Aesthetics Cleaning/Restoring Fire Damage

~Suisei_Seki~'s apartment caught fire and her doll was damaged from the smoke and water. I offered to try my hand at restoring what I can and cleaning her up. This project journal was created to document that.
She's a Enchanted Doll European

Referral thread: /threads/cle...nging-smoke-from-a-fire.870438/#post-13134414

Copy/Pasted first post:
September 02, 2023
I received ~Suisei_Seki~'s doll yesterday and think it would be informative to talk about the cleaning process and steps here. I know my experience with de-yellowing a beauty greened doll was useful to plenty of folks. So... here's this.

The reveal/first impressions;
Arrival by hellsing365, on Flickr


The smoke damage to the lower left leg was intense, as is a large portion of her backside. One pinky has bent to a strange angle and can be assumed her hand rested on something while it was warmed.(EDIT: Appears that is mostly the doll's design, however I do not have an un-damaged doll to confirm with) However the hands/delicate fingers still have great structural integrity.
I had to cut the elastic, as it's tied around all of her joints. The doll was hot glue sueded, and where the hot glue was melted and caused her joints (primarily torso and elbows) to glue together. (EDIT: from research, it seems brand new the doll comes with actual suede, so she has been restrung OR just re-sueded at some point) Her headcap was minimally scorched so I experimented with that. Regular water and a simple cotton round were used at first to remove top layer. Then moved on to scrubbing with a magic eraser. There were small burn marks where I assume ash or something else settled on the head cap, and a very light sanding with 600 grit sandpaper removed that mild melt mark. However there was no removing it without sanding. (EDIT: Owner commented the doll was not exposed to direct fire. Unable to confirm what type of heat the doll was exposed to, and thinks that the head cap 'burn mark' could have been sticky tack from holding on the wig. I believe the doll was exposed to heat still, as the hot glue was re-melted enough to properly glue the joints together and require careful prying to separate them)

As a comment - the magnets all came loose and are being a challenge to re-place without jumping around (this is frustratingly amusing). The elastic was smoke damaged, and the eye putty/eyes had smoke signs.

I moved on to her face with the cotton round and warm water. The soot was deep in her detailing. I moved to the magic eraser and was EXTREMELY careful around her faceup. But I believe the heat/smoke compromised the sealent, or the artist who painted the faceup did not seal appropriately. As even being careful and avoiding pressure or excessive scrubbing, parts of the faceup started to lift. I stopped working in those areas immediately.
The same can be said for her chest body blushing. Even going around the breasts and not touching the nip with the magic eraser (only cotton round) it lifted

The body was soaked in mild soap and luke warm water and washed with cotton rounds on delicate areas (hands, feet, etc) while a magic eraser was used on the rest of the body.

Legs cleaned up well, however I believe due to the intense tension of the elastic, and the heat of the fire, the resin became soft. The left leg's calf is bent more severely than the right at the ankle area, as well as some 'swelling' from where I believe the ankle rested in the calf joint.

FistClean by hellsing365, on Flickr

I observed significant yellowing on the upper arms, face, upper chest, and legs. The chest had what looked to be designs on it from clothing or other fiber burning on the resin. The feet were speckled as if synthetic fiber melted near it or natural fiber combusted and burned quickly. Lots of speckling was observed on the lower legs from water/moisture. Most of that wiped up clearly. (Edit: Owner confirmed she was wearing a cotton velvet skirt and a linen shift, with a little silk-velvet cape. Clothing was too smoke-damaged to save)

On the list next is more soapy soaks and to use pipe cleaners on the insides of the body, as there is obvious signs of smoke in the channels. Hot glue suede will continue to be removed carefully.

I'm waiting for the owner to get back to me on how much she needs/wants to preserve both the faceup and the body blushing. I believe the doll could be fully restored with light sanding, or have some character and 'golden tan' in areas otherwise.
I'm bummed the faceup is lifting with such minimal effort. I'll be cleaning the remaining soot with q-tips and continuing the gentle use of cotton rounds, same with the hands and feet.

