Thoughts on Yellowing Resin

How fast have your dolls yellowed?
There's always a slight mellowing that happens pretty much immediately, as a result of oxidation of the outer surface of the resin. I would not consider this "yellowing," however, as it's less a problem of "my doll turned banana yellow in a week!" and more the color settling into a more stable tone, where it'll generally stay for a good long time. It's also tough to say what's "yellowing" and what's "years of settled dust, finger oils, and other externals." Up until about a week ago, I would have told you that one of my oldest dolls, an AoD in NS-P from 2008, had experienced quite a bit of yellowing on her body, as compared to her well-sealed face (rather visible in recent photos). Then I took her apart, gave her a good alcohol bath, and when I was done there was only a faint, barely-noticeable difference between her head and all other parts--she was just dirty! I'm expecting I'll experience something similar with the others of my first dolls, when I take them apart to clean and rejuvenate them, and therefore I would have to say that, with the handling I've done, they haven't yellowed very fast at all.

That said, I also have a secondhand doll who clearly was handled differently; his age is a bit of a mystery (listed as two different things in his sales post), but he'd experienced some rather severe uneven yellowing, and is likely of a similar age to slightly older than my oldest dolls. So it's not only a factor of the resin, but how it's treated.

Do you consider resin to be very high-maintenance?
No. I'm not the kind of person who worries themselves sick over it, though. My dolls sit out on shelves in my bedroom. The window in there is open (my cat loves sitting in it!), there are no curtains over their shelves, and they certainly don't live in their boxes (what a nightmare, with 30-ish dolls)! Their shelves currently are positioned so that no direct sunlight falls on them, but they're not hidden away in shadows, either. I don't handle them with gloves, either (except during faceups/blushing), though I'll typically wash my hands to make sure nothing extra's coming along to get on them.

What are some things to help prevent yellowing? Do you really mind it?
Considering that a major component of yellowing is oxygen, there's not a lot you can do against that. Not setting the dolls in direct light for extended periods will be your best bet. Coating in a UV-cut sealant (or buying a UV protected doll) can certainly help, too, but those sorts of sealants are harder to get my hands on than what I generally use, and in the case of the first doll I mentioned, there was really a very minimal difference between head (sealed with MSC UV-Cut back in 2008) and body (never sealed at all) once I was done cleaning her. I don't mind any of the "care," because there's really not that much to it, all things considered, though as I said before, I'm definitely pretty laid back and just interested in enjoying my dolls, not worrying over them.

 

Yes, there are many, many threads on this topic -- and threads that start out on other topics often wind up being about yellowing, one way or another. If you'd like to see a few of those previous discussions, try these:

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...l-quot-or-does-it-constitute-quot-Damage-quot
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php/202088-a-bjd-s-lifespan
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php/405992-Resin-yellowing-Paranoia!
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...lowing-prevent-you-from-buying-your-Dream-BJD
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...-their-worth-How-quot-old-quot-are-YOUR-dolls
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php/462721-where-do-all-the-old-dolls-go

There are still more threads about yellowing in Customization & Maintenance, too.

For what it's worth, I find that vinyl is much higher-maintenance than resin -- I had a Dollfie Dream for a little while, but her vinyl stained if I looked at it sideways, even worse than my 16" fashion dolls. Not everyone is bothered by this, plus DD owners often use bodysuits to minimize staining from clothes. Still, it's important to understand that there are pros and cons to both materials, and everyone's tolerance for specific quirks varies. I also prefer the weight and feel of resin, and the ways that a strung resin body moves when I handle it; by comparison (and this is just me!) DDs feel flimsy to me, and I'm always worried that I'll break some internal joint if I'm not super-careful.

What vicemage said about dirt vs. actual yellowing is absolutely the same as my experience. I like the way good resin "mellows" with time -- the only doll I have who's YEEEEEEELLLLOW is a 2003 French-resin Souldoll Gunun, and I figure he's earned his color anyway.

 

Like Cynthia mentioned, there's a metric ton of yellowing threads already, but since we're here...

How fast have your dolls yellowed?

The yellowing process really wasn't that fast, truth be told -- I keep my dolls packed up out of the light most of the time, so there's that caveat, but eight(!!!) years on and all of them have 'mellowed' rather than 'yellowed'. On the NS and homme-skin dolls it's not all that noticeable; on my Lu-wen it's obvious, but he was paper-white when I got him so that's really no surprise. My Afghan has mellowed out too, but she came to me that way and she's lovely. (One of my dolls is a special case, so I'm not including him in this.) One of my Elfdolls has a noticeably more yellow head than body -- he was sitting on the shelf a long time before I got him -- but he's been blushed to match the body so you can't actually tell.

Do you consider resin to be very high-maintenance?

Not in the least. I find resin to be lower-maintenance than vinyl because stains are easier to remove and in general they're easier to screw around with. Resin really isn't as delicate as a lot of people think; sure, you don't want to treat them roughly, but neither do you need to treat them like they're made of spun glass. I keep mine packed up most of the time, but that's because I literally have nowhere to display them right now. I hope that'll change soon enough.

