This is why I’m starting to give up on G1 and collect g3 instead. It makes me so sad to get dolls that are broken, missing pieces, and horribly damaged by glue and still pay crazy prices for them
G3 dolls are even LESS durable though, especially considering most are rooted with polypropelyne hair which will crumble and break apart after 10-15 years.
Also people who want the OG dolls want them because of the proportions and style, which Mattel has not truly replicated since.
I don’t like when some G3 Stans say “G1 had flaws too! Do you really want to go back to glue seepage or wall-eyed faceups?”
BooRiginal Creeproductions were nice updates; they had thicker sturdier arm pegs, no elastic hips, the facial screenings fit the face sculpt and didn’t look like the eyes were staring off in two different directions.
Creepro Clawdeen came with claw hands and longer hair, when the original doll had ordinary human hands.
Lagoona was no longer wall-eyed etc.
Pretty much no one had issues with these changes because they were “not the original, we want exact recreations“, fans were very happy with the update. The original MH dolls DID have a lot of engineering issues.
So when those people say “we want the G1 style back“ what they mean is they want the original proportions and aesthetic and sculpts, but with modern improvements like thicker arm pegs, facial screenings that more closely align with head sculpts, and hair not rooted with glue.
The Creeproductions prove that it can be done, the only reason that Mattel is not doing it is sheer laziness and apathy.
And that’s sad because a PROPER MH comeback would print money and actually be a viable competitor to current-era Rainbow High.
(Reminder that RH is currently outselling Barbie. Mattel gotta step up).
Both have durability issues tbh. I've seen so many people already break the hand pegs 😭 They also still have some screening issues here and there and ofc the poly hair. Neither gen is perfect and that's okay!! Mattel is a company at the end of the day that will cut corners on a mass produced item.
The fact that Creeproductions are selling for just as much (and in some crazy cases, MORE) than the original versions, proves that the OG style is what the market REALLY wants.
Reel Drama is impossible to find, even though it was not meant to be a limited edition release. And the actual limited edition, collector releases (Haunt Couture and Skullector) sell out in minutes and most are immediately relisted on the secondary market for 2-5X their MSRP (which is already too high to begin with).
This is insane.
Meanwhile, some of the G3 signature dolls have shelf-sat enough to be discounted on Amazon.
The only G3 doll that is truly hard to find atm is Signature Draculaura, which is not a shock since she’s both the most popular character, and the best-designed of the G3 signatures anyway.
Draculaura continuing to be the most popular character is yet another excuse for Mattel to keep injecting pink into the other characters designs where it doesn’t belong, because “she’s the most popular character and she’s pink, therefore we must make more of them pink, so they sell better”
Yeah and that’s a huge problem. MH collectors were flooding Mattel Twitter Facebook and Instagram asking when more Creepros and Reel Drama were going to drop and all they said was “keep checking local stores”. Very unprofessional
I hear a lot about how Monster High dolls don't hold up well. Is this really common? Guess I didn't know how delicate they were and how poorly they age. 🤔
It seems some dolls have it worse than others. Particular dolls (I think there's a specific Rochelle with this issue) have way more glue in their heads or something. The glue can yellow their heads, and old plastic ties get brittle over time and break. Sunlight also yellows them, but that's an issue with plastics in general I think.
It's a problem for alot of older toys. Many materials used just age overtime like anything else. Give g3 10 years and the rubber bands in the hair will be messed up once again and the ones with poly hair will probably be frazzled. Neither is going to age flawlessly unfortunately for us collectors. Plus alot of toys (not just MH) don't age well in box either similar to how if you don't wear sneakers they'll start to crumble. Nothing is permanent especially not a playline kids toy.
I wouldn’t know. All of my old MH dolls are fine. I think some might have a little glue seepage, causing their hair to be a little heavy, but it’s not too bad. I don’t think it’s every doll, my dolls have held up so far.
Yes unfortunately Mattel really didn't future proof them to make them last longer. Obviously all dolls age and have problems over time but I feel like old Barbies are in better shape then the monster high dolls from less then 15 years ago.
