Just how delicate are dolls?

My Lati are forever bungie jumping of the shelves >_< my Lumi especially seems fond of this practice,but being small i think helps they don't have long fingers ears which dont seem to break so no damage yet they bounce quite well,i have noticed though that my Bean Lumi has started to get a funny mark/scratch under her chin,although im carefull when handling her i just guess its wear and tear,she is yellowing too and perhaps her face up is wearing a bit,but i really dont want to give her a new face up as she wouldn't be my Bean anymore and i would hate that cos she is my bestest girl.

 

One of my girls fell from an old carousel horse in a friend's garden without any damage on Saturday.

Last year, one of my Petite Ai fell from a statue onto a cobbled street at a doll-meet. One finger snapped off, so I replaced the hand. I'dhave tried gluing the finger back if I could have foudn it, but it was a busy street with hundreds of cracks and crevices between the cobblestones where it coudl have ended up.

One doll has a scrape in her faceup (back near the ear, usually covered by her wig - no idea how it happened, but redoinghte faceup should fix it if I can't "patch it in" without redoing the whole faceup.

One doll head-butted the dashboard in the car, left a black mark on her face, but that wiped off with some careful cleaning.

Most of my doills have fallen at some point or other, mostly, no damage, although I do worry about the elf ears on some snapping off.

Teddy

 

Resin is pretty durable, I think as long as you don't regularly launch the doll headlong into the pavement you won't have trouble keeping them damage-free. They do have more delicate parts - fingers and ears - and their noses are prone to get dented if they faceplant heavily, but if you keep that in mind when handling them you'll be less likely to have accidents. That said, accidents do happen, but often the damage is fixable. Dents will come out with heat and broken off pieces can be glued back on.

As for faceups, if you're careful and don't touch them and protect them when you pack them up for storage or travel it should last a long time. I've had trouble with the sealant rubbing off noses (from faceplanting) and also chips in the blushing on the chin on one of my dolls from being careless while putting on a faceup protector ironically. Chips in blushing are easy enough to repair and if you aren't comfortable attempting to fix if yourself there are people who you can commission to fix it for you.

One thing you should never do is soak a part of a doll in solvent for too long to remove sealant/faceup/blushing. Solvents will soften the resin or even eat it away. Another thing you want to avoid is prolonged direct sulight, especially if you leave a doll near a window or something similar as you'll end up not only encouraging the yellowing process faster, but it will occur unevenly on one side of the doll.

 

The dolls can survive falls, but sometimes things do break! Fingers and ears... and noses can chip.

Faceups are easily scratched.

Basically, be aware that resin is tough, but it's not vinyl--it doesn't give all that much, so if you have delicate parts, they can snap off if hit directly. And resin will chip, scrape, scratch, pretty easily.

Faceups are just a bit of paint or pastel right on the surface, so it can rub off over time, or scratch pretty easily.

Otherwise, the resin shouldn't be all that fragile. But some joints can be weak in areas. Some parts can be thin. All dolls are a bit different. And all falls/accidents are a bit different!

Basically--try hard not to let them fall! Or hit anything! Or rub their faceups against anything. They may survive, but they aren't meant to withstand stuff like that.

 

I know quite a few people that have traveled with their dolls in suitcases. Take the doll as a carryon and pad it well. aernath took her 80cm Sabik to AX in her carry on. She folded him to fit and strapped him down then stuffed all the extra area with clothes, human and doll. He made it there and back with no injuries. Mine will be going on a 12 hr drive to my sister's in two week, I anticipate no harm coming to them in the travel.

I always fold my boys hands in so they are a bit better protected.

 

I wouldn't put any of my dolls in a checked suitcase, padded or not - I've seen how those bags get tossed around (and had well-wrapped things broken in them), and in one of my many hours in airports a couple weeks ago I saw one of those luggage-cart-trains driving around behind the planes, take a U-turn too fast, and lose a few pieces of luggage off the side. Which then sat there for at least 45 minutes right in the path of the plane's tires, while people drove around them. I never did see if they ever got picked up.

Honestly, I never check ANYTHING I would be devastated to lose or couldn't live without. I think well-padded dolls would be just fine in a suitcase as a carry-on, though. I so far have only traveled by car with mine, with them in carriers, and they've been fine. Actually when I took them camping last time I just sat them in a laundry basket on top of my clothes in the RV, and that was fine, too!

 

>:3 im obsessed that way. *grabbyhands*

omg to look at that photo you would think horrible things happened to her! i understand your fear, i'd have had a heart attack! thank goodness she was ok and since she is, fantastic pose XD

 

They're pretty durable. I've dropped my poor doll's head a few times (luckily on carpet) and he was fine. I'd say the worst damage was when his body was hit on this kinda sharp thing, the most that happened was there was this little cut on his leg, but it was easily sanded out.

 

Token(Dollzone Hong) has traveled in a carry on before. ^_^;; He survived the experience just fine(if a bit grumpy). He was well wrapped up in all my spare clothing.

As everyone has said most resin is pretty durable. I have two dollzones and I've never had anything break or scuff. Token has lots of random scratches and such but that's because he's fallen down on all sorts of surfaces from all sorts of heights(those big DZ boys hate to stand up unless they feel like it.)

 

I took my dolls to Japan and had no problems at the airport. I didn't even get stopped at the X-ray machines.

 

I wouldn't worry about that, since the scanners show different materials. The workers wouldn't think your doll was a baby or something, and could see that there was no "dangerous substance" inside lol. I've taken dolls in a suitcase before and had no problem.

 

If your security people are worried about gremlins, you should probably pick another airport.

I've flown cross-country (US) with dolls several times, with several different dolls, including one with magnets in his head, and I've never had a problem at security. I've even been stopped with the random screening a couple times...they just asked me what was in the bag and I said a doll, and once they asked me to unzip the bag to show them and when I did, the security officer said, "That's very cool!" and let me move on. Just make sure to wrap up their hands, protect their face, and keep your carryon with you at all times (which you should be doing anyway, of course).

 

Dolls can take a fair amount of abuse and look good for years, but it partially depends on how competent of an owner you are. If you can't do a face up, or sand a seam, or restring it, you should be more cautious so the wear is more gradual.

I have had both of my dolls since early 2006 and the only one who shows any wear is my old F-27 because I bought him second hand. My F-15 who has only lived with me is pretty much as white as when I first got him. His only wear is scratches in his MSC body coating. Resin ages slowly even without light hitting it, but if you keep them in a box or a completely dark room a majority of the time they can go years without really showing any age and my boy is proof.

 

Um... Once I was doing a face-up to one of my dolls and as I brought the head to our balcony for a nice little layer of MSC, I suddenly dropped that head on the hard cement floor of our balcony. The head bounced on the floor a couple of times and I was terrified and had this kind of look on my face: O_____O;;;;;. I was sure that the nose fell off or something. Luckily the head was fine and survived with no injuries at all!

 

I wouldn't worry too much about airport screening - in the 6 different flights I went on (including international ones) a couple weeks ago they never even ASKED about the quart bag of liquids, never had to take it out of the carry-on to be screened, some people in my group had random jars of peanut butter and such in their bags and never even got stopped. They were totally low-key at the security screenings, though they were obviously doing their jobs well (other than the never asking about liquids thing, which I found odd). I get the impression that a doll would just be a mildly interesting thing to break up the monotony in their day.

 

Just FYI, asphalt and the headcap hooks inside DZ Petdolls do NOT mix!

Ironically with eye putty on the bottom of his headcap it stays on 100% BETTER!