Latest dollyhair order - less hair by weight - anyone else?

[Katika]

Thank you for clearning this up, Tina   I do remember you saying that your hanks tended to lean towards the "generous" side in the past, which made me not know what the "normal" weight was supposed to be.  From a consumer standpoint, it would be lovely to assume that normal had more hair, but since (until now) we hadn't known what normal was supposed to be, we had no way of gauging it. 

I do want to tell you though that out of my most recent order (that I received last week or so) that I did receive three hanks of White Witch, which weighed 12g, 11g and then 6g.  The 6g one you can literally see light between the twist tie and the hair.  It doesn't just *feel* lighter, it *is* lighter. I can confirm also that the writing on the two more normal hanks match, while the one on the light hank is different.  I 100% understand if this is a learning curve incident from a new employee, and do hope that it is an isolated incident.  As I've mentioned before, at this time, I don't make customs to make money, so it's not a huge deal to me - I just like to keep hair on hand just in case a custom comes to me in a whim, but one hank almost half the normal weight *is* pretty light.

Either way, thank you again for clearing this up for us   I hope that things smooth out for you and that you enjoy this holiday season!

*Edit to add* Not trying to take sides with anyone here, but I know, personally, I like to be super generous with the hair that I put in my customs.  I usually make my mane plugs an entire quarter length of one hank (knotting a strand of half a hank in half, if that makes sense), and will typically add at least one extra row of hair in the mane.  Tina stated for herself that she markets her MLP hanks to "offer enough hair for the factory-length mane and tail of a G1".  I counted 90 holes in my nearest Parasol's head (this probably is not a precise number, as I can tell that some of the holes have split) and her mane length appears to be equal to the length of one side of a hank, quartered.  I guess what I'm saying is that G1's don't seem quite as "hairy" as I know that I like to make my customs, so as Tina advertises her hanks to be enough to rehair a typical G1 to factory length, I would not be able to expect a single hank of one color to completely rehair a G1 if I, personally, was the one rehairing it.  I dunno.  I do have a couple of restorative rehairs to do and not much going on over the next week or so, so maybe I'll give it a go to find out.

[PandaBerryInSpace]

I can safely say that, NO, we haven't been getting 38" hanks this whole time. I have ordered 38" in the past, and they were VERY thick, double the size of an "old" MLP hank. So, unless your old assistant gave me too much of that, too, there's no way they could have been confused.

[surprise twins mommy]

i have had the same issue about 3 months ago,and took the scale.And indeed,the weight was lower.
So i have send an email to Dolly hair,explaining the problem.
Here is what Tina has written;

Hello,
 
The hanks are all the same - at least, they should be. There are 24 strands on each spool, and for the My Little Pony hanks, each spool is spun 70 times.
 
It is possible that we made an error while processing your order, but even if there was no error, pour policy is always to send extra hair to you if you do not have enough to complete the project that the hank is intended for. One My Little Pony hank should be enough hair for a G1 to do a normal length mane and a normal length tail.
 
We will send butterscotch, white witch, and goldilocks hanks to you at no charge right now, so that you can complete your project. I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for letting me know.

2 weeks later all the hair that i reported as less weight was re-send to me.
This was very generous,but indeed it made me think..
Also,some hair seemed less in quality like really cheap doll hair,and some hair with a lot of very small dents.
Now,i buy donor hair and try to do as good as i can...
But still,i do not wish to say anything bad.It has been refunded,so i am happy in the end.
Hopefully,it were just some errors??

[hannaliten]

This is an awesome policy! I'm wondering when I can expect to receive my extra 26 hanks?

It is possible that we made an error while processing your order, but even if there was no error, pour policy is always to send extra hair to you if you do not have enough to complete the project that the hank is intended for.

[Colorscapesart]

I am a little confused myself.  I started customizing in early 2008 and have almost exclusively used Dollyhair for years.  In five years I have never seen hanks as small as the ones I received.  And except for one saran hank, every last hank I ordered has been a MLP hank.  I'm just not sure if I feel comfortable with 11g being the "standard" as in all my years of enjoying Dollyhair I've never seen this.  Hmm...

[zannid]

I weighed a random selection of 15 full MLP-sized hanks. They were mixed colors and ages, but they were all full. None of them weighed less than 15 grams, where some of the new hanks were 10-12 grams. I've ordered hair for a couple of years and I've never seen the hanks so small.

The way I see it, I don't care if it's an honest mistake or not, a lot of people have gotten less hair than they paid for. We pay for a hank that's enough to rehair one pony and that's not what we got. From now on this needs to be clearly stated on the website and everyone who was shortchanged should get compensated IMO.

Agreed. If I would have known that there would have been less hair then I would have looked for another vendor. I only buy hair for specific customs and so not getting the needed amount becomes rather problematic as I can't just pull from a stash to make a blend. Not to say that one should have to, you should be able to expect consistency from a service. I also don't quite understand how all the hanks for years before now were "too much". I would assume that if you keep books of orders, you would have noticed a discrepancy in the profit margin.

