De-zombification Serum: Resin Color Restoration

This is impressive, I'm going to save this for in the future if I ever need it for my dolls.

 

This thread is the reason that I'm enjoying my first doll again!

He has yellowed significantly over the 9 years that I've had him. Thus, when I got him a new body this year, the contrast was extremely obvious.

I set about deyellowing the head with very diluted bleach baths, whitening tooth paste and baking soda. I yellowed the body under a UV lamp. This did not do much to even out the colour but it did make a little difference.



I then remembered this thread. I sanded down the head to even out the dye uptake and also to make some minor modifications to the face sculpt.

Unwilling to experiment with multiple dyes, I used only one - RIT's camel. This is the result.



No more yellow and everything matches! I'm so happy with how it turned out.

 

OMG thank you for awesome tips. can I bring your tips with translation? I'll write your name.

 

Thank you so much fot this thread! I have Iplehouse Akando, who is a bit older, purchased second hand, used to be white skin and now he is butter-yellow. I will try to make him normal skinned!

 

I was wondering how to blush, thank you for this post!

 

I've recommended this thread many times when friends have mentioned a doll with color issues. Then, I received a doll who was ws when I much prefer ns dolls....& a friend recommended this thread to me! >///<
Since she is a toddler size doll. And an old CH who had a pale ns resin. I wanted to keep her coloring subtle. Being my first dyeing attempt, I decided I'd rather under do it than over do it also. ;}
I followed the three dye recipe carefully after sanding her & giving her a good scrub with 90% alcohol & a magic eraser. When I first tried dyeing her head cap, I found that the drops of serum per cup of water were not enough & added eyedropper fulls instead. Like I said, she was ws, perhaps that was the difference? Or, I misunderstood a step... anyway, using a stopwatch & checking regularly, I settled on 45 to 50 seconds for the dye time. Which seemed like plenty at the time. Now that she is dry & restrung, I am wishing I'd left her in the full minute & had maybe used a little less pink....but, that's all a part of the learning process!
At least now she isn't glowing like a ghost when sitting with my mellowed ns SD dolls!
Dye 1 by kathelslionheart, on Flickr

Dye 2 by kathelslionheart, on Flickr
IRL, the color looks lovely tho the camera isn't capturing it as well as I'd like.
Dye 3 by kathelslionheart, on Flickr

Addendum: After a year, I keep wishing I'd let the dye bath work a little longer. I was so afraid of getting her too dark that instead she is still on the pale side.
Updated 11/24/2017

 

Nice job! You can really see the color difference between the first and last pics!

Was this pic taken in daylight? It might make a difference in her coloration in the pic if it was.

Ryu

 

Well...there was still daylight when I finished dyeing her. Once she was together & dressed it was evening & photos with my phone didn't do her justice. The two photos with my other dolls were taken in a room where there's not a lot of daylight (for their own good) and in that case I used the flash which washes out the colors some or changes the colors...
The other thing I've noticed is that even tho the dyes were well mixed, the red seems to have clung or stained more on edges a bit like around the head cap & neck hole. And also gave her a slight "birth mark" over her left eye. All will be covered by a wig or her faceup but definitely something to watch out for when trying to be careful with the dyes. Her head wasn't the first thing I dyed, & it only shows a tiny bit on her knees at the joints & on her bum as well so I'm thinking it is unexpected blushing this time.
Thanks for the recipe, it was just what I needed!

 

This thread is awesome! I'm going to get a normal skin head with grey apoxy mods. Does anyone know if apoxy will be colored the same way as the rest of the head? I thought to tint the head tan to match a tan body

 

Does this work on tan dolls? I am worried about greening.

 

uchan the apoxy will have different properties to the dolls resin so it will take up the colour differently.
I think there are two things you can do, firstly you could seal the whole head with a spray sealer first so then the sealant will be what takes up a lot of the colour and it may be more even that way, maybe. Or you could just go ahead and dye it and then just blush the modded parts to match the rest of the head.

iamkathybrown I don't see why you couldn't use dye to try and add the reddish tones back into greened resin.

 

Here is a photo of Eibhleann with her family now that I have them all back together. She is definitely a light ns, because I only dyed her about 50 seconds...but in this case it works well.
DSCN1238 by kathelslionheart, on Flickr

 

^^ Such a good thing to stumble upon with an incoming hybrid! Hope to see more pictures too!

 

Bringing this thread back to get some advice- I'd like to do the opposite of this tutorial, and create some artificial yellowing! I bought a pair of the new SID hands for my old SID body from 2011, so naturally after five years the body has yellowed and the hands are much pinker. With age, the body has also gotten a tiny bit darker. I put the hands in my sunny window for a couple weeks and haven't noticed any difference in the color. I'm not about to stick these hands in the window for 6 months, then flip them over and wait another 6 months! Since I want them a tad darker as well, I figured I could dye them.