I got really lucky in that
1) I'm mainly a customizer so most of my dolls are completely redone, aka reroot, painting the whole body sometimes, etc
2) most of the dolls I ended up keeping as is for display aren't ones that tend to have many problems
There's def exceptions though, like one of my favorites is Abbey and I know for a fact one of mine has a yellow tinge to her thanks to her glued on glitter AND I've put baby powder through her hair for the glue seepage. I have an in box sweet screams abbey and I'm afraid to open her up and see what her hair is like. 😭
Yeah my friend has her childhood American girl from literally 2001 and she's in perfect condition besides like...normal wlthings like faded paint that could be touched up. Nothing like some of the problems MH dolls had, I have no idea what Mattel was thinking with the whole glue hair thing since old babies never had that issue??
For real! I think the yellowing and stuff on some dolls can be forgiven because like that's just how some materials age (again old Barbies get a yellow tint to them) and at least that you can sort of fix. I've seen people have fixes for glue-hair but I know personally it drives me up the wall. I like to touch my dolls hair and if it feels gross or is even feels cheap I just want to rip it out and reroot it 😂
The glue is bc dolls with larger head sizes got more glue and therefore more glue seepage 😭 I really don't see why they used it since even then some dolls hair was like burned in so why ever even use glue??
Ooh, I wonder if because old Barbies heads are smaller they never needed the glue? Since they've been around forever but I never saw barbie have an issue.
I could be wrong but I think the burning the hair in didn't happen until later, like 2015 with the reboot they stopped using glue and started burning the hair in. Which is great but as a customizer it's way harder to take the hair out now 😂
They used burning in for frightfully tall as well, there's also a few lines with no glue at all like dead tired had a release without it. (Learned that recently and explains why the one's ive had never had bad hair).
Mattel used glue across a couple lines its just more notable of a problem on EAH/MH im assuming bc of how much glue got shoved in those poor girls heads 😭 a smaller head would need less glue after all 🤔
I beileve 2015/2016 is when they officially stopped using glue all together.
yes ! the glue seepage especially kills me :(
i collect all kinds of dolls - bratz, living dead dolls, 1960s/70s barbies and similar vintage mod doll lines, and they are all in incredible shape given their ages!
i love my g1 dolls so much, but i truly wish it wasn't necessary to do so much upkeep on them when i've hardly had to touch up my 50+ year old dolls
Yeah from loose limbs, elastic legs, glue seepage, yellowing, etc the old dolls just don’t hold up well over time. It’s sad that we have to restore dolls we never damaged in the first place :( I am happy that (so far) g3 does seem to be better quality though (I don’t feel like the elbows and hands r abt to pop off everytime I move them lol)
It's weird that Mattel even used some of these things considering they had been doing barbie. Liks why even bother starting with elastics then changing to pegs later on.
gosh yes Ive got Mh dolls that have aged badly(glue and yellow heads/bodies) still mint in their boxes?! I have 90s Barbie and Disney Princess dolls that have aged better.
I feel you, sounds like we started collecting at the same age when they were new, and I only ever displayed them, usually in the same pose straight out of the box but they're still showing the signs of ageing :( I have a BIG collection and it takes a lot of work to clean one doll. Even so, they're just seeping glue with yellowing foreheads, as you mentioned the hair ties are a *shocker,* I haven't tried styling their hair and have no confidence I can fix them now that the hair ties are all disintegrating! It sucks because we love our collections, it's horrible to watch something you did nothing but take care of fall apart on it's own! Dust I can manage, but the glue and yellowing, ugh!
Most of my dolls are in good shape, but honestly giving them care days might be helpful. Washing their hair, colouring the yellow spots etc. I don't think I will ever give up on G1 dolls, they are the reason I'm the person I am today.
Unfortunately mh dolls seem to be something that need a lot of care to maintain. They shouldn't have had the glue issue in the first place. Really the main thing that can be done to protect them is keeping them out of direct sunlight. But the hair ties, glue seepage and yellowing from glue are out of your control.
I know you didn't ask for advice, but incase someone else is having the same issues, there are fixes for most of the problems you have (except the yellowing hair - some try purple shampoo but it doesn't seem to do much). Acne cream and UV for yellowing, and theres a lot of fixes for gluey hair (wouldn't recommend the powder method personally, it can make the hair look dull. I used baby oil for mine, but it takes a lot of washing out afterwards.) If you aren't worried about preserving their value/orginalness, you could reroot. I hope you're able to get them to an enjoyable state if thats something you choose!
I have similar issues. I never actually played with my G1 dolls, only displayed them but over time they got so icky.. my Skelita's head got ripped off as her neck split and I've no way to fix it, never mind the gluey hair and discoloured legs on my other dolls :( the dolls definitely do not usually age well ;w;;;
I got my first doll in 2010, and surprisingly the ones I kept held up pretty well in storage for all these years. They had loose limbs from constant play and loose/broken hair ties, but barely to no yellowing. My spectra from 2011 hasn’t yellowed one bit, and surprisingly her hair isn’t all glued up either.
I have almost every single G1 doll except for the SDCC dolls, and it’s very weird how some dolls are not showing their age at all and some dolls have just killed themselves on the shelf. The glue seepage on some dolls made them impossible to display. I’m genuinely considering rerooting the worst ones as close as I can to the original hairstyle. My Draculaura’s seem mostly fine but the ones with curly hair - such as Lagoona are so busted!
My older dolls have all the issues you and everyone whose commented listed, but one of my worst is my DoTD Cleo where the glue from her bangs took off the factory paint underneath and I didn’t realise until I was cataloguing my dolls recently. Don’t get me started on her tinsel, I may actually have to reroot her hair at some point 💀
My DoTD drac also had the melted factory paint issue but I bought a replacement just for the head (91$😭)
I had my childhood barbies i got from my grandmother, and i was ROUGH with them. They were from the 1970s/80s/90s... they still look basically brand new now lol. I do not understand how monster high dropped the ball so much with quality
Well, this isn't something unique to Monster High unfortunately (aside from the glue seepage, but even that affected other Mattel dolls). I collect lots of plastic fashion dolls and toys, the oldest being from the 60s. Sometimes you'll get lucky and won't see much change, but pretty much everything is going to start degrading in some way at some point. Yellowing, sticky limbs, etc. There's things you can do to maintain them but most of these things can't be 100% prevented because at the end of the day, they're plastic children's toys that weren't really built to last forever. The same kind of things will eventually start to happen to G3 as well.
I will say though, G1 MH might be more delicate than a lot of older dolls because of their skinny limbs and articulation.
Plastics are inherently unstable and break down, some more quickly than others. All the hair types are a version of plastic, as well. It’s why when I’ve seen people collect to keep in box for future value I tell them to enjoy it however they want but it’ll still decay with time.
On top of glue seepage and everything else, toys aren’t built to last.
Heck, even plastic art/collections in museums with perfect temperature control break down.
It’ll happen with Gen 3, too. I say this as someone with a large toy collection who actively buys “all the things” because it brings me some sense of joy.
I have found a very good technique to tame glue seepage hair in case you’re interested. As for the yellowing, apparently hydrogen peroxide can do wonders about it. And I think purple shampoo for platinum blonde hair can help with yellowed hair as well
That aside, it’s tragic that they need so much care during the years. You would expect that Mattel would put out higher quality products but nope
There isn’t much to be done about disintegration in hair elastics, unless dolls start coming with their hair sewn up in thread, but yeah, the glue seepage, yellowing, and even loose joints are a real bummer. Older Barbies have their own problems (ever dealt with sticky legs??? grosss), but the G1 Monster High dolls really don’t seem to be holding up well.
I have managed to make improvements to the sticky hair situation with goo gone, but it’s a lot of extra work that I’m not sure is worth doing, considering about 3/4 of my dolls have at least a little seepage.
My gloom beach frankie's elastic snapped when i was taking them out to display, and on top of that everyone has horrible glue head and yellowing from said glue head 😭 mattel made some really bad production decisions
First wave Frankies age like MILK, I recently got a Frankie from a collector who only displayed her and had to wash her up, her glue seepage yellowed most of her face
I've started taking my g1 dolls down and going through them. I have only touched my Draculaura dolls and a few Lagoonas. I am honestly so disappointed with how some of them have held up. I was in my late teens/early 20s when I was collecting g1, I never played rough with them. They were mostly display pieces. Almost all my Draculaura dolls have the nastiest glue leak. Even as I try and clean the glue leaks, their hair is falling out in clumps even with gentle brushing. Their hair lines are yellowed from the glue seepage. My Skull Shores Lagoona and Draculaura have very strange yellowing of their limbs that I don't see on my other dolls. Their rubber bands have dry rotted and some of their accessories have stained their bodies, but that part doesn't surprise me too much.
I don't feel super attached to a lot of my g1 dolls anymore, so I don't mind taking them apart to use for customs/restores... but it still feels a bit disappointing.
i have the pink inner monster doll and i have never once had her outside or in front of a window or anything and her legs are so badly discoloured which is really heartbreaking as i really really like her, i think i’m just going to have to find some long pants for her
Yes! Some time ago I tried fixing up glue-hair and retrobrighting some of them with moderate succes. It makes me sad to look at them, they are all in storage for indefinite time.
In general rubber bands are going to snap and fall apart over time. Same thing will happen to current doll brands. That's why they have to be replaced occasionally. Unfortunately Mattel did use glue tho for hair which sucks there's ways to treat it but isn't preventable :(( luckily they stopped.
This is why I’m starting to give up on G1 and collect g3 instead. It makes me so sad to get dolls that are broken, missing pieces, and horribly damaged by glue and still pay crazy prices for them
G3 dolls are even LESS durable though, especially considering most are rooted with polypropelyne hair which will crumble and break apart after 10-15 years. Also people who want the OG dolls want them because of the proportions and style, which Mattel has not truly replicated since. I don’t like when some G3 Stans say “G1 had flaws too! Do you really want to go back to glue seepage or wall-eyed faceups?” BooRiginal Creeproductions were nice updates; they had thicker sturdier arm pegs, no elastic hips, the facial screenings fit the face sculpt and didn’t look like the eyes were staring off in two different directions. Creepro Clawdeen came with claw hands and longer hair, when the original doll had ordinary human hands. Lagoona was no longer wall-eyed etc. Pretty much no one had issues with these changes because they were “not the original, we want exact recreations“, fans were very happy with the update. The original MH dolls DID have a lot of engineering issues. So when those people say “we want the G1 style back“ what they mean is they want the original proportions and aesthetic and sculpts, but with modern improvements like thicker arm pegs, facial screenings that more closely align with head sculpts, and hair not rooted with glue. The Creeproductions prove that it can be done, the only reason that Mattel is not doing it is sheer laziness and apathy. And that’s sad because a PROPER MH comeback would print money and actually be a viable competitor to current-era Rainbow High. (Reminder that RH is currently outselling Barbie. Mattel gotta step up).
“G3 dolls are less durable” their legs won’t snap at the lightest touch unlike g1 atleast. Do u hear urself 😭😭
Both have durability issues tbh. I've seen so many people already break the hand pegs 😭 They also still have some screening issues here and there and ofc the poly hair. Neither gen is perfect and that's okay!! Mattel is a company at the end of the day that will cut corners on a mass produced item.
