About storage and yellowing

How should I store my resin doll unclothed bodies if they are not in use. I’m trying to avoid yellowing. I have them inside plastic bags that the boxes came wrapped in. Can having them in this bag cause yellowing is there something I can store them in that will prevent or delay the yellowing since I know it’s inevitable. Trying to really take care of the dolls.

Resin will always yellow or "mellow" no matter what you do.  The most you can do is store them in a dark room, closet, or just back inside their box.  You don't need to store them in plastic or anything like that, just lay them back inside the cushion they came with, to protect them from breakage.

I keep my resin dolls in a closet that remains closed always, and I also store them fully clothed and sitting in a bookcase.  But the main thing is to keep sunlight, even window- or blinds/curtain-filtered sunlight, away from them as much as possible.  This will allow the resin to mellow evenly and keep them in as good of shape as possible, for as long as possible.  If you store them on an open shelf in your room, they will yellow unevenly, because any amount of sunlight they get will cause exposed areas, like the face and hands, to yellow more than the rest of the body.  Obviously you want to avoid direct sunlight most of all, but you can take your dolls out for photoshoots, so long as you don't leave them sitting for hours at a time.  Take your photos and then bring them back in, or put them back into their box/carry case.

41 minutes ago, Luden333 said:

How should I store my resin doll unclothed bodies if they are not in use. I’m trying to avoid yellowing. I have them inside plastic bags that the boxes came wrapped in. Can having them in this bag cause yellowing is there something I can store them in that will prevent or delay the yellowing since I know it’s inevitable. Trying to really take care of the dolls.

you can't avoid yellowing, the doll starts yellow or mellow as soon as you take it out of the box, it used to bother me, but I just learned to accept it. I don't have a resin doll yet, but I plan on buying one soon.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Guest

Echoing the other responses that yellowing is an unavoidable and natural process that resin goes through as it ages. It’s something all resin doll collectors just have to learn to accept. All you can do is try to slow down the process by keeping your doll out of direct or indirect sunlight. 

I’ve had resin dolls for over 15 years now and my oldest have all yellowed to some extent, even though I’ve kept them all away from sunlight and most of them are usually stored away. However, I don’t really notice that they’ve yellowed unless I put them next to a brand new doll.

I have had my doll for almost 10 years or so, and I think she's yellowed pretty evenly and thats really what you want, I've always had her on display and never put her in the box. I don't think about it at all tbh. Its a pale sort of yellow. I suppose getting a tan sculpt might be a way to avoid that sort of hue? but I've only owned pale bjds mostly.

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by zaada
fixing up my post

I own primarily resin BJDs and I might be critical of the sources I’m using with regard to resin yellowing, specifically with regard to time, as resin color stability has dramatically improved (within BJDs and outside the hobby) due to advancements in polyurethane chemistry, namely in the invention of chemical compounds you can add to resin which either reflect or absorb sunlight, vastly slowing the yellowing process. 
 

Even when I joined the hobby a little less than a decade ago, resin was far less photo stable. Volks beauty green was already a thing of the past then, but both Fairyland and Narae (under D-Storic) had batches of greening tan. I own some really old, really yellow dolls, but the only new doll I’ve had visibly yellow under my ownership was an AngelsDoll tan body. 
 

I think if you’re interested in resin BJDs, I wouldn’t let that dissuade me. I view yellowing very much like I view problems with other types of dolls due to age, as nothing is frozen to time. Vinyl dolls too can loose plasticizer, discolor due to staining or leakage of paint or other materials into their surface (cough Barbie earrings ear greening), and yellow (I own a very yellow/green American Girl). Their joints, like ABS dolls (cough Volks Dollfie cough) can become loose. Every doll type has its aging quirks

Edited August 27, 2021 by muphryslaw

I either keep my resins in their boxes or in the top drawers of my doll storage, with their pillows covering them from the top! I sometimes keep them on my desk, but my doll room has sun-blocking curtains and I keep my AC fairly cold so there isn't much risk. 