 

September 08, 2023
Yesterday I spent some quality time scrubbing her face more with Q-tips. I do believe I've reached the end of what I can do with those on her face. No pictures from that yet.

I wanted to post some detail shots of what I've been working with as well.
The owner's given me permission to sand where needed and do as needed. My goal is to keep the hands in as good of condition as I possibly can. And continue to see what kind of salvage I can do on the face and any other areas that aren't too damaged.

Removing the hot glue was a bit tedious, but I finished that the other day. In the photos in this post, it hadn't been fully removed yet. However I would love to point out her lower torso looking SO clean where the joints met and glued together. I'm using that as a reference of what skin tone is her natural shade. Unfortunately at this point, I'm positive the smoke/heat discolored the MSC, but fortunately that probably means it's only the outter layer of the doll that's sustained any discoloration. Unfortunately that means she'll likely need a new blushing job and face

FistCleanDetails by hellsing365, on Flickr


Hoping to do some more work on her this weekend.

 

Update;
Pictureless Update September 09, 2023
Today I spent a few hours on her hands, feet, upper and lower torso and a smidgen of time on her face.
Report on the hands; I'm not positive it'll be pretty when I have the hands fully cleaned. I've added the redoing of her manicure to my probable list of tasks. It's something I'm very comfortable with and think I can do well for her. A couple of the nails seem to either have chipped in their painting or just worn too finely to blend in with the obviously blushed areas. Some of the smoke damage is between the fingers enough that removing the blushing is probably going to happen in the process of cleaning the soot.

Feet wise,, I'll be redoing the blushing either way. There's so little of the blushing and pedicure left that there's no point in trying to save it. The lovely cute detailing under her feet (soles) is taking some extra effort to clear. I'm confident it'll come up, but there's minor signs of scratching as I'm using my beading tweezers to hold small enough bits of both cotton rounds and magic eraser to scrub with.

Face is doing alright. A lot more of the soot from around her nose, lips, and eyes is lifted but the one eyelid is giving me some trouble. Even with my tweezer technique, and very lightly 'scratching' at the damp soot, it's not coming up nicely. Either she's got some intense eyeliner in her creases, or that's going to have to come up. It's a bummer though, as the pinks from her faceup are starting to show through again, as I lose the detail of her lower eyelashes. A faceup this fine is beyond my ability so the owner will likely need to seek someone to redo it, as it's just so fine. I'm doing my best to photograph the details for the owner's reference.

Torso This is going SO well! I'm delighted to say that her lower torso is almost completely soot free and looking perfect. Unfortunately the bum blushing isn't QUITE even, but I'll be photographing that next time I'm in my craft room and seeing what Suisei_Seki would like done. The front of her lower torso is 100% in tact blushing wise as far as I can tell, and there's no strong signs of gradient to the yellow going on. I'm so dang happy for this!

Upper torso is being worked on still. I was able to remove most of the soot from the shoulders, collar bone, and neck detailing without any obvious striations of MSC removal. However there is a bit of raw resin showing on the peaks of the neck sculpting. I'm fairly sure the chest will need re-blushed, as there's no remaining color on the back/shoulders. Using the tweezers holding the cleaning supplies (magic eraser and cotton rounds, torn up) has helped a lot in the detail areas. The blushing around the nips is visible (thus color selection is visible) which makes me happy. It's always easier to re-blush a doll when you know what colors to go for.

Bonus ~ I bought a few pounds of raw black alpaca fiber last year and finally have a reason to sort/clean it. So I've been working on that and plan to make this little lady a new wig to replace her one that was damaged in the fire I make wigs regularly, and have made several for my mothers puki-puki's, so I'm hopeful I can do this girl justice.

 

I wanted to say thank you for everyones well wishes and interest in this project means the world to me that I can be helpful to others with my dolly adventures!

Update;
September 17, 2023
Yesterday I went ahead and stripped her down to bare resin.

