how did the myth of "tan dolls are harder to care for" get started?

I think a lot of it started with the way that companies used to only color the surface of the resin with the tan pigment, so sanding the doll to modify it in any way would result in a lighter color showing through in those areas. I could be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure that now most companies' tan dolls are cast with resin that's colored all the way through because the pigment itself is actually mixed in with the resin, so the issue with sanding doesn't seem to come up as much. There's still some slight discoloration that can come from sanding darker dolls, but it's not as drastic as when only the surface of the doll was colored.

 

I remember, some of the earlier IP EID tan dolls turned green rather quickly because the pigments were less stable. So... I wouldn't say it's a myth exactly. At one point it was true that some tan dolls were more delicate to take care of.

 

Some older formulations were quick to turn funny colors in sunlight -- I have an older Limhwa Mano who turned a ghastly greyish greenish. All of the other (newer) tanned dolls I've had seemed pretty stable, though. It has something to do with the red pigment.

 

Ah... It was more of an example... Point I was trying to make was that at one point, there was probably truth to the "myth."

 

I suppose that it might have something to do with the fact that if you scratch or dent a tanned doll, contrary to white and normal skin dolls you can't sand away the damage (at least back then, maybe now you can if you're really careful) so you have to take more pains to ensure that they don't get accidentally scratched, thus making them more difficult to keep in top condition.

BTW, I have a bunch of tan Luts Delfs, the oldest dating from 2005, and I'm pretty sure they're all tan through and through. The white-ish color you get when breaking or sanding tan resin isn't light resin underneath, the surface of a break always looks lighter with plastics due to the structure of the stuff. As far as I know, at least.

 

Most of my dolls are tan, and while I don't think they're harder to care for, I also don't think it's a myth that there are some differences.

To be fair, I think the issue has always tended to be more with the mid-range of tans than the darkest ones. I have an Iplehouse dark tan from 2007 that's still beautifully even in colour despite having been out on display (and frequently taken outside), and one of their light tans from 2008 that I bought from someone who kept their dolls shaded that's greened significantly despite the previous owner's caution (and that was a pre-real skin doll, so it wasn't just that first batch of Real Skin that was unstable). Similarly, my doll from the first batch of Iple's ebony is still even-coloured, even though similarly-aged Real Skin dolls sometimes aren't.


There's also the issue with sanding creating more noticeable colour differences on tan. Not a big deal if you don't bother (I don't, generally), but a lot of the Chinese companies sand the seams on their dolls as a rule. I have tans from Illusion Spirit and Dollzone that have colour shifts at the seams from that (although I don't consider that to be a huge flaw) as well as a lilac from Bobobie that actually looks scratched as a result of the company sanding.

 

Doll companies used to regularly issue cautions about not sanding tan resin or letting it sit in sunlight. Partly it was to cover themselves, but partly there were genuine issues. The tan coloring was just on the surface, as people have already noted, so sanding or scratching would do irreversible damage. Then there were the color change problems with Luts, Iplehouse and others. Light-fast, solid-colored dark resin is really a fairly recent development.

 

Oh, there is plenty of truth to the 'myths'-- because results vary greatly from owner to owner, depending on all manner of factors. Just because your Ebony hasn't changed color yet after leaving it out in strong sunlight all the time (a) doesn't mean that it still won't discolor at some point, and (b) doesn't mean that other people have had the same results as you. Everyone lives in different parts of the world, different dwellings, different angles & intensities of light, different environment, etc.

Problem was discovered a long time ago, maybe '06? Anyone remember the Dolkot Tan Kiss? He didn't just turn green.... after an hour or less of outdoor exposure, its resin turned green & started to become pitted, and it was starting to break down right there. It was crumbling! So, immediate alarums went up, keep your tan dolls out of the sun as much as possible. That sort of started the general awareness. (Thank goodness Dolkot didn't keep trying to make tans.)

The old CP tans would also turn a lovely solid olive-green if you kept taking them to outdoor meetups, though they discolored in a more gradual/expected manner.

