Maintenance Mold growing on secondhand doll! D:

But is it on the elastic only or also on the doll?
My elastic got rusty (and it might from humidity) because it got connected to the S-hooks. I think for the safety reasons, washing in some anti-bio soap and rubbing alco, and drying your doll should be enough of help. Monitor for any changes, but if your room is dry enough, it should be alright now

 

Hey there~
I actually had the same problem with one of my older dolls that I purchased from YJapan! The poor guy had been pretty beaten up, moldy insides; elastic was moldy and worthless. Thankfully with resin, it is pretty forgiving with mold as long as you wipe it down pretty well with soap and alcohol. I ended up only using Dawn dish soap; magic eraser, and some alcohol wipes and then bathing him again in a dish soap warm "bath", patting him dry, and then leaving him over night to air dry.

Of course, you don't want to use the same elastic; so you'll unfortunately need to throw that one away and restring him. I'm sure you "could" sanitize it somehow; but I personally wouldn't since elastic is cheap.

Mandarake is a consignment shop (from what I understand), you could let them know; but it's possible that they would not be able to do much about it. It thankfully is something that you can fix yourself and your doll should be fine.

With my doll that came with the same problem, he has been mold free for two years now. I do restring my dolls pretty regularly, so he gets checked frequently. For the deeper stain that you mentioned, you can always buff that out with some fine grit sand paper if you really wanted to.

 

It sounds like what you did should prevent the mold from coming back. So long as you aren't keeping the doll in a dark damp environment resin really isn't all that conductive to mold growth so wouldn't worry about it coming back. Unfortunately it most likely is stains where it touched the doll. You could try lightly sanding the effected area but unless it was in a really visible spot I wouldn't worry about it. Sanding would most likely make lighter patches on the doll unless you sanded the entire doll and I wouldn't think going to all that trouble would be worth it.

And yeah mandarake is a consignment store so there's not really anything they could do about it. I've purchased some non doll things from there that were is really rough shape and very dirty but that's kind of the sacrifice you make in exchange for getting a good deal.

 

Mandarake is usually pretty good at describing any problems with the stuff they sell. I've bought numerous things from them, both doll and non-doll items and they have all been as described.

I wonder if the mold might have formed after they've already checked the doll and listed it (Japan can get quite humid after all and it is currently the rainy season) or maybe they weren't aware of the mold if it was inside the doll.

Either way, I don't think there's any harm in letting them know about the problem so that they can maybe improve their checking or storage process. And I don't think they'll need you to send it back if you don't want to, but maybe they might offer a partial refund?

And anyway, it looks like they only accept returns within three days of delivery as seen on their FAQ.

Returns and exchanges will only be dealt with where an item is incorrectly described, or there is a problem for which we are at fault. You must notify us within three days of delivery if you need such a return or exchange.​