Does anyone experienced with RIT dye have recommendations on which color I should use to get a similar color as yellowing? Reading through the thread, I've seen Golden Yellow, Tan, and Camel mentioned. I'd love to know which one would give the best result. I'm planning to blush the hands anyway so I could possibly perfect the match with pastels, but it would be great to have a good base color to start with.

 

Have any of you tried doing a dye bath on older BlueFairy Tiny Fairy? I finally got a blossom body for my ancient May (2004?) but she is so yellow there is no way I can make myself switch her. Personally, I don't mind the yellow color as a whole, I just don't want to color mix that aggressively, so, I'm considering giving her head a dye bath to match her up and wondered how old TF might take the dye.

 

Just discover this tutorial thread now and it's great! I have some yellowing resin dolls too and I was doing a research on how I could either whiten the yellowing material. I am gonna experiment and try this dying method. Thanks!

 

Is it beneficial to seal the entire doll after doing this? I can imagine it would help keep the color in tact, though I didn't see it mentioned in the instructions or anything so I'm assuming it's okay to leave it as is once dyed.

 

What a great tutorial! I had never considered this as an alternative, I've only heard of dyeing as a way of drastic color change...
I'm also interested in the benefits of sealing the doll after this. It doesn't make the dye chip off faster, right?

 

This is an amazing tutorial! Nessa is a few years old now and I know I'll be trying this on her very soon. Thanks!

 

This is great! I'm going to try this on my yellowed mnf girl. The problem is that RIT dyes aren't available here in Finland (or the liquids aren't, and only a couple of the powders; and I'm not going to pay 15 € per bottle to order them ) so I'm going to try this with iDye Poly - it's a dye meant for plastics so it should take. I got golden yellow and pink, I'll post the results when I'm finished!

 

You will need to be super careful with iDye Poly doing this, their colours take much more brightly on resin than rit dye, I don't even know if you would be able to get a pale enough shade with it.
I suggest if you are sure you are going to use it, only add tiny amounts to the dye bath at a time, and try something like the headcap, or a hidden internal piece first to see how the dye takes, just in case it's going to be too bright.

 

@raewhitewolf, yes, I know, it being a dye meant for artificial fibers and plastics. But diluting is the way to go! I think we'll be talking about 2-4 drops per litre (~four cups) at most.

 

Oh, I'd love to see how that turns out! I'm contemplating dyeing an old NS body tan, but as I'm in Germany I'm having the same issues getting hold of the right dyes ...best of luck to you!

 

I gave this a try on a scrubbed-up Volks SD16 Yukinojo - made in 2005, so you know the poor boy was daffodil yellow - and overall I'm pleased with the results, but the road to pinkness was not utterly smooth!

For one thing, that heavy smooth resin that they use (or used to use) just... doesn't wanna cooperate. (Or maybe it's just this guy!) Most of the pieces ended up taking fifteen minutes or longer to reach a decent blush. Also, for some reason, his arms and legs took the dye a lot better than his torso and head. Towards the end I put in a little bit more dye and just kept pulling his head out over and over and plopping a perfectly-pink foot on his cheek: "Are you pink enough yet? NOPE!"

That being said, though, in the end, he came out pretty well! A few odd pink patches here and there, and his forearms are a bit pinker than the rest of him, but the color looks lovely and natural and definitely better than before.

 

I have a girl that after years has gone quite yellow and I didn't really notice how much until I tried putting her original wig on her. Most of the photos on here aren't available anymore, so I'm hoping this works.
If I have a problem, could I sand it off?

 

You might actually be able to get it off with a quick wipe of acetone.

 

So, I have it a go, and I completely forgot to buy a glass bottle and stopper, so I had to be very creative, but she does look more pinkish now, which is great. Not sure if she still looks yellowish, coz I have no one's dolls to compare it to, but overall, I'm pretty pleased.

Also, don't be me, use gloves. Gloves are your friend.

I'll try see if there's any difference when I upload the photos.

*edit okay, so the face is still kinda yellowy. I'll have to give that piece another go.

 

This is great!! My friend has a yellowed doll body that she totally gave up on. I think this could restore her and bring her back to life. Thank you!

 

So thankful for this! I'll post some before/after photos once I set something up for someone...

 

Would dying a head and body that were different colors to begin with make them match? I have a really yellowed head and a NS body, so I would love to have them match perfectly!

 

Using two different coloured pieces will likely give two different coloured results.

Think of it as this; your head is colour 1, and you're adding colour 3 with the dye, so you end up with colour 4, since 1+3=4.
But since the body is a different colour, 2, when you add the dye, 3, you get a different colour. 2+3=5.

