Goodbye to Glue!!

It's time to address one of the most horrific problems plaguing doll collectors in recent times... The dreaded glue seepage. Primarily affecting Mattel dolls made in the last ten years or so, it happens when the glue the factory uses on the inside of the heads to keep the hair in place starts to leak out. Oily, smelly, greasy glue travels from the rooted holes into the dolls' hair, ruining the style and generally causing a nasty mess. Why they even insist on using glue in the hair plugs is anyone's guess. For decades, Mattel's doll hair was held in place by the factory knot method and the hair stayed in the heads pretty well. The only thing I can come up with is that the glue method is cheaper and faster. Two adjectives that unfortunately describe much of the current doll landscape.

Sadly, the Monster High doll family is one of the worst victims of glue seepage along with the sister line, Ever After High. Collectors have been trying all sorts of methods trying to save their dolls, but glue head is a very stubborn problem. The only easy and quick fix was putting baby powder on the doll's scalp to soak up glue, but this was more of a temporary solution because more glue is always leaking out. I tried a few things myself including Formula 911 solution by the brilliant Twin Pines of Maine, but to no avail. More of my dolls were leaking glue and smelling bad, so after I moved earlier this year, I decided to get serious about treating this problem. I looked online and found the usual tea tree oil, Goo Gone, cleanser sprays, etc. that I knew I didn't want to use. I wanted something safe for the face paint and effective in treating glue with no chemical smell. I happened to stumble on A Thousand Splendid Dolls You Tube channel to which I'd like to give my sincere thanks for trying something I never thought of... OXY CLEAN!! (or a reasonable facsimile, lol) I had great success with cleaning doll clothing with it, so why not doll heads? Well, I am here to tell ya, IT WORKS!! I have treated ten MH/EAH dolls with it and they have remained GLUE-FREE for six months now! Not only that, their hair is shiny, beautiful and smells fresh!! It did not destroy curls and it re-styles just great. Here are some of my girls, who were the greasiest and smelliest and now look AMAZING!

Left to right, top row- Sig Apple White, Swim Rochelle Goyle, School's Out Lagoona Blue, Ghoul's Night Out Clawdeen Wolf and Legacy Day Briar Beauty (in Sig's clothes).

Bottom row- TRU I <3 Fashion Frankie Stein, Skull Shores Draculaura, Sig Cedar Wood, Ghoul's Night Out Rochelle Goyle and TRU I <3 Fashion Clawdeen Wolf.

To get the results you want, prepare to be patient and persistent. I used a special small set of pliers to dig out some excess glue out before putting them in the Oxy Clean. I used a little wash tub, a scoop of Oxy (or the $1 store kind) and put three heads in for at least a day each time. Each of the dolls here had between four Oxy treatments and five or six in the worst cases. I shampooed them with Palmolive with Oxy dish soap each time they got another treatment as well as combing through the hair each time.

I left the photos pretty large, so the results can be seen in detail! Here are the three EAH girls. Poor Cedar was the worst. I left the tiny braid in during treatment and it even stayed in place! I was amazed at how Apple's curls held and Briar and Cedar are now sleek and shiny!

Just what is it with poor Rochelle's dolls that seem to leak so badly? GNO Rochelle was one of the first glue heads I tried to clean last year along with I<3 Fashion Clawdeen. They were so bad and nothing helped before the Oxy Clean that I thought I'd have to throw them away! GNO Clawdeen was easy, as she did not have a lot of glue to begin with, but SO Lagoona was pretty bad. She was leaking glue shortly after I got her and I kept her hair in one big braid for years!

I<3 Fashion Frankie was awful and another doll that was leaking glue for years. She's had the hairstyle I gave her forever. I did have to undo it during treatment. The other thing you can't really tell is that her hair has yellowed a little due to age much like what can happen with the Sig Werecat Twins. I really wanted to save SS Draculaura, because she is the variant with full fangs from the Target five pack. Swim Rochelle is one of my faves, but sadly  was another very bad one, leaking since basically when I got her. She was the first doll I tried baby powder on, with no success. I<3 Fashion Clawdeen was an absolute mess. She was the only doll in this batch who actually lost a few hair plugs!

Lastly, here's a close up of Swim Rochelle's scalp, all clean and grease-free!

Again, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to A Thousand Splendid Dolls You Tube channel (also on Flickr) for the amazing Oxy Clean idea!

Yume Twins July crate: Unboxing & Review!

