Vinyl matching

I'm trying to get to put together my first girl that I will customize (I've got four fullset DDs already at home), and I've already got her a body on order directly from Volks.

 

My question is, as I've never had to replace any parts before -- is vinyl color matching much of an issue? I know vinyl doesn't quite yellow like resin does (most of my other dolls are resin).

 

I'm wanting to get an 07 head in normal skin, but they are out of stock on the Volks site, which means I'll be looking to get one secondhand. I just want to make sure the vinyl isn't going to look terribly different from her head to her body if the head is a few years older.

My question is, as I've never had to replace any parts before -- is vinyl color matching much of an issue?

The short answer is, "Not much."

The long answer is, "That really depends on how picky you are."

 

Vinyl (or resin for that matter) of a certain color from a certain manufacturer will not always be the exact same color. Vinyl parts within a single doll can occasionally be a little different. All the parts of a doll don't necessarily come from the same batch of vinyl and two parts made years or sometimes even months apart will definitely not be from the same batch. Manufacturers try the best they can to remain consistent from batch to batch but 100% dead on color match is sometimes not possible. The materials they purchase to make a batch of vinyl can vary, something totally out of their control. Sometimes these materials will change and the formula has to be altered. Slight variances in preparation from batch to batch can subtly alter the finished color. In all likelihood if you bought a complete doll, these color variances would be so small as to be unnoticeable.

 

I'm wanting to get an 07 head in normal skin, but they are out of stock on the Volks site, which means I'll be looking to get one secondhand. I just want to make sure the vinyl isn't going to look terribly different from her head to her body if the head is a few years older.

Color can change over time for any number of reasons. Light, heat, humidity, and other factors can all effect how vinyl ages. The chances are once your second hand head gets its face up any minor base skin tone difference between the head and other body parts will be unnoticeable.

Thank you for your thorough reply! A slight difference in color won't bother me much. I just didn't want to wind up with two vastly different colors.

I've got 13 dolls, the oldest was released in 2009 and the newest was released in 2015, and I could swap parts between all of NS girls and no one would ever know the difference. I swap hands between dolls at the time and, most of the time, I can't even tell if the 2009 girl is wearing her "original" hands or a pair of new hands from 2015, because the color difference is soooo small.

 

There is a VERY slight color difference between my very old girls (made back when Volks was using a harder vinyl formula) and my newer girls (using the new, squishier vinyl formula), but even that is only faintly noticeable under certain lighting -- and totally invisible in other lighting. I can't tell ANY difference between girls of a vinyl kind: my "hard vinyl" girls match each other perfectly, despite being from different years, and my "soft vinyl" girls all match perfectly, despite their age ranges as well.

 

I can't speak as to WS and SWS, as I only have one WS girl and only one SWS girl, so I don't have anyone to compare them to. I have heard that older WS does tend to change color and matching can be a real pain, but I've not heard such stories about NS and SWS.

 

Since 07 was made after the introduction of soft vinyl, and the body you just ordered from Volks will be soft vinyl as well, they're basically guaranteed to match, or to have a difference so subtle that you will never notice.

I agree that white skin is more of a problem for matching. I have seen white skin significantly yellow over time too. There might be environmental factors factors involved.

 

With normal skin, older heads (with the hard head caps for example) can have noticeably different skin tones compared newer bodies which also seem to have a softer vinyl compared to those produced before the release of Neris and Airy.