Adjusting the ratio to account for the differences in your bodies and heads colours will help so you'll want to look at basic colour theory to guide you. (Yellow plus Red = orange, for example)

 

I used this method on my dream doll- a volks f-16 in white skin that had yellowed. I used Rit Dyemore in sandstone and apricot. I used a large 16 quart (I think) soup pot. In it, I used 9 cap fulls of sandstone and half a capful for apricot.
he is a tiny bit more orange than I would like, so I would say to try with less apricot.
It was the best thing I have ever done. It was super easy and I love him so much more now. I only soaked my pieces for about 20 seconds.
Dyeing volks f-16to get rid of yellowing.

 

Thank you! To a Newbie this is wonderful!

 

It may not work in every case, but when I dyed my soom tiny hybrid, I dyed the WS to match the Snow Blue pieces I had, THEN dyed the entire doll tan from there. It wasn't a super even dye job because it was the first time I'd ever done it and this was before I knew about RIT dyemore, but the final color itself was the same on both the previously dyed and undyed pieces! I think it just depends on how deeply the first round of "matching" dye penetrates the surface of the resin? Anyway it'll definitely help even if it doesn't lead to a 100% color match.

 

Could someone confirm that this is the correct dye? There's another type that's called DyeMore Synthetic Fiber Dye, but in the description it says it can dye things like 3d printed objects, plastics, etc. None of my local stores stock it so I'll have to order online and would rather not fuss with returning via mail if I grab the wrong thing.

Hoping to try this out with my DS Hound. Super worried since he was my first BJD but I've had him since 2007 so he's definitely yellowed aha. Thankfully a very even yellowing, so I'm hopeful.

 

That is indeed the correct dye. I have not tried the DyeMore but may just do so. I have a... well loved BJD that's in bad shape from yellowing and chiping over time. I'll try out the dye more and report back on it when I give it a shot.

 

Dyemore is designed for synthetic materials so it's supposed to work better on dolls. Rit All Purpose works better on natural fibers (though it can still dye dolls at least some of the time).

A super watered down quick dip (like 2ml to 3/4 gallon of water for 30-45 seconds) of Rit Dyemore Apricot can give a really nice peach tone to dolls.

 

Good to know! I'll give that a shot with my poor Aru... once I finish sanding her. ...I should just get someone to do it for me....

 

So I want to try this on one of my boys who just lost his rosy tone in the past six years I've head him and also I would like to possibly switch out his heads.
My problem is, I am a bit on a budget (and where I live a bottle of Rit Dye is like 10-15 bucks) so I was hoping to go for the 'less expensive' mixture of Rose Pink and Tan. But I can't find that color anywhere and some places even say its discontinued? So am I overlooking something or did they really get rid (haha) of the Rose Pink dye? And if so, what would be a good replacement color for it? Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

@Kuroshii

I would opt for getting Dyemore Super Pink, and mixing it with some Apricot Orange and/or Sandstone.

 

Want to pop in and say that this tutorial is amazeballs.

My first victim is a very old, used body I picked up cheaply (I think it's a Resinsoul SD). I used powdered Rit dye, and it took quite nicely to the body.

HOWEVER, I tried dyeing a Dollmore Eva Louise SD head to somewhat match - and I got streaks and blotches on the head. I also read elsewhere that you should dye all body parts in one bath together, and that advice did not work out for me. The smaller body parts absorbed much more dye than the larger parts and came out more pink. On the other hand, they look kinda "blushed" because they're the joint pieces, so I'm not going to do anything to alter them.

Oh - actual dyeing time = approximately 2.5 minutes. Prep time ... an hour and a half.

Editing to add: soaked the body in Oxiclean and lightly scrubbed with a Magic Eraser (or the generic substitute). It worked perfectly for evening out the blotchy dye job.

Also: this dezombification serum is also EXCELLENT for converting white resin to a fairy skintone like Unoa - a very pale peach with pink undertones.

 

Anyway you can add back the photo’s?

This thread is so helpful.

Thank you!

 

OK, so I've just done this with parts/resins from three different companies and found...

On Volks, Merrydollround, and Dollmore resin it comes out too pink.

I had to put both the Merrydollround and the Dollmore parts into another dye batch of just Tan colour to correct it... but once corrected it came out fine.

On Volks it takes forever to have any effect. In the end she ws emersed for nearly ten minutes (and had the tan dye from the corrective batch for the other two) before there was any viisble effect.

Of course, there had to be one piece that went completely wrong. I think that's a rule, or something,

I was so caught up with examining how well the Dollmore part came out that I left one of theMerryDollRound parts in the corrective tan dye too long so I'm trying to tone down her beach-holiday tan colour now.

Teddy

 

Awesome! Would love to see photos when you're completed.

Thank you

 

Your wish is my command... sort of///

Here's the body I dyed:


> and the head that came out too dark because I left it in too long.

It's uneven along the top edge, This head refuses to dye evenly - this is attempt... four.. I think. I just want to get it closish to the body colour and even enough for blushing and faceup to disguise the rest.

I don't yet have a picture of the head that came out perfect.

Teddy.

 

Thank you, I think the body turned out great, I love it! Great job, thank you for posting.