I've heard that having a doll coated helps to protect against yellowing. But there are rumbles about coating wearing off. What's your experience and preference?
If I'm body blushing, I do seal them, but if I'm not body blushing, I don't bother. It can be frustrating because it does help prevent yellowing (if it's UV-cut sealant) and it keep the body from looking too shiny or plasticky, but it definitely does chip, scrape or collect dirt and stains easier. If you like handling your dolls or changing their clothes often, be prepared to need to redo the sealant every so often. It's really just a preference of which things are most important to you. I like light body blushing on my dolls for a little more realism, so I just redo the sealant as needed. It's really only huge pain with the heavily tattooed, scarred, freckled or otherwise marked up dolls.
I always do at least one coat on the body. I don’t want clothing or something like that to stain them. yes you’ll have to redo occasionally but if it’ll give you piece of mind then it’s worth it
I always coat with a UV-cut sealant. Even the dolls without body-blushing. So far, it really seems to prevent yellowing a great deal. I'm usually too nervous to handle uncoated dolls because of possible permanent staining -- I'm quite messy, distracted person. The only disadvantage is, the coating needs to be re-done quite frequently and it chips a lot.
The UV-cut version of MSC is to prevent the fixative from yellowing, because fixatives also yellow over time. So the one with the UV-cut added is to prevent the fixative itself from turning yellow as fast as the non-UV-cut version. I don't own any resin dolls that I haven't done body blushing on, to test the theory that the UV-cut version of MSC will also help prevent resin from turning yellow at all, but I do own one off-topic Hujoo Wings doll that's ABS and hasn't actually turn yellow (unlike Pullps, which is really weird to me, because those are also made out of ABS), and his face is looking a bit yellowish compared to the rest of his body, which doesn't have MSC on (because I was lazy, and didn't do a body blush on him). I was planning on redoing his face soon, but I haven't gotten to it yet. However, I'm pretty sure that only the MSC has yellowed, and not the actual ABS, because the rest of his body is still whiter-than-paper-white. I did use the UV-cut version of MSC for his face up, but usually I body blush all my dolls that are resin, so I kind of never noticed the MSC yellowing until I saw it on my Wings doll. He is displayed however, unlike my resin dolls, so maybe that's also why his MSC has yellowed a bit, compared to my resin dolls. It's not a striking difference, and my camera usually doesn't pick it up, but I can definitely see the subtle yellowy tint of the ten-year-old MSC, in real life compared to the rest of the plastic that doesn't have any fixative on. MSC is originally meant for painting scale models, so while some of them are made out of plastics that don't normally yellow as fast as resin, the fixative itself does yellow -- that's why they have the UV-cut formula. I don't think it actually helps prevent yellowing on the resin itself (or other plastics), but again, I've never had a chance to test out that theory. (:
