#glue head

[imreadydollparts]

More Mattel Head Glue Mess.

So this was posted on X:

And it caused a lot of collectors/enthusiasts to be kind of mean to OP for trusting a tutorial by a well-known doll rehabber (keep in mind, well known doesn't mean they know what they're doing...) and trying that person's glue head removal method of saturating the hair in WD-40 then washing it, causing the hair to all fall out.

They were also saying she should have used L.A.'s Totally Awesome, because we all know that works well and is generally safe. Generally.

At first I was sure that the problem wasn't the oil because oil does degrade plastics, yes, but not THAT fast. I figured the glue being removed made the hair fall out in that removing the glue removes the hairs' anchor inside the head.

I thought this doll had Saran and tried WD-40 on a Barbie because I can't assume I know exactly what happened without having tried this method, but Barbie's hair was fine. WD-40 is very fast at removing the head glue (but difficult to wash out again, just like Goo Gone in our hard water), but still not recommended due to the way oils degrade plastics.

Then @oak23 told me this doll does NOT have Saran hair, she has a special hair fiber meant to hold a shape without heat.

That changes things!

So I ordered one of the same doll on eBay to test on and she got here yesterday.

Her hair is already breaking around the scalp and the hair texture looked weird, there.

That got me thinking the head glue is what's destroying the hair fiber, not the removal method, in this case, oil. That supports my earlier theory that applying oil didn't instantly destroy the hair.

I gave her a quick wash because she was dirty, chopped off some of her hair right up by the scalp so there was gluey and not-gluey hair, and soaked samples in T.A. and WD-40 for two hours.

I can't record while I'm working but after that 2 hour period I pulled the samples out, held it in both hands, and yanked on them hard.

I also yanked on the hair still attached to the head, which did not break any more than it had when I had combed it.

The WD-40 hair, when yanked, did not break. When I pulled specifically at the ends that had glue, though, just that area disintegrated!

The Totally Awesome soaked hair had the same results when yanked.

However, the hair broke apart even more at the glue end than the sample treated with WD-40!

This tells me that the head glue is what caused the hair to destabilize either by changing it's composition in some way or by integrating with the hair, and regardless of the glue removal method, once the glue was dissolved, the affected hair fell apart.

Link back to the post full of links to the other post about this issue:

[firespirited]

hey!! I have a question about removing glue with cif cream, is it normal that the glue just turns white and "dries up" after soaking? Or should it be completely dissolved? The smell of cif lingers from the inside of the head, and general the whole head has cif smell after a few months:( is it normal?

Hi, the phenoxyethenol in cif and other power cleaners doesn't dissolve the glue, it transforms it from sticky waxy yellow to a harder white substance that can be scraped + tapped out of the head or left there (because it doesn't leech out anymore).

It's more of a glue neutraliser/stabilisation process than glue removal per se.

Which is why more glue is removed if the doll has more fluid glue that then turns into tiny white flakes.

Before I found the less scented Cif product contained the phenoxyethenol, I was using a floor cleaner with a really strong orange blossom smell and left the dolls outside for a week so the smell would wear off.

If you are in the EU or Canada there are websites that disclose the ingredients on household cleaners, if you find one that's unscented and has "non ionic surfectants" marked on the front in small print, you can see if the product contains a variant of ethoxylated alcohol which seems to be the key chemical in Totally Awesome cleaner (US only - See Tiffy's experiments at @imreadydollparts)

👍💜

[littlefluffbutt]

Soaked for a week in LA's Totally Awesome and then the couple stubborn spots hit with Goo Gone and Clawdeen's hair is FINALLY glue free!! She was not the worst case of glue head I've seen but by God hers was the most stubborn.

Worth it!!

[kingkrabby]

Mmm, tea.

[nenoname]

stan getting a new fancier tank just for ford's weird sometimes invisible frilly lizard, and i love the idea that he's oblivious that he ended up getting an entire afterlife renovated

also the idea that the axolotl took the lobster mabel got when stuck on a gideon date to the fancy™️ tank....would that count as killing it.

[dailyhmsw]

loop 282

[etherealdaydreamss]

she’ll always have her girls

[deklo]

Fan art I drew of declan dying in a glue trap

[kitmarlowe]

[anirandums]

View-Monster? I hardly know ‘er

(References and blueprint thingies below cut)

[imreadydollparts]

I got an ask about commissioning me to deglue some doll heads and I don't do that for people.

It's a pain in the butt and I don't want to.

And, while I will say "I figured out the solution to Mattel's head glue", it was truly a collaborative effort.

@dolldirt mentioned using a floor cleaner and it worked, but he's not in the US and that floor cleaner didn't exist, here.

I decided screw it, I'll try this multi-purpose cleanser I COULD get called L.A.'s Totally Awesome and it worked (no others did)! So that's what I've been recommending to people, though it's a long, slow process and not very fun.

@firespirited did some research on the ingredients in the floor cleaner and Totally Awesome, found they both share ethoxylated alcohol (at least, I think that's what it was), did more research and found the same ingredient in CIF Cream cleanser (sometimes JIF, depending on region), but CIF also wasn't available in the states so I kept recommending Totally Awesome.

Scrub Daddy acquired CIF not too long ago, and now CIF is available here.

Where Totally Awesome can take a few days of soaking to get rid of the glue, CIF works really fast when applied like shampoo. However, that does only clean the hair on the outside of the head and not the glue inside the head whereas soaking in Totally Awesome will get the glue inside the head, too, so it would need to be redone now and then.

Regardless, it's great to have another option that works to remove the glue instead of just covering it up and hopefully it'll become even more readily available over time.

[firespirited]

Frankie Stein Scaris + Cif glue treatment after 12h

The loose chunks have come out. There are areas where the glue remains yellow, especially the glue that was against the inner neck that I pulled up for the photo. This is why you'll want to squish and scrape: it breaks up glue patches and pulls them apart so glue can get everywhere. I use a flat head screwdriver or blunt scissors or the hemostats, using anything hooked can pull hair out.

[falling-mist]

In honor of Hollow Knight’s 7th anniversary heres a little paper quilled ghost i made as well as my hollownest inspired shawl!

[colorful-horses]

Pony reroot

[iatetheglue]

gasmask that like

filters out negativity in the air?

I like to imagine Dream is very fragile from being in stone so even when just being in an au with a lot of negativity damages him

I don't know what I'm doing lolol

Positivity gasmask

[carpetbug]

fanart I drew of multimouse dying in a glue trap

inspired by x