Iplehouse's earliest tans (from 2006-2008, before UV-cut & before Realskin) also green if precautions weren't taken. I have friends whose old tan dolls from that same period have greening, i.e. on their abs where they were wearing open shirts, because they weren't normally kept out of sunlight, and were taken out in the sun regularly; I compared them to my own versions of the same dolls, who've lived on a draped shelf for the same amount of time, and the difference is striking. I started draping all of my tan dolls as soon as the Dolkot Tan Kiss incident happened, and it does pay off.

Super-dark tans can turn ashy, rather than green. I'm especially underwhelmed with the Shadow resin that Iplehouse used for Chase; the Shadow Chases I've met IRL have had this odd greyish-purply cast to the dark brown. Some of the earlier Dark Brown/Ebony Aarons of yore also had that ashiness, over time, if they weren't kept out of light.

Even with Iples' modern UV-cut resin, you can still get a greenish doll easily if you regularly take it out in the sun-- but results do seem to vary, due to whatever mysterious environmental factors. There are plenty owners who say "mine got a green/yellow stripe on it after just a month" and plenty owners who say "mine hasn't changed after living exposed on a shelf for a year".

Also, you have to consider people may not KNOW their doll is discoloring-- often, people never even SEE the greenish tone until they put it side-by-side with another doll who hasn't discolored. They say "Oh, mine's still fine & I take him sunbathing every day", but then they see the unfaded doll, and their faces fall, "... Oh." These people aren't ignorant; without a basis for comparison right in front of their eyes, the greening is just not noticeable for awhile. It's insidious.

Very true! Greening isn't the only care issue-- avoiding scratches is another thing to consider when owning a dark-skinned doll, whether it's sanding or accidental scrapes. Even though the tan resin is uniformly colored all the way through, the top-layer catches the light differently, so a scratch shows up as a lighter color. If you sand tan resin, you have to sand it all over evenly, so that the entire doll is now that lighter color. I too have tan dolls where you can see a partial sanding-attempt on one or more of the seams-- it looks like little scuffs!

Basic care: My tan dolls live behind a drape while I'm not home, they don't get to go to outdoor meetups, and I try to avoid putting too much sharp metal decor/zippers/etc. right next to their skin. My Luo Strongman wears rings, and once I scratched his finger putting a ring on him, and every time I pick that doll up I apologize for giving him a scar. ;;^^ And.... I actually go as far as keeping the dolls strung loosely, so that their joints don't scuff their own resin any more than strictly necessary. But to be honest, that's more because I am lazy about stringing-maintenance, & I never get around to tightening anybody. Heh!

 

Just thought of an another thing that I've found with tan dolls: The colour can also look more uneven at the thin points than it would on a lighter doll. The fingertips on my Volks Irvin (ebony) and my Limhwa Half-Elf (tan) both look lighter than the rest of them - it's really just a light effect, but if that kind of thing bothers you then that would be another complication of the darker coloured resins.

This reminds me of something I forgot to mention (because my Aaron has "mellowed" somewhat): I always assume that every doll (tan, white, normal, fantasy, whatever) will have some colour shift, so when I talk about my older dolls staying "even-coloured" I mean literally that - their colour may have shifted, but in a way that's only obvious if you're comparing them to another identical doll.

And now I'm going to have to examine my Chase for purply-ness tonight!

 

I think another issue is that if a piece breaks on a tanned skin doll, like say a finger and you need to replace the hand, its typically harder to get a new piece in that shade. I know a lot of companies only have tanned options for the whole doll and not so much for the individual parts. I have a grey skinned doll and I know for a fact the company isn't going to be making that doll in grey anymore nor any of the parts so if any part were to break, I'd have no way of replacing it. So keeping this in mind, I'm a lot more wary of bringing him out to places. Granted I'm very careful with all my dolls but its a little more daunting when you realize that you can't just buy a new hand, etc. like I can with most of my other dolls if that ever happened.

But yeah, it does seem like the companies have improved greatly on the resin tones themselves. In the past I know a lot of them would very rarely release tanned skinned dolls because they had issues making them or having the resin come out right and not discolor. But most of them seem to have finally gotten it down right so its not as rare anymore.

 

Yep. My (3rd-hand) LT Cocori has got distinct patches of green where she was exposed to strong light.

