Oh no! Your doll has a stain!
A word about prevention…
Unsightly and upsetting stains can be caused by shoes, tights, fabrics, even bias tape used on garments to finish the edges of armholes, necklines and hems, etc. First and foremost is protecting your precious girl from the stains in the first place. She can wear tights and even protective undergarments like those offered by CoolCat here.
Many fabrics can leave stains on a doll. Red, black, and indigo blue are the main colors that have problems with color fastness. So you could just stay away from those colors. I always line my dresses with white batiste to protect dolls. Additionally before sewing, I wash fabrics in warm water with a mild detergent to check for color fastness.
Some people will wash in Synthrapol to help pull out any excess dye and prevent the molecules from reattaching to fabric fibers. This kind of a wash is particularly important when you are dyeing, using chemical dyes or batik.
However, even commercially produced fabrics from stores such as JoAnn can have dye run off or bleeding. If the dye does run, I use Rit Dye Fixative or Retayne. Both are good fixatives and are readily available on Amazon. A chemical dye set is best, especially for a chemical dye. After a half hour soak in very hot water and a fixative, rinse well and do another wash. Usually the bleeding is solved, but if the fabric still runs, then I count it as a loss and throw it away. Also, I never make tights out of any fabric that has any problem with color fastness from the get go.
But my doll already has a stain...
What can you do?!
The good news is-- it's fairly simple to remove stains from Blythe's legs and feet. This will also work on some arm stains, but it does take longer.
For facial stains, I would try another method that I won't go into here. That can be complex. It depends on whether she is customized or not and what the surface of her skin is like, shiny or matte. Also, you don't want to remove her makeup. So there are a lot of variables with face and head stains. It’s more complex.
Right, so now we are going to talk about legs stains. Often boots or tights are the culprits. Like these lovely boots.
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| Awesome boots by BHC. But evil... |
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| See how badly stained my girl's feet are? |
They stained my girl's feet nearly black. And in the picture above, she already has her first coat of cream applied!
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| Eek! There's a spot on her arm too! |
And black lace tights stained another doll's legs! Actually, right now she is a clothing model sans head, so it's not really a big deal. But it is a real Takara body, so I might as well keep it in decent condition.
You use this stuff. It is pimple cream from the drug store. I got this at CVS. Look for some extra strength with 10% Benzoyl Peroxide.
Smear a good coat on. After applying a good thick coat of the cream, I wrap her in plastic wrap to keep the product active. (If it dries out then you have to rinse or wipe with a wet washcloth and recoat. Make sure that you wipe with a white washcloth or one that you don't care about, because this stuff is bleach, so it will mark your washcloths.) Now set her in a window or indirect sunlight to speed up the process. You can put a small towel or washcloth (another clean one!) over her face to protect it from the sun if you are worried about yellowing. I left her there for about 2 weeks, and I re-applied 2 to 3 times.
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| Doll 1: just the feet |
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| Doll 2: stage1 |
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| 2nd application |
Here are my results! I even treated a spot on her arm that responded fairly well.
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| Doll 2: most of the stains from the tights are gone! |
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| Doll 2: Arm stain significantly faded! |
The model doll (Doll 2) is so much better! I could apply another treatment to resolve the lingering stain or just wait it out. I think that the rest of the stains will resolve on their own at this point.
And my little vamp with the black feet? She is relaxing, knowing that her stains are nearly gone as well.
So before you panic, apply that pimple cream, then reapply and give it some time. Also, I find that light staining can tend to resolve itself over time. Put some heavier white cotton tights on your girl and forget about it for awhile, a long while, and they may just resolve on their own, and at the very least you won’t see them.
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