What are some things to help prevent yellowing?

Like vicemage said, one of the biggest factors in yellowing is exposure to oxygen and that's not precisely a thing you can stop. There are ways to slow down yellowing, but nothing will truly prevent it; it's like the patina on copper, in a way. It's just a natural property of the material itself. The number one way to slow it down is to keep your doll out of strong, direct light. I am not a fan of sealing the entire doll, not even with UV-cut, because I find that to be way too much maintenance for me (I am fundamentally lazy); sealant will chip and wear away at the joints in time, and it gets dirty a lot faster than resin itself does.

Do you really mind it?

Nah. I think it gives a doll character, so long as it's not really heavy uneven yellowing that's obviously the result of poor care. All of my dolls -- with that one exception -- have just mellowed out to a nice tone that isn't in the least unpleasant. (The one exception actually went somewhat green; he's definitely not the norm, though, so you probably don't have to worry about that. And at any rate, I actually LIKE the greenish tone. We play it up in his wardrobe rather than trying to hide it.)

 

My Xavier has gone beyond yellow to slightly green. We see it as a badge of honor for how long we've been together.

Some of it depends on the brand, I have a pair of snowskin white who don't look yellowed at all, a different brand pair who have been mostly in their boxes and have yellowed quite a bit.

 

No worries, OP... Yellowing is one of those perpetual topics of conversation that we all tend to wonder about at some point.

As everyone else has said, there are a lot of things that can influence when and how much a doll's color is likely to change. Exposure to light, heat and air are definitely a part of it, but the type and formulation of the resin itself is just as important. French resin, for instance, is typically going to change faster than the ordinary, opaque stuff. White resin Cerberus Project dolls from certain periods are apt to turn green rather than ivory. Some tan resin formulas have "gone green" as well, while others just seem to lose their red undertones. Most resins seem to change fairly slowly, eventually getting to a certain point where they stop and stay a particular tone.

Given the variability between different brands and different colors and resin types, if you really want to know what you're likely to be in for with any particular combination, the best bet is to head down to the specific company's discussion threads and just ask the people there how their dolls of that type have held up. If you were to come into the MiniFee thread for example and ask how Fairylands' tans age, you'd probably get a lot of examples and pictures. If you wanted to know about "beauty greens" in the CP/Delf thread, we'd talk your proverbial ear off about it... So, don't be afraid to jump in and ask questions. Current owners are the best resource there is when it comes to questions like that.

As for resin in general... It's pretty stern stuff. Unless you're looking at a doll with very thin or unusually delicate parts (The tiny DollChateau centaur-thing's antlers, for instance-), these dolls really are tougher than people often give them credit for. They aren't soap bubbles that'll break if you handle them. They don't stain as easily as vinyl, and having seen a few older DDs (and quite a few older fashion dolls-), I do think resin ages better over-all. If you keep them away from strong, long-term light exposure, out of hot car trunks in the middle of summer and give them the occasional gentle scrub with a magic eraser and some warm, soapy water most resin dolls will look good for long time.

 

I experienced the same thing Vicemage did - I thought one of my FL dolls had turned quite yellow compared to the others, but it turned out that she just needed a Magic Eraser cleaning. My one WS Fairyland doll has mellowed to more of a soft ivory than creamy white in the not quite a year I've had her, but I honestly think it's prettier.

I also have one Dollstown girl who's about nine years old. Her resin tone doesn't match anything on their site any more (I think she was Fresh Skin, but I'm not sure,) however, she looks lovely and very even. You wouldn't know she wasn't supposed to be the color she is. She looked even better after I removed her disintegrating first faceup and found out the resin underneath was the same shade as her body. I was sure it would have been different because the heavy paint would have protected it from the sun. (She seemed to be very heavily airbrushed to me - none of my other dolls seem to have even half as much paint on their faces.)

Vinyl is even less stable, I've found. I have some older fashion dolls whose heads, limbs and torsos are all different colors now thanks to fading/aging. And staining? The worst.

 

The only resin dolls I had that really yellowed drastically were a couple of french resin ones, and one white urethane doll that yellowed unevenly (but that's because her "updated" arms were from a different batch of resin than the rest of her). Otherwise, the dolls in my crew (whether re-homed or still with me) have just "mellowed" over the years, and still look fine.

Echoing other posters' advice - keep your doll out of strong direct light (whether indoors or outdoors), as well as florescent light, and stay away from locked cars or car trunks on hot days.

The resin is pretty tough too, unless one really goes out of the way to drop it from a height (on bricks or cement, for example). I far prefer it to vinyl, which tends to have its own set of problems as it ages. Some vintage vinyl dolls have leaking plasticzier so that their vinyl appears to "weep" + they turn green if kept in contact too long with base metal earrings, or develop green or paling spots. They also stain very easily, even from colored tissue paper. There is also what is called "old plastic disease" (i.e. where a doll smells sour). This is particularly prevalent with some vintage hard plastic dolls, and is very difficult (if not impossible) to completely eradicate.

So overall, I have found resin to be superior in many ways, and far easier to customize and paint too.