So, you may have seen ads for monthly goodie boxes from Japan. There are many choices such as a drink and snack box, cute (kawaii) box, beauty box, gatcha box and so on. My targeted ads on Facebook had been showing me a box called Yume Twins. A little Sailor Moon jar caught my eye as one of the featured gifts for July's crate. This piqued my curiosity as to how these subscription boxes work so I went to the website. https://yumetwins.com/

The basic rundown is this: each month, you will receive a crate centered around a theme, filled with 5-6 cute goods from Japan. Some of the properties include Sanrio, Sailor Moon, Pokemon and San-X. There are four subscription plans to choose from. One month costs $35. Three months cost $33.50. Six months cost $32 and a year costs $31.50. All include free shipping with an option for tracking and insurance for a few dollars more. You have to pay upfront, so keep that in mind when choosing a plan. For example, a year's subscription costs a whopping $378! You are getting a lot of quality import goods, but that can be a lot of money all in one go. I liked the fact that they had a one month sort of trial, so I went with that one. Here is the VERY IMPORTANT THING about the one month option: it will keep renewing each month at the time you first signed up. I forgot to cancel mine, so I will be getting August's crate too, lol. 

Before I get into the crate itself, I just want to mention a little flaw that I'm not really crazy about. It has to do with shipping and the tracking number. I like to know where my things are in the mail, so I opted for the tracking. I think it was $4 extra. Anyhow, a week later, I get the notice that the crate has shipped and will be trackable on the Japan Post site. It is going First Class International, so I know it's going to take 2-4 weeks to get here. However, more than a week goes by and there are no tracking updates! Around the two week point, I started to get worried and contacted them. I  got a reply right away, saying give it more time, okay. Another week goes by and still no update. I was ready to just give up, but finally, I got an update saying it had been collected. Whew! I was relieved to know it was going through the postal system, so I didn't mind waiting at that point. Well whaddya know? It shows up a week later! I was surprised that it took that fast, but with the whole tracking thing, it was around four weeks from when they initially gave me the tracking info. I just wish there was a way they could hold off giving you the tracking info until it's actually in the postal system. It's like if I told someone I mailed them something and gave them the tracking number, but didn't actually take it to the post office until weeks later. 

So now, with that out of the way, here it is. I like the color scheme and the graphics are really cute. (I'm a sucker for anything with cats though...)

Anddd, now it's been opened up! Hello! Everything is packed nice and neat. Share pics of your crate online if you like!

A group shot first. There are six items total (plus a bonus one that I will get to later) and a handy book telling you about the theme, items as well as some fan art and pics. Pretty neat. July's theme as you can see, was Pool Party. 

The first item, which is also the featured item, is a cute inflatable, bouncy Kirby ball. Makes sense, like a beach ball for the pool or ocean. I will be taking a another photo with him out of the package for a chance to win a prize. I'm not a huge Kirby fan, but I have played at least one of his games and he's cute, so it's all good.

This next one is the item I was least looking forward to, a portable fan with optional mist. Nice idea for cooling off outside and it doesn't take batteries, but I just can't really see myself using it. It was available in two designs: Sanrio characters and Sumikkogurashi from San-X. I actually prefer the muted colors of the San-X one better. 

Aha! The item that hooked me- the Sailor Moon Kira Kira Canister! This is really a beautiful little thing, measuring about 4 inches with a diamond like sculpted pattern. It was available in two styles and I got the one I really wanted- purple with Super Sailor Moon! The other was pink with Sailor Moon from the first season. 

Next, we were supposed to have Gudetama sticky notes, but they have been pre-empted to bring you these Pokemon stickers! Apparently, people loved Detective Pikachu so much, that they wanted to include a Pokemon gift. There was a little note explaining this and how the sticky notes will still make a future appearance. Either way was fine for me, as I find both stationary and stickers useful.

This item is very well made and should be useful. A kawaii character pouch! It measures 4.5 inches wide by 3.5 long and has a zipper and pretty metallic blue ball chain. There were TWENTY different options of what you could get! Mostly Sanrio characters, but I am happy with this Sumikkogurashi one because the big ol' shy cat, Neko, is featured in the front! I still haven't decided what I will use it for yet...

Lastly, there was this adorable dual function Gudetama key chain/strap! There were five options, with the others being two Sanrio and two Rilakkuma, but honestly, this lazy egg butt would have been my preference anyway! 

The true final item is actually a bonus one. First time subscribers could get an extra Sailor Moon item and that is honestly what made me take the plunge. It's a very lovely SM clear file with each section being marked by the senshi's henshin sticks. Made by Sun-Star, it will go great with the SM planner I recently bought from the same company!

So there you have it- the Yume Twins Pool Party crate for July 2019! Overall, I would say I am pleased with the items assortment and definitely think it is worth the price. If they could just iron out that weird tracking delay, then it would be fantastic. Like, just don't send the tracking info until it has actually been dropped off at the post office, maybe? 

Anyway, I will have another Yume Twins review coming up when the August box gets here and (gasp!) a competitor crate review (Doki Doki Crate) to see how it stacks up! 

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my doll and toy blog! I had been meaning to do this for a long time, as I used to have a LiveJournal with this same name many years ago. So, I am finally setting things up here. Some of the things I hope to cover are collection additions, reviews, favorites, opinions, custom projects and even photo stories eventually. More updates coming soon!