#american girl doll restoration

[annies-dollies]

Doll 1: Henri Arthur

This is my first doll, he was an early edition Felicity (with the soft ginger lashes) but I’d gotten the doll second hand and the original owner had cut the hair when she was a child.

This doll was gifted to me when I was either 13 or 14 and this old friend went everywhere with me. Now, I’ve cut the hair further to a more masculine hairstyle and decided he was a boy.

He looks like me at a glance but mostly cause all redheads are deemed to look alike and I’m obviously related to every redhead on earth, so yeah I look just like him /s

But in all seriousness, being my first doll and looking similar to me, he is a mini me. But he isn’t to be the only one hopefully. He is a reflection of the vintage enthusiast part of me. I collect and restore vintage clothes at times and he wears mini versions of the vintage clothes I own.

He’s the first doll I ever operated on. I had to restring his legs only like 80 times. I had to mend a hole on his torso side opposite of the tag side. I also had to sew one of his leg sockets back in place as it had started to detach from the fabric of the torso.

He’s also the first doll I ever gave a tiny plastic heart. I started this when I first got him, after the first repair. So he’s got a red plastic heart shoved down into the cotton inside his torso that’s been there since I was a child when I first put it there.

This tradition continues and now every doll who passes into my ownership gets a little plastic heart. I thought it to be a cute little idea.

[idledoll]

I re-wigged Kit this week! She's a first edition, which means she has the common defects that Transition Era dolls tend to have. Namely, dull frizzy hair and greyish/greenish skin. I can't do much about the latter without basically getting an entirely new doll, but at least I could give her a nice new wig.

Here's her old hair. It doesn't look terrible in photos, but it definitely looks dull and fried and just plain crispy in person. It didn't have the right shape to it anymore either.

The re-wigging itself was...kinda complicated actually. The donor head Kit whose wig I took was really stuck on there. At one point, I look down and realized I'd left streaks of blood all over that Kit's face because I hadn't realized I'd scraped the fuck out of my thumb lmao. BUT with some elbow grease and the application of some hot water to loosen the glue, I finally de-wigged both girls and swapped the wigs.

Here's Kit with her new hair! Her last wig was so dull, I keep thinking she looks wrong because I'm not used to her new hair color yet. There are some flyaways I'll take care of eventually but even with that she looks so much better -- she has an actual bob again!

[themildlyanxiousmage]

Hey American girl doll Tumblr, I need some help please!

I recently got a tlc Kit doll for a really good price. She wasn't in too bad of shape, besides a slight hair trim (which I kind of like because it's closer to book art length) and a few small orange stains (2 on face, one on hand). My issue is that I've tried the acne cream trick on her almost constantly for a couple weeks now, and there's been no change on the orange stains. At this point, I'm a bit worried about accidentally inducing silver eye from the heat. Is there anything else people recommend trying for stain removal? Should I keep trying a bit longer, or should I just try to find a matching paint color and apply super small amounts of super diluted paint in thin layers to conceal it?

I don't like the idea of sending her in for repairs because I don't like the idea of swapping out her head. I would rather her just be stained lol

Thanks!

[viddywelldolly]

Here are the stains on Kirsten's hand, I tried pure acetone and it did nothing. I'm thinking acne cream will work? I've heard that it works for stain removal on vinyl dolls, but I've never tried it myself. What do you guys think I should do?

[dearest-darlingest-dolliest]

Thanks to @desertdollranch for recommending braid spray to maintain doll hair! I gave it a go on my new-to-me Elizabeth, whose hair is… not the worst I’ve ever seen? But definitely dry and frizzy overall.

Here’s the before:

And after:

She’s definitely still got some frizz and flyaways, but it looks and feels much better! I may still do a hot water dunk with her, but I’m hoping to avoid it because I know I’ll never be able to exactly recreate her hair’s shape and texture—I think even the largest rollers will make it a little too thoroughly wavy.

However, the REAL saving grace of the braid spray came with my older PC dolls. My oldest is a 1991 Samantha who came to me in PRISTINE condition; seriously, it looked like her hair had never been touched. BUT it felt pretty dry, I think just from age and storage. I’ve been pretty afraid to brush it, tbh.

Here’s Sam’s before:

And after:

I’m not even sure that you can see much of a difference, because her hair did look great before. But it FEELS so much softer, smoother, and more manageable now—and the same goes for my mid-90s Felicity, who also had a case of drying hair.

I used this braid spray that I got on Amazon. Worked great for my dolls, and I found it to have a subtle and pleasant scent. Love it!

