Updated: Solution to Yellowing Dolls and Resin Eyes (updated 2020 with Picture)

On 8/26/2020 at 7:09 PM, OccultBeast said:

Whoa, glad to stumble upon this!  I've wondered since starting my exploration of vinyl dolls if RetroBrighting could be effectively used to remove yellowing, and I'm glad to see it can work!

This is the method that I'm most familiar with*; the key part here is it uses 12% hydrogen peroxide, not 3%, which is what's sold for household use.  You have to order it online, but you can also use it again and again, so one jug of it should last you a long while.  Go crazy, Retrobright everything you own!  You could also buy less and just Retrobright parts one at a time in a smaller container, but I definitely think this is the best and fastest way to go if you've got a lot of pieces to do at once.  You can of course achieve the same result using the cream solutions and sunlight though, this is just much faster, which might be worth it for some people, or if you're in a situation where access to direct daily sunlight isn't available.

*linked to the YT video because for some reason it wouldn't auto-embed itself

I tried this method and it worked great! I used a smaller UV light meant for nailpolish, but it got the job done.

My girl soaked for 36 hours and got all the yellowing out. (Head only-cap and legs for comparison)

I did one more, Mio in fresh skin. She wasnt so badly yellowed so it only took about 12 hours

Emboldened by @Cydril's great results I tried the same technique on my yellowed semi-white KOS-MOS head back from 2012.

I used 11.9% hydrogen peroxide and put it under a blacklight lightbulb for a few hours first, before buying a small clip-on UV lamp for this. The liquid is bubbling like a freaking cauldron, but I can't quite see any results yet. It's been well over 20 hours, I honestly lost count after checking it hourly the first few batches.

I've attached a before photo but the camera can't quite pick up how yellow/faded the head looks compared to newer semi-white skin. The headcap shown there is what I'd like to achieve.

Funnily enough, the original KOS-MOS headcap (not the one in the photo; poor KOS-MOS came with a very flat headcap) is also a bit more pinkish than the rest of the head, which makes me fear I somehow chemically messed things up when I gave this head a face-up ages ago? Though I've been quite confident in how to properly and gently remove face-ups, coming from the resin BJD side of the hobby. 

 

Could it just be that the head was cast in a slightly different shade of vinyl? I've been thinking of airbrushing the head to match normal skin anyway, but I thought trying to restore it to semi-white glory could also not hurt.

Spoiler

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by Collie

30 minutes ago, Collie said:

Could it just be that the head was cast in a slightly different shade of vinyl?

This is entirety possible! Batches of vinyl will have slight differences to each other.

55 minutes ago, Collie said:

Could it just be that the head was cast in a slightly different shade of vinyl?

Indeed this is the case! Kosmos was the very first semi white doll. When they made the color it was designed to be halfway between normal skin and white skin. But at some point they changed it slightly, and it's now a little darker and pinker. Kosmos is a little paler and more yellow. So keep that in mind as you try to restore her.

After seeing a video of someone restoring an old Kenner Star Wars X-Wing toy back to crazy white body color, I decided to take the plunge and try the setup they used and see if I could not only whiten up some older Saber Alter legs and feet but hope that some stains would come out as well. 

I just got the setup today and haven't taken pics yet but the setup is as follows:

1 gallon 6% liquid Hydrogen Peroxide

2 small clear acrylic tanks

2 UV LED lamps

1 roll of aluminum foil

 

I got the tanks and added the feet and leg vinyl to them and then filled them with the peroxide so they covered all the vinyl.  Then I put the lids on the tanks and placed aluminum foild under each tank, shiny side up.  Then each tank got a UV lamp laid over the top and it's done.  I did not clean the legs and feet beforehand.  I just plopped them in there.  I will leave them overnight tonight and check them in the morning.  I'll try and get pics to share as well.

If this at least cleans off the yellowing then I'll be happy because my poor Sprout is beginning to get a tad yellow too and she has no stains anywhere.  So having her be bright WS again would be epic.   

 

 

Billy

Ok so I finally got pics uploaded of the process of taking out yellow by using UV light and hydrogen peroxide.  For those of you who haven't seen how it's done before, it's pretty cool.

I ordered two small 1 gallon acrylic tanks from Amazon along with a gallon of hydrogen peroxide and two LED UV lights.  All I had to do was put the white vinyl bits into the tanks, fill the tanks until the hydrogen peroxide covered all of them and then set aluminum foil under the tanks to reflect the light.  I laid the lights right on top of the tanks and turned them on.  This is how the setup looks.

20230501_191811 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

Shins and feet.

20230501_191821 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

Thighs.  After only an hour the liquid started to bubble and so did the vinyl.

20230501_191828 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

Sadly I do not have any photos of the body before I started this treatment.  but I do have after pics!  Here is my 3rd Saber Alter in her shiny white glory!  😄

20230503_143515 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

20230503_143520 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

Some of the lighter stains on her legs did actually go away and some of the others faded just a little.  But the deep and darker stains didn't lose any of their color.