IMG_20230916_160314227 by hellsing365, on Flickr
IMG_20230916_160341008 by hellsing365, on Flickr

I used mostly a cotton round with Windsor and Newton brush cleaner, and on the more yellowed areas used a magic eraser splashed with the brush cleaner as well. I didn't post an update for it, but she was cleaned yet again with magic eraser + water between updates. I was continuing to get filthy water off of her (turned gray). Even this latest wash the smell of smoke and ash was strong.

Her faceup removed way too easily, I've never in my 15+ years in the doll hobby had a faceup come off with so little effort. Again I'm not sure if that's the artist not sealing well, or the MSC being that compromised. Unfortunately, and as I had feared, there was yellowing below the surface of the MSC on her face. I'm continuing to remove soot from her ears and lips, but once that is done I'll be going over her with some 600 or 800 grit sandpaper in the areas that are stained from the smoke still.

Body 'damage' report wise;
Upper arms/shoulders are definingly on the list to be sanded. They are a rather sickly yellow color that will not blend or be reasonable any other way.
Neck and shoulders on her torso will also need lightly sanded as they're not far off from the upper arms in terms of yellowing.
Her lower legs might be okay without sanding. I'll need to take another look in a bit, but from what I could see they fit well with the knees/thigh joints in terms of coloring.

Her hands are taking time. I decided to fully strip them as they are also very yellowed/stained from the heat and soot. It's taking a considerable amount of delicate work to remove the soot from between her fingers. While damp, I use the side of a pin and lightly 'scrape' until the debris balls up and can be either rinsed free, or I can get to it with a tiny scrap of cotton or magic eraser. There's still work to be done on her hands, they were the last of what I got to yesterday and it shows.

I've gotten to work on cleaning her channels as well. So far just her upper torso and starting on her neck, but it's a step. Those are being done with damp cotton rounds and shoving it through the joints repeatedly until they appear clear. At the moment I've misplaced my pipe cleaners so gotta find them before I can do the legs and arms.

NOTE FOR OTHERS;
Windsor and Newton Brush Cleaner can (and will) eat your gloves. I have the purple super thin 'examination' gloves you can get off of Amazon and they flake and melt under this stuff. My previous gloves were green, thick, and aloe coated on the inside and they didn't melt. Unfortunately I bought those from a hospital while working serving food/doing dishes there, and I haven't been able to find them online since.
I seriously dislike the feeling of magic eraser + this stuff on my bare skin but haven't had any reactions to it. Just wash up well after. Oh, and if you have nail polish on, say goodbye to that as well. Who needs acetone?

If anyone's wondering why I don't use rubbing alcohol or acetone to clean the doll, it's a personal preference. I have nothing against it, other than how horribly drying it is on my skin. I feel that due to this doll being exposed to heat/smoke/etc I'd rather not add alcohol into the equation in case it's too drying and causes the already damaged resin to crack or chip.

 

That's super good to know! I know the green ones i had were latex free, but still medical grade. I think the purple ones I have are the flimsy cleaning ones. Hard to always tell online

 

Delayed update, woops!
October 3rd, 2023

I kind of forgot to keep track of everything. BUT!
Staining has all been carefully sanded out, soot and other such blackness is all removed from crevasses. Body blushing has been 100% stripped all from everywhere. Hands are pretty much ready for their manicure. Honestly everything's just been more of repeat of above. Magic Eraser and Cotton swabs/rounds and lots of time and hand cramps.

She still STINKS of smoke. Touching her with the sand paper (submerged in water even) you can smell the house smoke on her. None of her actual resin appears damaged, the yellow is a stickier substance than her body, and when I "hit" her body with the sand paper I know that spot's clear and move on. That being said, be smart and sand your dolls in a well ventilated area with a mask on if you're ever doing actual sanding. I sand dolls/remove seams and that's a whole different ball game to this project- I always wear protection when doing that. This is in water/no dust, and the only fumes I ever got were from the ...well, I guess it might be resin from wood smoke but it's far more 'camp fire' than 'resin doll' smell.

Ok not 100% clean, I am keeping the 'enchanted doll' engraving in the back of her neck sooty... for one it's super delicate and i'm having some trouble getting it to lift and am afraid of scrubbing too much and smoothing away any lettering, and for two, it's some character.