[sailor-rose-princess]

So for my last step in my Samantha refurbishing journey, I made her an outfit. I made the dress, bloomers, bow, and stockings, and I had a pair of Mary Jane's sitting around that she could use. I hope her dress looks time period appropriate enough, I mostly looked at pictures of her dress to get a general idea of what to make, but really, I just kinda winged it. She sure looks cute, especially with her hair all done up! Her new hair may be longer than her actual hair is supposed to be, but I love it this way, such pretty long curls. I still hope I can get her meet dress, but I'm in love with this outfit for her.

Anyways, here's a before and after on my Kami! I'm so glad I was able to make her look brand new, it's like getting a piece of my childhood back. I've had her since I was 10 in 2005, so she's my 2000's girl OC. I cleaned her up, tightened her limbs, and not only replaced her hair, but also did an eye swap since her old eyes had eyelash retraction. That was an ordeal, at one point I got frustrated and texted my doll friend "EYE SWAPPING SUCKS ASS!" but I pulled though and got the hang of it. Lol, the issue was I didn't warm the vinyl hot enough, but once I figured out the issue, then it was a breeze. So pretty! I just need to do the acne cream treatment to get rid of the pink stains on her cheek, but otherwise she's practically brand new! I can't wait to have adventures with the both of them.

[ccbytheseashore]

I found this darling 2002 Kit doll on Mercari, but she had a some challenges: her legs were practically falling off when I received her and her arms were stained from an outfit she had been stored in.

First, I removed her limbs and cleaned her thoroughly. I discovered that her previous owner had attempted to tighten her limbs with hair ties, which was a fun surprise! I restrung her legs and set to work on her arm stains.

I tried cleaning the arms first, but the grey stains remained. I then attempted benzoyl peroxide in the sun, but it was very slow progress and I am impatient. I finally built a UV light box, wrapped the arms in peroxide, and left them overnight. Voila! No more weird, grey stains! Plus, now I have a light box for other restoration projects!

[mydollsaregay]

i have a doll restoration question!

i have been unsuccessfully trying to remove an ink/marker stain from an American girl doll with benzoyl peroxide and uv light, and I can’t tell what I’m doing wrong, as I’ve never done this before.

the only thing i can think of is that the acne cream might need to be heated as well as lit, and my setup doesn’t do that (but I really pulled that idea out of thin air). I’ve been covering the acne cream with plastic wrap to keep it wet, so that’s not the issue.

is there something else I’m missing??? please help! I don’t want to keep blasting her with uv light and having nothing change lol

[lovedrac]

🦢 Restoring Kaya, Pt. 2 🦢

Here she is, all cleaned up and (mostly, kinda) repaired! ☺️

I used a Magic Eraser to clean off all the dust on her body. I also used shampoo/conditioner in her hair to clean it out- and BOY, did it need it, it had plumes of dust literally coming out when I was tying it back 🥲 I also used some buffer sheets I had bought on Amazon to repair her scratches and scuffs, it was about $6 before shipping.

Repair notes under the cut!

First of all, unless you’ve got some time, I HIGHLY recommend NOT taking Kaya’s braids out unless you have a situation like mine. Kaya had been sitting in storage for about 10 years; I knew she was very dirty and needed the clean. But BOY was her hair hard to wrestle with! It looks good in the photos, but that was after about an hour of brushing and washing. Be very careful and make sure to brush bottom to top.

(She looks so cute in this photo though!!)

First time without braids ever!!! It looked pretty but it was a mess waiting to happen 🥲 The moment I started combing it became a frizzy, knotted mess.

Second, unfortunately I’ll need to still work on her because I buffed a bit too hard on her cheek and now she’s missing her face paint (seen above). Something I was worried about and unfortunately it came true 😭 I’ll have to repaint her cheek carefully. If you use buffer sheets, use them as gentle as possible. I used multiple different grains of buffer sheets and didn’t press hard but still ended up making her slightly shiny and rubbing paint off. I’ll come back to this.

But otherwise, I am glad she’s clean and her hair came out pretty good too! This took about 2 1/2 hours to do. I also am relieved those large scuffs on her calf and arm came out easily with the Magic Eraser. I’m going to take her braids out so her hair can relax; it’s obvious it needs it.

[autistickirstenlarson]

Washing Kirsten’s hair restoration— the process

[annies-dollies]

Update:

I changed the name of my first doll (again) I didn’t feel like Henri really fit so now his name is Arthur

[idledoll]

I recently added Ruthie to my collection so that my first AG doll, Kit, could have her best friend with her like Samantha, Molly, and Felicity already do.