20230503_143524 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

Here she is after getting some undies on.

20230503_150921 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

She has had her face redone and had red eyes installed.  I rather like this look so I'll have her stay like this for now.  I had to find her a new wig so after trying on a lot of regular blonde wigs like all Sabers have, I decided to go for something different.

20230503_150929 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

This wig is from Dallas Doll Co and it's super soft.  I chose it because not only is it blonde ( all Sabers are blonde ) but also because it had a braid in it ( like most Sabers do ) and it had a darker red/burgundy color to go with her eyes.  All in all I'm very happy with how it turned out.

20230503_150959 by Billy  Bennett, on Flickr

So anyways, the process of taking out the yellowing worked very well for me and only took an overnight soak of about 10 hours.  I have a couple of other WS girls that are starting to turn either yellow or green so I will definitely be doing this treatment on them.

 

Hope this helps some of you out!   

 

 

Billy

 

I'm in awe of the process you've undertaken to remove the yellowing from your Dollfie, and I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the advice and tutorial you provided. You've clearly put in a lot of hard work and dedication to achieve such incredible results. Your expertise and willingness to share your knowledge with the community are truly invaluable. Your Dollfie is now an absolute vision of beauty, and it's all thanks to your incredible efforts. Thank you for being such an inspiration and for helping us all to achieve the best possible outcomes with our beloved Dollfies.❤️

Hey all,

 

appreciate the info that is available here. I have a quick question about the timing and situation now, hope anyone can enlighten me.

 

there is a lot of discussion about re-yellowing of the plastic that is actually faster, like within 1 year the plastic becomes yellow again. Anyone who did retrobriting for the past year or even longer, has the DD become yellow again?

I am attempting on Ranko head cap now as an experiment, target is 3hrs from now as it had been submerged for the past 3 hrs. 
 

if all is good, I will do it on Ranko head itself with the full default faceup. 
 

Oh my gosh, I have a set of two beautiful resin eyes that have just gone completely yellow. I will have to try this asap!!

13 hours ago, CinnamonHedgehog said:

There is a lot of discussion about re-yellowing of the plastic that is actually faster, like within 1 year the plastic becomes yellow again. Anyone who did retrobriting for the past year or even longer, has the DD become yellow again?

I did my retrobrighting of Saber last May and so far she is still a nice bright white!  I have seen zero fading back to yellow on her.

13 hours ago, CinnamonHedgehog said:

I am attempting on Ranko head cap now as an experiment, target is 3hrs from now as it had been submerged for the past 3 hrs.  If all is good, I will do it on Ranko head itself with the full default faceup. 
 

I hope you understand that if you put her head into this mixture and let it sit then you are more than likely going to at least do some damage to or completely wipe away her face up.  Volks faceups are notoriously difficult to wipe off but I'm pretty sure this process will do *some* damage to it.  Just letting you know.

 

Billy

On 2/28/2024 at 7:01 AM, baldylox said:

I did my retrobrighting of Saber last May and so far she is still a nice bright white!  I have seen zero fading back to yellow on her.

I hope you understand that if you put her head into this mixture and let it sit then you are more than likely going to at least do some damage to or completely wipe away her face up.  Volks faceups are notoriously difficult to wipe off but I'm pretty sure this process will do *some* damage to it.  Just letting you know.

 

Billy

Nice. Glad to hear it’s all good after all these while.

At the time of this comment, i had already submerged Ranko into the solution for 6 hrs the day before, and she had de-yellowed sliiiiiiightly, with no damage to her default faceup, at least of what I had observed with my eyes. Never the less I am pleased with how the experiment turned out. Thanks for the heads up (no pun intended) though👍

I used a 6% H2O2 and a 50watt UV. 

 

Edited February 29 by CinnamonHedgehog

11 minutes ago, CinnamonHedgehog said:

with no damage to her default faceup

Even the blushing on her cheeks remained intact? 👀

13 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

Even the blushing on her cheeks remained intact? 👀

From what I had observed, no. I could be slightly colorblind tho. lol 

WARNING

WARNING

WARNING

 

DO NOT ASSUME HIGHER CONCENTRATION = BETTER/FASTER RESULT!

 

with the warning aside, I have new things to report.

 

i got my hands on 50% hydrogen peroxide. Needless to say, without diluting the Hydrogen Peroxide, it is corrosive (burnt my feet from stepping on a droplet) and it acts as a bleach. (Just in case if you haven’t known it yet).

 

I have a totally destroyed elbow joints and instead of deyellowing, it makes the head whiter. Faceup surprisingly is still there, but it just seems so wrong. Like really wrong.

 

Im going to dilute the 50% to be a quarter of it so that it is at 12 concentration, and will do on another SW head with default faceup on it. Another perfect candidate. 😈 (sorry Miku) hope this time it turns out well

Edit: I however will still continue to use 50% on outer shell. But for head and joints, gotta reduce the concentration

Edited April 25 by CinnamonHedgehog