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!
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