Thursday, June 9, 2011

Greasy Legs? Leaky Legs? Please Read This Charles' Post

DBG commented in a recent post here about some of her dolls having "greasy" parts. I've mentioned my My Room Blaine had the same problem, but for a juicy-as-in-informative post, please read Charles of The Doll Diary's post on Self-Destructive Barbie Dolls.

5 comments:

Black Doll Enthusiast said...

Thanks for the link, D7ana.

The Doll Diary post describes exactly what's going on with the two dolls I mentioned. There may be others that I haven't discovered yet. Scary.

dbg

Alrunia said...

I've heard of soaking in dish soap to get rid of the excess plasticizer tackyness- never had that problem myself so I'm not really certain if it works.
I can say one thing for certain though- plasticizers are definitely and absolutely not toxic. Maybe if you were literally chugging vats of them they would be- but no matter how many tacky legged dolls you handle, your health isn't in any danger at all.
Plasticizers are what makes polymer clay pliable- and what polymer clay leaves on your hands as sticky greasy residue. It's calculated and designed to be handled completely safely, and even non-harmful if pets or kids swallow some.
Just thought I'd throw that out there, yes, gross decomposing doll bits are annoying- but not dangerous to your health at all.

Alrunia said...

I just thought of something else- I'm going to try it later actually, but it's all speculation, no idea if it would work without adverse effects. Here goes- polymer clay is "cured" by either baking or boiling it, the heat neutralizes the plasticizers. Boiling small doll accessories such as shoes and purses does make them less squishy and more stiff (but also more brittle), which I've discovered while dyeing some of them. So boiling water might just be helpful.

D7ana said...

You're welcome, DBG! Glad that Charles' post helped you. I wrote to thank him for sharing it again.

Alrunia, thanks for the additional information about excess plasticizer.

Now for time to wash my oozing dollies ... sigh.

D7ana said...

The boiling water process sounds interesting, Alrunia. I might try that with one of my guys to see if the greasiness goes away. I might not get to doing that right away, but I'm going to try for this weekend.