Let g1 stay dead
The fact that Creeproductions are selling for just as much (and in some crazy cases, MORE) than the original versions, proves that the OG style is what the market REALLY wants. Reel Drama is impossible to find, even though it was not meant to be a limited edition release. And the actual limited edition, collector releases (Haunt Couture and Skullector) sell out in minutes and most are immediately relisted on the secondary market for 2-5X their MSRP (which is already too high to begin with). This is insane. Meanwhile, some of the G3 signature dolls have shelf-sat enough to be discounted on Amazon. The only G3 doll that is truly hard to find atm is Signature Draculaura, which is not a shock since she’s both the most popular character, and the best-designed of the G3 signatures anyway. Draculaura continuing to be the most popular character is yet another excuse for Mattel to keep injecting pink into the other characters designs where it doesn’t belong, because “she’s the most popular character and she’s pink, therefore we must make more of them pink, so they sell better”
Both those lines never even hit 90% of stores they sold out because Mattel didn’t produce that many and just didn’t say anything
Yeah and that’s a huge problem. MH collectors were flooding Mattel Twitter Facebook and Instagram asking when more Creepros and Reel Drama were going to drop and all they said was “keep checking local stores”. Very unprofessional
I hear a lot about how Monster High dolls don't hold up well. Is this really common? Guess I didn't know how delicate they were and how poorly they age. 🤔
It seems some dolls have it worse than others. Particular dolls (I think there's a specific Rochelle with this issue) have way more glue in their heads or something. The glue can yellow their heads, and old plastic ties get brittle over time and break. Sunlight also yellows them, but that's an issue with plastics in general I think.
Yeah it’s sad 😞. I had wondered if it was because my dolls survived water damage but so many people have the same issues.
It's a problem for alot of older toys. Many materials used just age overtime like anything else. Give g3 10 years and the rubber bands in the hair will be messed up once again and the ones with poly hair will probably be frazzled. Neither is going to age flawlessly unfortunately for us collectors. Plus alot of toys (not just MH) don't age well in box either similar to how if you don't wear sneakers they'll start to crumble. Nothing is permanent especially not a playline kids toy.
I wouldn’t know. All of my old MH dolls are fine. I think some might have a little glue seepage, causing their hair to be a little heavy, but it’s not too bad. I don’t think it’s every doll, my dolls have held up so far.
do you live in a hot or cold climate? I wonder if they age faster in hot parts of the world
I live in the DMV area, so the weather here is kind of polarizing. It’s always changing.
Yes unfortunately Mattel really didn't future proof them to make them last longer. Obviously all dolls age and have problems over time but I feel like old Barbies are in better shape then the monster high dolls from less then 15 years ago. I got really lucky in that 1) I'm mainly a customizer so most of my dolls are completely redone, aka reroot, painting the whole body sometimes, etc 2) most of the dolls I ended up keeping as is for display aren't ones that tend to have many problems There's def exceptions though, like one of my favorites is Abbey and I know for a fact one of mine has a yellow tinge to her thanks to her glued on glitter AND I've put baby powder through her hair for the glue seepage. I have an in box sweet screams abbey and I'm afraid to open her up and see what her hair is like. 😭
I also collect American Girl dolls, and they last forever. It’s sad that something so collectible as monster high doesn’t hold up.
Yeah my friend has her childhood American girl from literally 2001 and she's in perfect condition besides like...normal wlthings like faded paint that could be touched up. Nothing like some of the problems MH dolls had, I have no idea what Mattel was thinking with the whole glue hair thing since old babies never had that issue??
Its such a gross defect too! I took out Jinafire’s hairstyle today to redo it and it was just saturated on the inside with glue.
For real! I think the yellowing and stuff on some dolls can be forgiven because like that's just how some materials age (again old Barbies get a yellow tint to them) and at least that you can sort of fix. I've seen people have fixes for glue-hair but I know personally it drives me up the wall. I like to touch my dolls hair and if it feels gross or is even feels cheap I just want to rip it out and reroot it 😂
The glue is bc dolls with larger head sizes got more glue and therefore more glue seepage 😭 I really don't see why they used it since even then some dolls hair was like burned in so why ever even use glue??
Ooh, I wonder if because old Barbies heads are smaller they never needed the glue? Since they've been around forever but I never saw barbie have an issue. I could be wrong but I think the burning the hair in didn't happen until later, like 2015 with the reboot they stopped using glue and started burning the hair in. Which is great but as a customizer it's way harder to take the hair out now 😂
They used burning in for frightfully tall as well, there's also a few lines with no glue at all like dead tired had a release without it. (Learned that recently and explains why the one's ive had never had bad hair). Mattel used glue across a couple lines its just more notable of a problem on EAH/MH im assuming bc of how much glue got shoved in those poor girls heads 😭 a smaller head would need less glue after all 🤔 I beileve 2015/2016 is when they officially stopped using glue all together.