She definitely needed some TLC though.

It took the better part of an afternoon to get her cleaned up (and I'm still not quite done...it looks as though someone spattered paint on her at some point, so I'm trying to decide on the best way to try and remove it) and to restore her hair. Luckily, though it was a mess, her hair still retained all of its curl patterns, so all I had to do was work through the many tangles, calm the flyaways, and twist the curls back into place when I was done.

I'm pretty happy with the way she turned out! And Kit is happy to have her best friend with her.

[thelonesomediaries]

Some bonus photos I took during Tags’ spa day. She’s got that newer rock hard vinyl that could knock someone out so I had to dip her limbs in boiling water to soften them to get the parts out/in. While her cloth body washed and dried I read regional Night Before Christmas books. I highly recommend the Cajun one.

[the-tallest01]

How I Restored my AG doll Lindseys Matted Wig :D

So if you’re my mutual and don’t care ab AG dolls, carry on. I’m mainly posting this to document my own experience restoring Lindsey ✨

Anyway, I recently got a Lindsey doll that had the original box, and tags, and the only damage was her wig and loose limbs. So I really lucked out, I payed about 100$ for her. (She had her original meet outfit and barrette!)

I’m just going to show y’all how i fixed her wig first :)

This was her wig before, it was very matted, frizzy and I couldn't even get my fingers to run through it.

For about two hours, I sat down and combed her hair layer by layer with a mix of 1cup water, and 1 tablespoon fabric softener. Then I curled it with my fingers and let air dry with pins. I also did a small snip of some ends that were too far gone.

it looks SOOOO much better now and is perfectly soft. All I have to do next to fully restore her is tighten her limbs, and re-do the flocking on her shoes. (Which are notorious for flaking.)

She will be for display only lol

[dearest-darlingest-dolliest]

Restoring pin curls is no joke.

I was thrilled to discover that my new-to-me Elizabeth still has hers—they were completely invisible in the listing photo, which you can see here.

But once I set to work brushing through her tangled mass of hair, I found them hiding right at the front. They were quite frizzy and a little stretched out, though. Not very springy. I did my best to clean them up at first just by dampening my fingers and running them over each curl.

Here’s the result of that:

Lots of flyaway hairs, particularly around the end of each curl.

So, I set out to use the pin curl restoration method I found from Dandridge House Dolls: wrapping each pin curl around a wooden dowel and then smoothing over it with a toothbrush dipped in boiling water. I think my dowel was the wrong size, though, because I wasn’t getting good results here.

So, I tried something new. I rolled each pin curl around my pointer finger until it was rolled up in a little circle, then used a bobby pin to hold it in place. Next, I placed Elizabeth’s head over the sink and caaaaaarefully poured boiled water over each rolled-up pin curl. I would pour for about five seconds, then let it cool for five seconds, then pour again, and repeated this about four times. After that, I let the pin curls dry in the bobby pins.

And here she is! Definitely looking better. I feel like the pictures don’t entirely capture just how frizzy her curls looked before, but trust me, in person, they look sooo much smoother and neater now. (I took the before pictures at night and the after picture first thing in the morning, so the difference in lighting may partially account for that.)

However, the shape of a couple of the curls is a little wonky. The bobby pin method obviously opens up more room for error in that arena. I wonder if there’s any way to secure her pin curls around a smaller dowel, and then pour? I do like the pouring method and found it was easier to work with than the toothbrush, but I can see how dowels would give a more consistently round shape.

For now, though, I’m content with her pin curls :) Still, always open for more tips/ideas for future hair improvement!

[sailor-rose-princess]

Progress on my Sam is coming along great. I hope the wig I got for her isn't too dark, I knew her hair was darker than Kami, but some versions of her have the same color hair (for reference, Kami is a #13 doll). And her hair is WAAAAAY longer than actual Sam's, but honestly, I like it better that way, it'll look so pretty when I'm able to get her real outfits (maybe in the meantime I'll make something). But I fixed her up completely, cleaned her vinyl, tightened her limbs, painted on her eyebrows, and gave her a new wig, and she looks like a whole new doll, I love her so much, I always wanted a Samantha. Man, this was hard work though, I had to restring her neck as her neck strings were cut, and that was so hard, and the string I bought at Walmart was too thick! But I'm happy how she turned out. Right now I'm waiting for Kami's eyes to arrive in the mail, but I'll fix her up too (I got her wig the same store I got Samantha's). Thanks again for @superior-dolls for gifting me Samantha, she turned out amazing, especially for the first complete restoration I ever did.