Making Ponies Pretty

Recently, I’ve been getting lots of My Little Ponies from Goodwill auctions. They’re not some magical, untapped goldmine of cheap ponies, but they are (at least for now) free from the outrageous starting and But It Now prices I see on eBay.

I’ve gotten quite a few ponies in terrible shape, and a good handful in excellent condition – underneath the dirt. They’re always SO dirty that it’s usually hard to assess their condition until I get my hands on them. Here is such a pony, Posey, in her original state:

You can see on the first photo that the first few plugs of her hair were cut, but the rest were intact.  These cut ones needed to be replaced. First, I trimmed them as short as I could using scissors, and then used a reroot tool to poke them back down inside the head. Then I used my long needle nose pliers to grab the small pieces of hair and pull them out of the head.

After I washed her with Dawn dish soap and used a Magic Eraser to remove the stubborn marks on her body, she was ready to be repinked! I used “Petal Pink” Rit liquid dye, and use 1/4 teaspoon to 1.5 cups of boiling water. For the tail and most of the mane, I just do a quick dunk with the hair already wet and combed through to make sure it gets applied evenly. Then I quickly rinse with cold water. For the hair closer to the body, I paint on the dye with a paint brush. The hair picks up the dye immediately, but the body would have to have a few seconds of contact to change color, so I make sure to quickly rinse or wipe away any dye that touches the vinyl body.

This will never *exactly* match the original hair color, which is just a bit warmer. I might experiment with blending Petal Pink with an orange shade, but I haven’t yet. It’s still pretty close. 🙂

Next, I just had to reroot the plugs on her mane that I had removed. I used Dollyhair‘s “Pussycat” color, which is supposed to be the actual pink hair originally used by Hasbro. I assume this means it also fades easily, so be careful! This was my first time trying to match repinked hair with the original “fading” pink, but I think it turned out pretty close! Next, I just had to style her hair and touch up her symbols. I’m not the best painter, but I’m getting better. Here’s the end result:

I got this “wreath” off my local Buy Nothing group. I couldn’t tell much from the original photo, other than there were two G1s, a lot of G3s, and one G2. I’m glad it went to a good home!

Once I received it, I realized there were actually three G1s, and I got right to cleaning them up! The ponies were all attached to a particle board wreath form with a combination of hot glue, fishing line, and (unfortunately) screws. Wild Flower was the only G1 who got  damaged by a screw. Here is her before-and after:

As you can see, she had chunks of hot glue stuck in her hair, which is something I have never removed from a pony before. It turns out that saturating the hot glue in isopropyl alcohol made it dry and brittle, and I was able to pick it apart with my nails. It wasn’t hard, but it was tedious. Her hair was messy, but actually in decent shape once I got all the glue out. Her hair ended up covering her “wound” quite nicely so she still displays well.

Next up was Little Tabby:

She was also in pretty decent shape, once I got the hot glue out. Her factory curl in her mane was mostly gone, so I set her hair in curlers (i.e. straws).

Last and kinda least, we have Baby Frosting. Honestly, BBE ponies creep me out but I’d never deny a good home to a G1 pony! ?

She was just filled with rust. Rusty eyes, rusty tail. I like to use Barkeeper’s Friend and a toothbrush for rust in any part of a pony, and it did the job really well in both the hair and the eyes.

There are still quite a few ponies from this wreath who still need to be cleaned up, and I’ll post about them soon!

This year’s fair in Nashville, TN (where I was afraid there was going to be nothing but guns, churches, and barbecued pork) was my first! And I got a great haul.

My main goal was to either complete or get close to completing some of my favorite sets, and I did really well! I also may have spent all of the money, but whatever, I am an adult who makes decent money, and I am allowed to do that. Here are some lovely pictures!

I also went to an amazing restaurant in Nashville called Wild Cow. And if you’re ever in the area, you should too!

