Angela's Dolly Care Corner - Rerooting Tips #1

Hello again and welcome back to the blog - I've got some new tips and tricks for you with rerooting Barbie dolls specifically. Rerooting can be a wonderful thing when it turns out well, you can take an old friend from frizzy, dry, chopped off, etc. hair to a new head of luscious soft locks ready to be styled. Or just give her a color change if you think she'd look better brunette than blonde. You can also simply add highlights to an already existing color. 

Rerooting gives your hair customization new levels with Barbie and other dolls. Sure, applying a wig might be less work, but the satisfaction of putting your doll back together post-reroot and seeing her new look all put together is worth every second of the work it takes to do it.

Here are a few helpful hints and tips I've come upon over the course of about a dozen reroots, all compiled in one place. 

• Keep FabriTac fabric glue on hand, this will be your savior both for locking the new hair in place so that it doesn't pull out of the head and for patching holes in the vinyl if you find yourself in that sort of pickle.
  
• If you do rip the vinyl, it is what it is. You can go ahead and squeeze some fabriTac into the ripped spot and let it dry, it'll still be flexible and rubbery once dry so that you can poke your needle through and continue rooting afterward!
  
• If your rooting tool isn't going through the hole properly, try taking the hair off the needle and poking the needle by itself into the vinyl before trying to put hair in place. Otherwise, you can try either a thinner needle or a bit less hair per plug if the issue persists when you try to add hair again.
  
• You can also try a thicker needle without hair to widen the holes slightly, just be super careful of this in the part line and hair line where the holes are extra close together.
• Try your first root on a head you don't mind losing. Like the fifty-seventh Millie left over from body swapping. If it works, you can always repaint her face and keep her as your first reroot. Otherwise, you haven't lost a head you cared about if you decide it's not working or accidentally rip the vinyl further than a FabriTac patch can fix.
  
• A cheap pair of long nose/needle nose pliers or a pair of thin tweezers will be your best friend for removing the old hair. Don't use a scissor blade, it works well but it tears up the vinyl at the base of the head somewhat.
  
• Also! If you're going to repaint the face, reroot first unless you have intention of applying a sealant. Seal it and make sure the sealant is DRY before you start rooting...acrylics can and do stain vinyl if not sealed before you start messing with the head.
  
• Do you a favor and put the doll head first into a plastic ziploc, then dunk that in hot water before you try to pull the head off...it's a pain when you break the body by mistake while trying to take the head off, trust!
  
• You can repeat heating the head as you reroot, Barbies have soft vinyl heads but other dolls like Rainbow High, Bratz, LOL OMG all have harder heads. You will only hurt yourself trying to reroot these without softening the vinyl
• Keep a spray bottle of water on hand. When the loose hair is getting hard to separate, spritz it. Rooting wet hair is so much easier than rooting it dry.
• Don't hesitate to keep a couple small clips or hair ties on hand, when the hair you've already rooted in is getting out of hand you can tie it out of the way with a hair tie and keep going.
• Don't worry if it's not laying flat when you're done with the reroot. Boil up some water and do a basic boil dip on it, it'll lay nicer afterward. I promise.
• Make sure the hair is positioned just about how you want it before you boil though, because it will stay where it is after a boil and restyling how it lays will take another boil to set it all over again. Use a wide rubberband, a small sock or something else with elastic to hold the hair down if it won't stay where you want it to be when you boil dip.
• Don't use straight heat on the rerooted hair for styling if you're using saran, Kanekalon etc. --High quality nylons are the only ones that can take straight heat styling.

I might add more when I think of them, these are just lessons I've learned the hard way during reroots so you don't have to!

Angela's Tangents - What Type of Doll?

Hey everybody, long time no see! Angela here, with another one of my tangents...this one has to do with my fellow doll collectors. Most of the community is kind and welcoming, willing to share their knowledge of doll care or help another collector find a doll they want, full of joy for another collector regardless of the type of doll they prefer.
But lately, I've noticed certain sections of the community have taken it upon themselves to hold a lot of attitude toward anyone who doesn't know or doesn't like the same dolls they do and it's a little bit upsetting.
Dolls are supposed to be fun, not a bone of contention between collectors. So here's the tea on the whole mess:

This blog embraces all types of dolls and collectors. Everything from Polly Pocket and LOL Surprise dolls to Chatty Cathy and vintage porcelain dolls. If you have questions, I will gladly help educate you or point you to someone who can help. If you want to share your collection, I'll gladly take a look or have a chat. I'm not going to judge you for liking a certain kind of doll or not liking one of the dolls I collect. It is what it is and I want to share the fun of my hobby with other collectors even if our collections differ.

If you spot someone who doesn't know what you know about a certain type of doll, try to educate instead of attack. You just might bring another fan to the fold instead of chasing them away from the world of your favorite dolls.

-Angela

Angela's Dolly Care Corner - Identifying Barbie Dolls

Hello, everyone! So, we've noticed lately that a lot of people have been having trouble identifying their secondhand dolls, especially if the dolls aren't wearing their stock outfits or have had their hair cut in the process.
So...I'm going to give you some helpful tips and resources to make your dolly identification challenges a little bit easier.

First, Kattis Dolls -- Her website gives a catalog of body and face molds, and while she doesn't list every doll that uses each mold, she lists quite a few -- if she doesn't have your doll listed, but you can figure out the face mold and body type, you'll know roughly which time period your doll is from. That gives you 3 important keywords to use in your Google searches.

The next resource I have for you is this one - A Thousand Splendid Dolls -- Shelley and Colleen have a Flickr guide. If you know the time period your Barbie is from (or anything about the brand your other 12 inch Fashion dolls are), you can find the corresponding album and potentially with a little searching, your doll. Shelley has everything from the face mold to the head and body dates, box date, country make etc. for each doll on her guide, it'll not only tell you the line and character name but what her original clothes/accessories are and other such details.

For your more vintage Barbies, 60s-70s and Japanese Takara Barbie type of dolls - Doll Reference has your back, giving you release years and identification for each of the earliest Barbie dolls, including Skipper and friends, Ken, friends and family dolls etc.

If all else fails you and you still don't know who your doll is, grab whatever key facts you've learned (body type, facial sculpt, sculpt release years), add in features like eye color, hair color, skin tone, anything special like makeup colors, earrings and the like, and especially gimmicks like differences in the body, color changing hair and makeup, molded bodices/clothing, things of that nature --And head over to Google. You'd be surprised what the right set of keywords will do toward identifying a doll.

Hint: Once she's identified, take a photo and toss it into a Word document or something with the doll's identification so you don't lose track of who she is again.
I personally like to make an Instagram post where I identify the doll in the description to help me keep track. I can always scroll back and find her picture to figure out who she was. But if you need something more tangible, that's definitely fine too!

In a pinch, if nothing else is working, you can feel free to drop me a line here at the blog or through Instagram DMs with a photo of your doll - I'll do the best I can to find her for you!

A Very Dolly Christmas

Welcome back to our blog!

With Christmas up and coming shortly, we'll be bringing out our Christmas setup for the dolls and showing you some of the cool things we make and find to set the scene!

For starters, Dawna's Christmas sweater! 

Her new sweater was an ornament we found at Target for three dollars and it fits her perfectly! She loves the Flamingo!

-☆-

Hey all, it's Dawna here! My new sweater is so warm and cozy. Not usually my style, being from Hawaii and all. But I love it anyway. And my friends all find it amusing to watch me wear it.

Love and all, ka Meli (my friend)

Dawna Hokulani