Admittedly most of my current resins are either quite new (and so have not shown any signs of yellowing) or quite old and were already yellowed when they got to me, so I'm not sure if this has especially helped prevent yellowing. 

While I do my best to protect my resins and try to keep them from yellowing as long as possible, I personally don't mind the process of yellowing, and my older girls were chosen because I liked how yellowed they were; I think of yellowing as less of a horror to be avoided and more of a natural process that, in my opinion, makes resin dolls feel more organic than vinyls. Some of my favorites are the super yellowed ones (including my Character Expo Mika who is very much at the Beauty Green stage in her life lol) because they feel more like artifacts with lives and pasts than just dolls that I bought from a company lol. 



 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Mizuumi-no-Otome

😅 Well I guess I’ve used up all my reactions today—I guess I’m more emotive than I thought—but I just want to underline the point you made, @Mizuumi-no-Otome, regarding liking yellowing because it illustrates the history of the doll, and I feel the same. I have very old AngelsDoll Michael and ChrisNoel Cherry heads that are very yellow who are all the more special to me for this reason. These dolls were long discontinued (and for AngelsDoll, temporarily—but thought to be permanently—closed) when I finally hunted these heads down that I had once coveted new as a broke middle schooler and the yellowing when I finally held them in my hands made the trip they’d had to take to finally get to me all the more real and significant to me.

Edited August 27, 2021 by muphryslaw

3 hours ago, muphryslaw said:

😅 Well I guess I’ve used up all my reactions today—I guess I’m more emotive than I thought—but I just want to underline the point you made, @Mizuumi-no-Otome, regarding liking yellowing because it illustrates the history of the doll, and I feel the same. I have very old AngelsDoll Michael and ChrisNoel Cherry heads that are very yellow who are all the more special to me for this reason. These dolls were long discontinued (and for AngelsDoll, temporarily—but thought to be permanently—closed) when I finally hunted these heads down that I had once coveted new as a broke middle schooler and the yellowing when I finally held them in my hands made the trip they’d had to take to finally get to me all the more real and significant to me.

This is exactly how I started to love yellowed/older girls!  I was pretty picky about only getting minty dolls when I finally had a chance to start collecting BJDs as an adult, until I managed to acquire one of my tweenage grail dolls -an AR Ren girl- with some pretty substantial yellowing. I immediately clicked with her in a way that I never did with my minty dolls, almost as if she'd been waiting for me all those years. 

I really do love my newer resins, but older ones have such a pull to them. I know they were obviously sculpted and casted by a person less than 20 years ago, but they almost feel like something older; like fossilized little fairies from a long time ago lol. 

I also think yellowed resin is just kind of...cool? It photographs in such an interesting way and it's never the same. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Mizuumi-no-Otome

6 hours ago, Mizuumi-no-Otome said:

I really do love my newer resins, but older ones have such a pull to them. I know they were obviously sculpted and casted by a person less than 20 years ago, but they almost feel like something older; like fossilized little fairies from a long time ago lol. 

I also think yellowed resin is just kind of...cool? It photographs in such an interesting way and it's never the same. 

I think what’s really interesting is that sculpting styles and aesthetics really change. I’m finding that now too with vinyl bodies as I’m realizing the Obitsu bodies I liked as a much younger doll hobbyist (particularly the boy bodies with any sort of maturity whatsoever—like the Obitsu 65cm) are no longer offered. Buying an old doll can be a window into a bygone era of doll making with different priorities and standards for what actually makes a good doll. 
 

But I also agree I don’t find yellowed resin ugly at all. (And there’s always the option to use a dilute dye—dezombification serum) to color correct if you want. On some of the dolls I almost feel like the texture (or maybe it’s sheen) of the surface of the doll changes somewhat to be more translucent and sort of buttery (the resin retains hardness—it’s appearance only). It can make the older dolls look sort of waxy and glowy