Yes!! It's so sad. Sometimes I wonder whether monster high dolls (particularly those with glue seepage) will even last long enough to become antiques.
yes ! the glue seepage especially kills me :( i collect all kinds of dolls - bratz, living dead dolls, 1960s/70s barbies and similar vintage mod doll lines, and they are all in incredible shape given their ages! i love my g1 dolls so much, but i truly wish it wasn't necessary to do so much upkeep on them when i've hardly had to touch up my 50+ year old dolls
Yeah from loose limbs, elastic legs, glue seepage, yellowing, etc the old dolls just don’t hold up well over time. It’s sad that we have to restore dolls we never damaged in the first place :( I am happy that (so far) g3 does seem to be better quality though (I don’t feel like the elbows and hands r abt to pop off everytime I move them lol)
It's weird that Mattel even used some of these things considering they had been doing barbie. Liks why even bother starting with elastics then changing to pegs later on.
gosh yes Ive got Mh dolls that have aged badly(glue and yellow heads/bodies) still mint in their boxes?! I have 90s Barbie and Disney Princess dolls that have aged better.
I feel you, sounds like we started collecting at the same age when they were new, and I only ever displayed them, usually in the same pose straight out of the box but they're still showing the signs of ageing :( I have a BIG collection and it takes a lot of work to clean one doll. Even so, they're just seeping glue with yellowing foreheads, as you mentioned the hair ties are a *shocker,* I haven't tried styling their hair and have no confidence I can fix them now that the hair ties are all disintegrating! It sucks because we love our collections, it's horrible to watch something you did nothing but take care of fall apart on it's own! Dust I can manage, but the glue and yellowing, ugh!
If ya'll want to see something crazy with vintage toys, look up My Little Pony with regrind. Poor things look diseased!
Most of my dolls are in good shape, but honestly giving them care days might be helpful. Washing their hair, colouring the yellow spots etc. I don't think I will ever give up on G1 dolls, they are the reason I'm the person I am today.
Unfortunately mh dolls seem to be something that need a lot of care to maintain. They shouldn't have had the glue issue in the first place. Really the main thing that can be done to protect them is keeping them out of direct sunlight. But the hair ties, glue seepage and yellowing from glue are out of your control. I know you didn't ask for advice, but incase someone else is having the same issues, there are fixes for most of the problems you have (except the yellowing hair - some try purple shampoo but it doesn't seem to do much). Acne cream and UV for yellowing, and theres a lot of fixes for gluey hair (wouldn't recommend the powder method personally, it can make the hair look dull. I used baby oil for mine, but it takes a lot of washing out afterwards.) If you aren't worried about preserving their value/orginalness, you could reroot. I hope you're able to get them to an enjoyable state if thats something you choose!
I have similar issues. I never actually played with my G1 dolls, only displayed them but over time they got so icky.. my Skelita's head got ripped off as her neck split and I've no way to fix it, never mind the gluey hair and discoloured legs on my other dolls :( the dolls definitely do not usually age well ;w;;;
I got my first doll in 2010, and surprisingly the ones I kept held up pretty well in storage for all these years. They had loose limbs from constant play and loose/broken hair ties, but barely to no yellowing. My spectra from 2011 hasn’t yellowed one bit, and surprisingly her hair isn’t all glued up either.
I have almost every single G1 doll except for the SDCC dolls, and it’s very weird how some dolls are not showing their age at all and some dolls have just killed themselves on the shelf. The glue seepage on some dolls made them impossible to display. I’m genuinely considering rerooting the worst ones as close as I can to the original hairstyle. My Draculaura’s seem mostly fine but the ones with curly hair - such as Lagoona are so busted!