Just to be clear, I am not restoring this FF Butterscotch with any hope that someone else wants her. I just feel terribly bad for what some egocentric marker-wielding child named named Shannon S did to her. If I remember correctly, she came from an eBay bait lot; I’m such a sucker for those. They are the pony equivalent of a three-legged dog at the pound. I STILL LOVE YOU, PONIES.

In the photos below, you can see that poor, poor FF Butterscotch is missing her tail, part of her right brow, part of her front left foot, has a big mold spot, green paint on her symbol, and (of course) a haircut. Also, just general filth. What the picture doesn’t show is that someone (Shannon S?) added glue to the brow and foot injuries, so there was all this gooey residue on those areas as well.

First, the requisite good ol’-fashioned OxiClean bath. Next, I used tornadoe’s needle technique but with bleach instead of acetone in an attempt to get rid of her mold. Then she went in an H₂O₂ bath for a couple days in the sun. I know some people are scared of putting non-white ponies in the sun in peroxide, but Jesus, she probably couldn’t get much worse. I did use nail polish remover to clean what appeared to be green nail polish off her symbol. I didn’t have to rub hard and it didn’t seem to disrupt the symbol too much, but I knew I was going to have to touch it up later anyway.

After a couple days in the sunny peroxide, she looks much better! The marker is much lighter but still very apparent, so I am sunfading her now. The mold is gone now, but I don’t know which toxic chemical I have to thank for that – probably a combination.

Results to come soon!

When I first started collecting ponies, I didn’t really know proper restoration techniques. I also was a teenager, and I didn’t really have the funds or time to invest in a project like this (too busy buying soda and weed). Occasionally I would treat myself to a nice eBay pony, but mostly my nice ponies were either mine from childhood, or a surprise from an eBay lot or a thrift store.

Speaking of thrift stores and eBay lots, I ended up with a lot of ponies in bad shape. The best I could do was a surface clean, and some shampoo and conditioner. Sweet Pocket was one of these. If I recall, Sweet Pocket came from Value Village, in one of those bags that contains random other “girl” toys. Her hair and flower pocket are supposed to be pink, but the former was white and the latter was orange (and broken). And the frizz. So. Much. Hair. Frizz. But at the time, I just let it be.

But now I am all grown up, with disposable income. And Dollyhair exists now. If worse came to worse, I could just rehair her.  So in an attempt to fix her hair, I tried two off-limits procedures. First, I shampooed and conditioned her hair well. I like to use cheap conditioner, because a hair stylist acquaintance of mine told me cheaper conditioners are pretty much just wax. Not great for people hair, but probably really effective for nylon hair! Especially if I was going to use heat. I let her hair dry, and then began The Procedure.

I separated her hair into  very thin sections, maybe the width of a piece of dry angel hair spaghetti. I pinched it between my thumbnail and the side of my index finger, and ran my fingernail along the length of the hair, kind of stretching it as I went. I was inspired by bebedasha’s tutorial on straightening princess tinsel. Then, with my hair straightener on the very lowest setting, I grasped the chunk of hair very tightly and pulled. While the hair was still hot, I ran my fingernail over it again. And repeated a bunch of times, until it was straight to my satisfaction. Just to be clear, this should have absolutely, definitely burnt my fingers. That plastic hair gets pretty damn hot. Fortunately, my fingers are weirdly impervious to heat – which comes in handy when I need to do this, or reach into a hot pan of oil. So wear your Ove Glove (which I am sure you totally bought from its late-night infomercial) or use tweezers like bebedasha did.

Stay tuned for repinking Sweet Pocket’s hair, styling it, and symbol repair!

Cha Cha is certainly not my first restoration, but she is the first completed after I decided to start documenting them. She is from the Prom Queen Sweetheart Sister Ponies collection. She was really just mussed and dirty, so she looks great now. Her earring was always missing, but one day I will figure out the best way to fashion a replacement! I soaked her in an Oxiclean bath and scrubbed her with a soft toothbrush. I washed her hair with shampoo and conditioner, and after rinsing in very hot water, set her in curlers – drinking straws for her mane ringlets and a pen for her tail. Pretty easy, but I think she looks great!