Aesthetics Starstruck! From Box Nightmare to JFashion Glam with Obitsu Gretel

I debated where to put this thread since it's also technically a box-opening, but the focus is more what I did with her after I rescued her from her precarious packaging... situation. Really this is a story of how several small projects/improvements REALLY add up! And if I do more little TLC projects with her, it'd be nice to have a centralized location to document them! So here we go.

Last month I really got hit hard by the need to hunt for an old dolly fave of mine, which happens from time to time. Obitsu Gretel 60cm, long discontinued, has been one of my favorites from back in the day since back in the day when I joined the hobby in the 2005-2006 era. From time to time I'd look for her - I bought a 27cm Pixy head last year, teeny tiny Gretel with elf ears, because they're hard enough to come by I figured it'd be better than nothing. And one time I thought I had found a 60cm Pixy, but the listing was just for the elf ear option parts pictured on the Gretel head So tracking her down got moved to the backburner again until July 2023, when a couple things happened that rekindled the Urge To Hunt.
Somebody I follow on instagram with a small army of Gretels was posting beautiful shots of them and really keeping her at the forefront of my mind. Then @Asenva used a Gretel head for a series of videos and livestreams testing brush sealants, and it sealed () the deal - I was after her again! My DoA and DollDreaming dollhunt muscles are in peak condition these days, lmfao, but I figured I better warm up my ebay muscles and practice looking for this old girl in the place I was most likely to see her pop up in the wild. And to my surprise, there was actually a listing! I put her on my watchlist but figured somebody would snatch her up. Full doll, wig, eyes, cute Alice-style outfit, even shoes! She wasn't in my budget so I resigned to see her go to another good home.

But about a week later, the seller sent the listing's watchers a direct offer! It was too good a price to pass up, so I brought her home. Based on the photos in the listing, I could tell she would need some light TLC, a bit of staining et cetera, but I love a good welcome-home restoration project! I eagerly awaited her arrival, and was a bit surprised when she arrived in an unusually lightweight box - even for a vinyl.

So I cut the tape open, removed a single sheet of bubblewrap placed on top, and found this:
20230715_141504 by Jules B, on Flickr

I was so sure her neck was broken, I was terrified I was going to pick her up and her head was just going to fall off. But no, either she was crammed in with her head at a literal 90 degree angle to the rest of her, or she was jostled and became smooshed like this. She made it over a thousand miles like this, somehow undamaged??? But she really gave me a scare opening her up to find this packaging (or should I say LACK of packaging) nightmare inside. And thus began my adventure.

20230715_144038 by Jules B, on Flickr
After confirming her safe and sound, I discovered her "beautiful deep-set brown eyes" were really oddly far back in her eye wells for some reason. My first thought was that putty had deteriorated or shrunk from age, pulling her eyes back into her head. Easy fix, right? No prob! So I took off her wig...

20230715_142447 by Jules B, on Flickr
...And found this. A previous owner had used the old party balloon budget wig cap method, but rather than cut the balloon to size they just snipped off the end and wrapped her entire headcap in it? It was so adhered and solidified I thought somebody had actually painted her headcap for some reason until I was able to pry it off her head. So that became a mini-project, peeling that off without leaving residue or scraps behind. Unfortunately I didn't take pics of that, since it kinda required both hands and a lot of careful plucking. Underneath the balloon was not one but two pieces of velcro, which hold her wig on just fine... The things in this hobby that make you wonder "just, why? "

20230715_143031 by Jules B, on Flickr
At this point we're already feeling a little improvement, but you can really tell how far back in there her eyes are. She almost looks like she doesn't have any in at all! So we've gotta fix that. But a more serious issue...

20230715_145124 by Jules B, on Flickr
These lashes. What the crispy chicken mcfrick is going on here. Dusty. Crusty. HAIRY. Greasy-looking. They need to go.

20230715_142723 by Jules B, on Flickr
And for a brief moment my heart stopped because I thought her little star makeup accent was drawn on with sharpie. I inspected it a little and I am fairly certain it's watercolor, thank GOD, but hoo boy this girl had me CONCERNED.

Stay tuned for the lashpocalypse! Also coming up is a wig rescue, a fashion makeover, and possibly stain treatments! This sweet girl has been through a lot but she wears it well, and I can't wait to share what small horrors I uncovered next lmfao!

 

I hope you guys are ready because I wasn't ready, lmfao. Opening up her now balloon-free head revealed eyewells that didn't have putty in them at all, surprisingly, they were just massively oversized eyes jammed right into the vinyl cups as tight as they could go. It was therefore physically impossible for them to sit properly. Luckily I have plenty of spares, so I popped those out painlessly and got to the definitely MORE painful task of... getting rid of these.