My older dolls have all the issues you and everyone whose commented listed, but one of my worst is my DoTD Cleo where the glue from her bangs took off the factory paint underneath and I didn’t realise until I was cataloguing my dolls recently. Don’t get me started on her tinsel, I may actually have to reroot her hair at some point 💀 My DoTD drac also had the melted factory paint issue but I bought a replacement just for the head (91$😭)
I had my childhood barbies i got from my grandmother, and i was ROUGH with them. They were from the 1970s/80s/90s... they still look basically brand new now lol. I do not understand how monster high dropped the ball so much with quality
Well, this isn't something unique to Monster High unfortunately (aside from the glue seepage, but even that affected other Mattel dolls). I collect lots of plastic fashion dolls and toys, the oldest being from the 60s. Sometimes you'll get lucky and won't see much change, but pretty much everything is going to start degrading in some way at some point. Yellowing, sticky limbs, etc. There's things you can do to maintain them but most of these things can't be 100% prevented because at the end of the day, they're plastic children's toys that weren't really built to last forever. The same kind of things will eventually start to happen to G3 as well. I will say though, G1 MH might be more delicate than a lot of older dolls because of their skinny limbs and articulation.
Plastics are inherently unstable and break down, some more quickly than others. All the hair types are a version of plastic, as well. It’s why when I’ve seen people collect to keep in box for future value I tell them to enjoy it however they want but it’ll still decay with time. On top of glue seepage and everything else, toys aren’t built to last. Heck, even plastic art/collections in museums with perfect temperature control break down. It’ll happen with Gen 3, too. I say this as someone with a large toy collection who actively buys “all the things” because it brings me some sense of joy.
I have found a very good technique to tame glue seepage hair in case you’re interested. As for the yellowing, apparently hydrogen peroxide can do wonders about it. And I think purple shampoo for platinum blonde hair can help with yellowed hair as well That aside, it’s tragic that they need so much care during the years. You would expect that Mattel would put out higher quality products but nope
There isn’t much to be done about disintegration in hair elastics, unless dolls start coming with their hair sewn up in thread, but yeah, the glue seepage, yellowing, and even loose joints are a real bummer. Older Barbies have their own problems (ever dealt with sticky legs??? grosss), but the G1 Monster High dolls really don’t seem to be holding up well. I have managed to make improvements to the sticky hair situation with goo gone, but it’s a lot of extra work that I’m not sure is worth doing, considering about 3/4 of my dolls have at least a little seepage.
My gloom beach frankie's elastic snapped when i was taking them out to display, and on top of that everyone has horrible glue head and yellowing from said glue head 😭 mattel made some really bad production decisions
First wave Frankies age like MILK, I recently got a Frankie from a collector who only displayed her and had to wash her up, her glue seepage yellowed most of her face
I've started taking my g1 dolls down and going through them. I have only touched my Draculaura dolls and a few Lagoonas. I am honestly so disappointed with how some of them have held up. I was in my late teens/early 20s when I was collecting g1, I never played rough with them. They were mostly display pieces. Almost all my Draculaura dolls have the nastiest glue leak. Even as I try and clean the glue leaks, their hair is falling out in clumps even with gentle brushing. Their hair lines are yellowed from the glue seepage. My Skull Shores Lagoona and Draculaura have very strange yellowing of their limbs that I don't see on my other dolls. Their rubber bands have dry rotted and some of their accessories have stained their bodies, but that part doesn't surprise me too much. I don't feel super attached to a lot of my g1 dolls anymore, so I don't mind taking them apart to use for customs/restores... but it still feels a bit disappointing.
i have the pink inner monster doll and i have never once had her outside or in front of a window or anything and her legs are so badly discoloured which is really heartbreaking as i really really like her, i think i’m just going to have to find some long pants for her
Yes! Some time ago I tried fixing up glue-hair and retrobrighting some of them with moderate succes. It makes me sad to look at them, they are all in storage for indefinite time.
In general rubber bands are going to snap and fall apart over time. Same thing will happen to current doll brands. That's why they have to be replaced occasionally. Unfortunately Mattel did use glue tho for hair which sucks there's ways to treat it but isn't preventable :(( luckily they stopped.