 

I have a Bobobi Lan, which I purchased in 2012, that has started to yellow. I didn't notice it in my home, but I took her to a BJD convention, and in the lighting there is when I noticed it. Her feet and arms have started to yellow. I saw a video on Youtube where someone scrubbed their yellowing BJD with a mixture of toothpaste and baking soda and then let it soak in water overnight. They said it helped quite a bit. I've not tried it yet, but may consider doing so if my Lan gets much worse.

 

I wouldn't say that white resin yellows any faster than a tan or NS of the same type would generally, but looking at my own crew? It's more noticeable to me when it happens to them.

 

I don't know if they yellow faster, but white skin dolls do yellow a LOT more obviously than NS dolls. You see lots of older WS dolls that are quite yellow, but the NS dolls just become a more muted/less saturated version of their original color.

 

I have a Delf Miyu from 2010 and she's barely yellowed at all. Her skin tone is "healthy glow" in my opinion, like a person who hangs out in the sun sometimes! She IS really dirty, she's getting cleaned up this summer.

I saw a really neat tutorial on tumblr on a Volks doll from like 2007 that was very yellowed. The person took her apart and soaked her overnight in Polydent denture cleaner. She did this for a few days and it DRAMATICALLY reduced the yellowing. She added to that by doing a warm-colored face up so there wouldn't be a lot of contrast from cool colors against yellowed resin, and a warm-colored wig and dress really made her look almost brand new.

The YELLOWEST dolls I've seen are made from environmental resin and French resin. I was considering a Limhwa Half Elf in French resin and a fellow collector let me know she was truly banana yellow in less than a year. The other one I've seen get super yellow are Island Dolls. They have nice sculpts, but they use environmental resin rather than urethane resin.

 

Which DD are you thinking about getting? As for your questions:

How fast have your dolls yellowed?
I only had two that showed obvious signs of yellowing. One was bought second-hand and was already yellowing, but the other was an old Luts Minifee and he started to yellow around a year or so since I took him outside a lot.

Do you consider resin to be very high-maintenance?
Not at all. My dolls were kept in a fairly sunny room, but were always covered with a sheet or two of muslin when I wasn't playing with them.

What are some things to help prevent yellowing? Do you really mind it?
The only thing I can think of from my own experience it limiting their exposure to UV lighting. I don't really mind in they start to yellow, though, it doesn't bother me as long as they still look good.

 

Another consideration with vinyl DD dolls aside from the staining issue - unless it's a really old style Volks body, it's got a plastic skeleton instead of being strung, and in my experience with other brands of vinyl dolls, it's not really hard to break those pieces. My poor Obitsu girls can attest to that. You can buy replacement parts, however, but sometimes it takes awhile for them to come back into stock. It's not that I don't like DDs, though. I just recently got my first DD (an 04 head), so I can understand the appeal of the cute anime faces. I just learned fairly quickly with my Obitsus that I have to be MORE gentle with them them with the resin dolls. I imagine DDs are the same.

As for yellowing, I actually find I prefer the tone of most of my dolls now that they're a little older - especially the Elfdolls and Dream of Dolls. I don't find it unattractive in any way. I do have a French resin girl from 2007 who is quite yellow, but I find it doesn't really show in photos, so it doesn't bother me. My dolls are in my living room on a shelf, which is light half the day. They only get direct sunlight for about fifteen minutes a day when the sun goes down, except for my tanned girls who are hiding in a corner, away from it. I don't worry too much about it, and I figure in the case of my French resin girl, the worst of her yellowing is over. It does stop, or at least slow considerably at a certain point.

 

If dolls never yellowed, I'd be happy, but I've accepted it as part of the natural resin cycle. I'm kind of glad they're degradable, someday I'll actually look up to what extent. I'd like it to last forever but I wouldn't want it still around 10,000 years from now or anything either.

How fast have your dolls yellowed?
When I bought it 2nd hand it was already yellowed, so it's hard to say.

Do you consider resin to be very high-maintenance?
Kinda. It takes some effort to maintain, relatively speaking. I don't go the whole 9 yards that could be done so for me it's just fine.

What are some things to help prevent yellowing? Do you really mind it?
When I first found them I would've loved to put them on my windowsill. Which I never did do and will never do. I put them away from the sun when I'm not playing with them and make sure it's nice and cool. I put clothes on it so less of it is directly exposed and stuff. It does bother me, but if the alternative is putting them in a box and never playing with them I'd rather just not buy them in the first place. I think of them as toys, to be played with. Toys wear down eventually. So I enjoy them while I can while taking enough steps to make sure they're still around to play with later.

I heard someone once say an Oxyclean bath helps, I might try that out to lighten her up after I look it up to make sure its safe first.

 

Well, no one likes yellowing, but since most materials will change in some ways with time I think yellowing is acceptable and it does not really bother me. I only have one resin doll and he is less than a year old, I haven't noticed any differences. I do try to keep him out of sun light as much as possible.

 

I'm not a hardcore collector or anything, so I don't really care if they yellow. I probably won't even be able to tell .__.