20230716_205323 by Jules B, on Flickr

So these "deep-set brown eyes" were just yellows so far back in there the shadows made them look brown from every single angle possible. And absolutely MASSIVE, on the large end of the 18mm range. Again, an easy fix, and thank goodness, because... Deeply, profoundly, from the bottom of my heart, wtf. This appears to be TWO sets of cheapo plasticky lashes fused together, or just a really badly executed double-lash look. Genuinely I do not know which, I couldn't tell. But not only were the lashes poor quality, they were ridiculously out of scale human costume lashes. And they pulled off a significant portion of faceup, but only on the right side - I THINK, nothing in her faceup is that shade of brown but it's not glue and there's no matching residue on the other eyewell??? Mysteries abound with this child idek what to think lol.
Either way, the brown line from the eyelid area shows how absolutely bonkers deep they were glued in. It also explains why they covered so much of her eyes themselves, why they were pointing so far downward. You can really see how thick they are compared to a strand of regular lashes; I'm sure better quality ones would have looked nicer, but this style is just not to my tastes and combined with their crustiness I just could not abide them. I didn't think to do a comparison shot to normal lashes (either doll or human) before giving these a much-needed trash can funeral, but here's a zoomed-in pic; one that even my phone didn't want to look to closely at, apparently, lmfao:

20230716_205328 by Jules B, on Flickr

At this point all I could think of was this classic vine, looking like a spider with a salon blowout.

20230716_210838 by Jules B, on Flickr
Much better! Looking refreshed and lovely. Losing the clean edges of her eyeliner was a worthy sacrifice, I think, you can actually see the way her eyes were sculpted now. And I can always touch it up myself later! That's a project for later on, given how dusty my high winds mountain climate is right now.

20230716_212158 by Jules B, on Flickr
After a few eye tests, I found some actual brown acrylics that fit nicely and look lovely. She's really starting to feel like the Gretel I always wanted now, and honestly the little lines where the paint was lifted off or just not painted at all is kinda growing on me! IRL especially, it almost gives the illusion of light lashes that match her wig. And speaking of wig, that's what we'll be tackling in the next post! Because it might look okay in those pictures, but it had some unexpectedly... tactile, shall we say, issues, lol.

Thanks for checking this out, everybody! I'm always excited to see a doll getting some well-earned TLC, and it's making me really happy that you're enjoying this one too!

 

My plan was to update this daily to get up to her current state, but this one required a bit more formatting! It kind of became a wig rescue tutorial lmao. I think tuts of this variety already exist, but if anybody wants me to make this description of my process a full tutorial with more pics, just let me know!

The wig she came with wig was oddly resistant to being brushed even though the fibers weren't very tangled. And when I handled it more, I noticed it was actually sticky to the touch

20230715_142906 by Jules B, on Flickr
This is what I'm talking about. No tangles, but the brush is sticking to the strands hanging midair. YEESH. This struck me as a combination problem: one, too much leave-in wig conditioner/wig spray, and two: in addition to being oversprayed, it's old and the thick layer(s) of spray solution are breaking down with age, leading to the gummy texture.

Fortunately this is also an easy fix, just requires a few household items and a bit of patience.

To get rid of the old conditioner, I ran it under warm, not hot, water from the faucet in a clean sink rather than soak, so the wig isn't sitting in warm reactivated wig conditioner water (plus whatever dust or gunk the stickiness has grabbed onto over time ). I rinsed it under the warm water a few times, making sure to gently rub the headcap to release anything trapped there as well. I changed the angle I was holding it under the stream of water often to make sure I didn't miss any spots.

• Note: because wig conditioner is often used to tame flyaways and decrease frizz, if you use this method be prepared to see some of the fibers get a little wild between the rinsing and the release of the old conditioner. Don't be discouraged, we can re-tame them! The first priority is to get them clean before we work with them.

To get at anything left, I dripped on a few drops of dye-free liquid laundry soap and gently rubbed it into the wig and the cap. I worked slowly for a few minutes, being especially delicate with the ends to not aggravate any frizzed or worn strands.

• Dye-free detergent is always better than anything with a color additive (regular green or blue laundry soap) to prevent color transfer onto the wig fibers or worse, staining - especially on a vinyl doll!

From there, a thorough and careful rinse under warm water at first, then cool, to keep any of the soap from lingering. I gently pressed sections of fibers between my fingers and rubbed down the length of the strands while I rinsed - not squeezing, but helping tease out the soap. It activates any little pockets of soap I missed, so if I see a soap bubble I know to focus more closely on that area before moving on. This is also a good time to turn the wig inside out, to make sure nothing gets trapped in the mesh/fabric of the wig cap. Another good rinse inside out, then it was good to go! I let it drip in my hands for a few seconds after turning off the water, then gently pressed my fingers down the fibers again to get it to a less completely saturated state.

