By the time I got my first new doll, I knew that yellowing was a part of resin curing. It was something I expected to happen.

I am not the type of guy to keep my Crew in a case or a box, never to see outside of it. IMVHO, what's the use of having BJDs if you don't interact with them? I take mine out to meetups, sometimes I even take them out just to go someplace and take pics of them interacting in stores when I go fabric shopping, interacting with nature, or even people. (Of course, this was pre-COVID.)

Because of the nature of resin, I'm careful when I take them out. I seat belt my SDs and larger into the passenger seats, or put my MSDs into a carry case with faceup protectors and then seat belted down when I go to meetups. The ones I take out the most when I used to go fabric shopping have hats they wear to cover up their faceups. Nowadays, I take them onto the deck to snap a few pics, but they still occasionally go outside, usually on cloudy or partly cloudy days.

If I wanted to collect dolls just to keep them in boxes in dark closets, away from where I can see them every day, I might have gotten into porcelain dolls...if they didn't creep me out. Resin being resin, whether kept in a box in a dark closet, or displayed out in rooms (away from sunlight or behind blackout curtains like mine are), it will yellow no matter what you do with them. So I choose to enjoy my Crew and accept that they will yellow/mellow.

For me, part of enjoying this hobby is the fact that BJDs are toys. Sure, they're expensive toys made for older teens and adults to collect and/or customize, but they're still toys. Now that I am healthy again, I try to interact with at least one of them nearly every day.

To me, my Crew are friends that I hang with. And like friends, they get older. Yellowing is simply a part of my friends getting older. And older they will become. I will still love them and take care of them no matter what.

Ryu

 

It just occurred to me, reading this, that the PukiFee I have in storage--that I've been waiting to have sent back to me--is 10 years old. I got her in a white skin tone. Now I'm wondering if she's going to be severely yellowed and what state she'll be in.

 

I don't know if it soothes anyone's nerves, but there's never been a time when I've looked at a doll in person, even one that has obviously yellowed, and thought "wow, this doll sure is ugly because it's yellowed," or "wow, it's keeper must not take care of it." It's the beauty of resin, no matter how annoying it can be. A good faceup, in my experience, helps offset a lot of the "whoa, this bad boy sure did yellow-mellow" as well as having the character in clothes that don't exaggerate it's yellowness (for example, how cool-toned or blue lipsticks will make people's teeth look yellower than they are.)

 

Besides which, if you're at jaundice stage you can just roll with it and reshell as an unfortunate pirate...

 

I got my first doll back in 2011 so he's quite unevenly yellowed, especially if you compare his hands to his feet. Since he was my first doll I took him with me to quite a few places because I was just so happy to have him. He was also a wedding gift from my husband so, to me, his yellowing is just a sign of love.