 

Sounds like my second (or third?) hand Mano -- I bought him knowing he'd changed colors. The only parts that had changed were his faceplate, upper neck, and hands, which made it seem to me that he'd been exposed to sun fully clothed and wigged. Thankfully, a little airbrushing solved the problem!

 

I've never had the pleasure of meeting him IRL, but your Chase sure has always photographed such a purely dark-brown! I get the feeling that everybody's mileage varies when it comes to that particular Shadow resin color, because the ones I've met IRL have each looked different from each other. And it certainly isn't the same color as other dark-browns or even Ebony, so I'd not be surprised that it ages differently.

 

I knew the owner of that Tan Kiss. He was sat down, she turned around to get something, someone in the meetup group screamed. He was turning green right there in front of their eyes. she ended up selling him because she was so upset. He was ruined. Yes they were outside and he was sat down in a sunny spot out of her bag. I'll go find The Saint's post about it.

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...ace-Tan-Kiss-in-sunlight!!&highlight=Tan+Kiss

 

Actually, call me paranoid but my originally normal skin Akando from one of the first batches ever (got him January 2009) seems to have a greenish tint to his nose and fingers. The red pigment's almost completely faded from the parts that have benen exposed to sunlight regularly. I got one grey doll and will probably never get a tan one since - well, covering them up all the time isn't really what I'm buying my dolls for. I want to be able to have them out of their boxes and sitting around and see them all the time without having to worry they might turn green or some other kind of odd colour.

 

That is one scary story =o
I think tan dolls are beautiful but I have always been wary of getting one. It's the same way I feel about super expensive/limited/rare dolls. I'd just be too worried to do anything with them. They would probably be confined to the shelf before eventually being sold as I can't justify keeping something so expensive around if I don't do anything with it.
That said, I recently got my first tan skin doll and I don't actually worry that much. Probably partly because he's a resinsoul, so he's not only cheap and easy to replace/get parts for if the worst thing should happen, but also colored all the way through.
Actually it makes me wish ALL companies would use whatever method RS/BBB uses to tan dolls, as it seems quite reliable and frankly very nice looking.

 

Awwww. ;; Akando Pierrot wasn't UV-cut-- Iples hadn't done that to their resins yet! Quite a few of the early-adopters have found that their First Batch Realskin boys are starting to green faintly right about now. I have met a couple of those IRL too... Some were more faintly green than others, depending on how brightly-lit they'd been stored.

It makes me just double-determined to keep my own Akando in the darkest corner of the darkest shelf in the whole apartment. ;; I'm at work all day while the sun's out, anyway-- so this is not a problem.

When I photograph him in natural light, he gets to sit in a weak late-afternoon sunbeam, to just make him look like he's a sun-worshipper. Photo fakery FTW. XD

ZOMG yes, there it is! Oh hell, the stomach-sinking horror we all went through upon hearing that. I had just gotten my first tan doll (Tan Soo Ri v.1) about a month before... and I had just taken him out in the sun the week before. *yeek* The day I read that, I started throwing a scarf over my collection during the daytime. And I am STILL grateful for TheSaint's sacrifice-- because of that, my tan dolls have been protected from most light in the 6 years since, and they still look so damn good.

If I recall, Dolkot [the maker] said Too Bad & refused to replace the doll or issue a refund-- but Dollmore [the dealer] stepped up and replaced it, right? Even freakier, Dolkot used Dollshecraft for casting that Kiss, and nobody's tan Hounds had ever experienced that problem either. Pretty alarming there for awhile.

Sure-- and you do know it's always a gamble every time you buy, batch to batch, even if a company's resin does OR doesn't have a track-record of discoloration. I have seen some Dollshe and BBB and Limhwa and Iplehouse and CP tans that have turned some weird tones-- but I have also seen plenty of each that don't.

If you're an early-adopter who's into trying new skin tones ASAP, you take an even bigger gamble every time you do, but... some of us are just willing to fall on those grenades for the sake of having that new skin NOW. Cavegirl guilty as charged.


Anyway, I'm with you-- these days, I'd comfortably buy tans from pretty much anybody except, y'know, Dolkot. (I'm still particularly hooked on Iplehouse, though; nobody else's tans have quite their depth and subtones and luminosity, and they still have my confidence in their dark-skin-pioneering efforts. )