For getting out more excess water before letting it air dry, I wrapped the wig in a clean, fresh washcloth, then gently pressed my little wig sandwich together for a bit. It's helpful to hold the wig upright if you can, headcap at the top, so gravity works in your favor to drip more water out. A few quick presses and it's ready to be laid out!

Using a towel that's way too big, I spread the towel out on a table and placed the damp wig on it slightly to one side of the center. Then I folded the towel over toward the center, covering the whole wig. This time I pressed a bit more firmly with my whole hand, making sure I could feel the slight squishing of the towel into the wig. (This step would have required more caution if this had been a curly wig, but lucky for me I don't have much styling to maintain!) On the other/dry half of the towel I did the same thing again, just flipping the wig over so the half that was on top before was on the bottom this time.

Then I folded the towel in on itself so only dry sides remain facing outward (table side and airdry side). I laid the wig out on the towel again, splaying out the long fibers so they had more space to dry; a brush is helpful for this, just be careful not to apply pressure or pulling to the strands. I let it sit for a few hours, flipping it over periodically to expose the wig cap to open air. To help keep its shape and absorb more moisture, I balled up a clean paper towel and put it in the wig cap after the first flip. Here's what that looked like partway through:

20230715_172635 by Jules B, on Flickr
It's still drying in this picture, but you can already see how the plasticky sheen is gone and the texture is visibly softer! The paper towel inside is working well to keep the shape. The next time I checked on it, I removed the now very damp paper towel to flip it cap-open again, spread the strands back out, and set the paper towel a little to the side so that it could dry as well and be reused, minimizing waste.

Normally when I refresh my wigs, either doll or human, I finish off the washing process with a few drops of dye-free fabric softener wash to restore a bit of life to the synthetic fibers before I move on to the drying stage. But too much product was this pink disaster's issue in the first place, so I held off. This is also going to help me tell if I need to do another round of washing later, if deeper layers of conditioner spray exposed by the first round of warm water wash are now surface-level and breaking down as well.

It looked fabulous on her one it was fully dry (the next day for me, dry climate atm), but then we had a small accident (she's fine) and I had to wash it all over again lol. So it should be super good to go! Next time I'll be posting her as she is now, along with some photos of her stains that I might work on in the future - they don't bother me much since they're not super egregious imo, but if I decide to work on them I'll be documenting that here too! Thanks for your time

 

Thank you so much everybody for your support! This special girl deserves to look her best and I'm so glad to be able to compare where she started versus what she looks like now. But first, a status report:

Here's a pic of some of her stains, from the black lace socks she was wearing for an unknown amount of time before she arrived. Honestly, they're more noticeable on the back, about the intensity of the more in-focus one if not more so, along the sculpting of the above-knee area. If I try to lift them, I'll probably use the standard heat lamp plus stain cream and cling film method, but at the moment I have neither a heat lamp nor any of the suggested types of strain treatment, lol. Her elbow and knee joints did have some stains as well, but those came off with a baby wipe and didn't photograph well prior to removal anyway. I did notice some arm stains when I took her out in the sunshine for a few photos yesterday, so I might end up thinking about a removal treatment more seriously.
20230814_203402 by Jules B, on Flickr

The most recent thing I've done was make her a petticoat to go with the new outfit I picked out for her. The Alice outfit she came with is lovely but it has a weird smell/funk from storage. I'm weighing my options for washing it with the gold clock chain, which is not removable, and the iron-on card suit decorations which are so old that one fell off when I took her out of the box, lol. As you can see her stains are fairly noticeable, but that's on hold for now. I might get her some nice white stockings in the meantime.
Round 125 Scrap petticoat done! by Jules B, on Flickr

So with that said, let's get a comparison. Rather than scroll all the way back up, let's take a fresh look at what she looked like at the start...
20230715_144038 by Jules B, on Flickr

And, finally, what my gorgeous girl looks like right now.
Round 125 Scrap petticoat done! by Jules B, on Flickr

What a difference, and with just a few easy projects! I'm very proud, and I hope it encourages anyone nervous about modding and maintenance to start small and build on each of your successes! This has really motivated me to find other TLC projects to do in my collection, and maybe work up to finding a major project doll to restore!

 

@cobaltconduct Baking soda!! You're so right, that's definitely what I'll do.

@KaraWildsong Thank you so much! I was worried I didn't have nearly enough pictures, I'm so glad it was clear!

 

@Ankka thank you!! I'm very happy with her transformation. I'm still trying to decide if I want to bother with tackling her stains or not, but I can definitely enjoy what I've done no matter what I decide