I made her some tiny little S-hooks out of 18g wire because I dislike tying elastic once strung with a burning passion.

anyways.
Next on my list to do to her is actually pipe clean her insides, apparently we have no crafty pipecleaners left in this house.
Soak her for a couple days in baking soda + water, stirring occasionally, to suck that campfire smell out.
Boil that leggy and see if it straightens.
Restring, suede, and see how she's doing.
Body blush and make a wig~
Sadly I don't do faceups, but hopefully the owner will find someone she likes a lot and have her precious survivor doll painted perfectly


Last photos I took were the other day;
SecondClean by hellsing365, on Flickr

Upper and lower torso are 100% cleaned. I took a picture mid way through cleaning the upper torso the rest of the way (sanding) sideways to show the residue. Her lips are clean, they're just deep and carved detailing so they catch shadows. and hands are done. Though they have some yellowing still where I'm afraid to sand or scrub too hard, it should be easy to cover with blushing.

 

Thank you for trusting her to my care and being patient with me in this process. I'm glad to be able to help a member of our community

 

Final update is coming soon. She's assembled and heading home this week. I've just been a bit under the weather.

Photos to come. Thank you all for following and your support. I'm satisfied with how she's come along

 

Life has been chaos so I'm doing a type-up of the final steps and pictures will be added in later. I'm super sorry for not updating sooner!

FINAL PICTURELESS UPDATE!

The next step I did with this little lady was dissolving about 4 tablespoons of baking soda into warm water and then filling up a warm bath and soaking her for 24 hours. After that I lightly rinsed her and took a sniff. Pretty much all of the residual smell was gone, and most of the soot/yellowing had been removed to an acceptable level.

At some point (i forgot if I mentioned, so mentioning here) I bent 18g and 16g craft wire and made 4 S hooks for her wrists and ankles. I'm not a fan of tying elastic around joints, so it made sense to me to take that step. I custom shaped how the S was bent and elongated so it wouldn't interfere with her posing.

Next up, the boiling!
I used my kettle to do this. But first warmed her head cap in hot water and then poured the boiling water on top of the already pre-warmed head cap. ALL of the magnets ended up jumping out during this process. but at least I got their polarity eventually sorted. Unfortunately one of the magnets got chipped while I was trying to get it rested back in its slot, so I replaced it with a smaller one that fit much easier.

I dropped in the bendy leg and... it straightened! It straightened so well that I actually realized the other leg had warped as well, so gave her other leg and the hand with the bendy finger a quick dunk and everything looked way better. I was very satisfied with the result.

Up next she got a quick general coating of MSC and I gave her a gentle body blushing to restore some of her lovely detailing. Her upper chest/back still had some staining but I feel that either with another layer of body blush or more sanding it could have been lifted. I didn't want to risk flattening any of her detail, over-doing body blushing, or removing all of her story. This little lady is tough and a survivor!

After that I quickly checked with the owner on what color she liked for this dolls hair (black, brown, etc) and whipped up a alpaca wig with some of the fiber from an alpaca I hadn't used before. It turned out lovely! I had first made the cap with wood glue in hopes it would help retain her headcap to her head, but after it dried it became brittle and popped her headcap off with it and chipped. So I re-made it my usual way with casting latex and tulle.

Shortly there-after I wrapped her up and sent her home in a new box, all mummy-wrapped up so she would make the trip safely.

All in all I think the project took me around 30-35 hours, but I was working very meticulously. There was a lot of working on her, or letting her set and coming back to her after checking in with the owner or taking some time to plan out my next steps. I bled for her (cut my finger making an S hook), and she officially made it into my heart as the doll seemed to come back to life as I worked on her.

I'm honored to have been able to help out a member of our community who's experienced such a tragic event as a house fire, and always strive to pay it forward in all aspects of my life. A little kindness can go a long way

If this project thread helps someone else out in the future, or anyone has any questions for me on this project or another rescue, feel free to reach out. These dolls are works of art and I'm glad I was able to help restore this one.