I find it a tad insulting that you would think that people are weighing the wrong hanks, especially when they are clearly labelled. If it was one hank in one person's order than perhaps an apology would be well suited as a solution, but this is a pattern over many orders that have been received and, as you say this is supposed to be the standard, all orders that have yet to ship. As is, I think it would be proper to offer some sort of compensation.

Even if this is what was meant to be the original standard for your business, it's not what customers have come to expect. I think it's rather unfair to just say sorry when this means quite a lot of people will be forced to purchase extra hanks or be left with an incomplete project and, as you say this is the norm from here on out, reanalyze their commission prices and then deal with how this change will affect their business. There is clearly a change in how things are being done if it's so noticeable by so many people.

Whether it's the company you are purchasing from or how you are making out the hanks, the standard of service is still less than expected and in many cases, as shown in this thread, not enough to complete intended projects. I would hope that you would offer a solution as otherwise, I feel it is unfair to your customers and would negatively affect your business's reputation.

[NoDivision]

I find it a tad insulting that you would think that people are weighing the wrong hanks, especially when they are clearly labelled

I am glad I am not the only one who felt this.

[Alatariel-Silimaure]

it's disappointing that the explanation and what people are reporting do not match up and that there seem to be so many miscalculations... if I had a scale I would gladly weigh every single one of my hanks, I have a lot of them that are still full never touched and I have not placed any orders since october.

So if the standard is that it should be able to rehair one G1 mlp to standard mane and tail length, this is how I rehair my G1 ponies:

1.  I cut my hank exactly in half
2. I set aside one half for the tail
3. I take the other half, and ONE strand/plug (they nicely separate out into perfect size plugs) for each hole for the mane. I use the rehairing tool, so all strands are folded in half
4. the mane hangs down to the feet, so yes, a little longer than factory but darn close
5. I split the side for the tail IN HALF for the tail, I only use half the thickness, that's all it needs or it looks too full half the time. The strands get folded in half and zip tied. it ends up being almost exactly factory length tail
6. I usually still have enough to do another pony!

I can usually get 2 ponies out of a hank of hair using this method, so if I doubled up on the plugs I would get one pony, but using one plug per hole comes out perfect thickness for me, but a little less than factory... I don't think I make mine as full as hasbro did because I can't afford to buy a lot of hair

so the hanks I was getting all year were enough to do TWO g1 ponies, and like 3 g3 ponies

even when I get very generous with the hair on some of my crazy customs , I ALWAYS had left over hair enough to at least do a 2 color hair pony

I know I use less hair than most customizers and restorers though, and I probably use less than the original...

If I ended up getting more hair and got less out of it than usual, I'd be very upset, as this is what I have paid for for a whole year, and was under the impression was the normal, and I have a very exact method for how I do my restores especially, so if these new hanks did not do the same as the old ones did, I would be very very unhappy.

I will look into getting a scale, since I could use one for postage anyway and see if I can add to the data. I only have hanks from this year, so I can perhaps provide a standard for what weights I have received between March and October of this year, since I know I did not start ordering dollyhair until after January this year, and I stopped in October when I lost my job.


I'm honestly skeptical still on this whole situation, and I don't feel the question has been answered at all. Maybe I will sit down and count the strands in mine to see if it comes out exact or very close. I only order MLP hanks right off the MLP page, so if it comes out with the right number of strands, and the weight is way more, there would be no reason why the new ones should weigh way less than the ones now do.

Anyone want to count the strands in one of the new ones that weigh way less than normal? I would, but I don't have one to do so with

I think maybe that might start to get to the solution?

I'm at this point, unwilling to spend the money if I don't know what I'm getting, and these varying weights very much bother me, if I'm going to get less than what I've been getting all year long... then I'm not eager to order again because I can't afford it.



EDIT to add:

Tina, is it possible that your supplier messed up on the number of strands in a spool? I was just thinking about that... if the strands were less it would explain how the hanks could end up thinner. it seems like a lot of the ones that are messed up in the weights are the ones that are your new or restocked colors... factory errors do happen after all o.o...

[kaoskat]

And, of course, it would be ridiculous for anyone to count the strands of hair in a My Little Pony hank and see if that number comes to 1680, but there's no reason why it shouldn't come to that number, or at least something close to that number.

874. Yes. I counted. That means I have HALF the hair you say is SUPPOSE to be in these bags. 874 strands is not anywhere near 1680 strands. So even with this reasoning, weight aside, I don't have what I paid for.

I don't know that all the hanks are this size, but this one sure is. If I had a scale I'd weigh it but I don't. As I said before the others I got aren't nearly as small as this one but this is the one I actually needed!

[sd_dreamcrystal]

And, of course, it would be ridiculous for anyone to count the strands of hair in a My Little Pony hank and see if that number comes to 1680, but there's no reason why it shouldn't come to that number, or at least something close to that number.

874. Yes. I counted. That means I have HALF the hair you say is SUPPOSE to be in these bags. 874 strands is not anywhere near 1680 strands. So even with this reasoning, weight aside, I don't have what I paid for.

wow, makes me want to count one of my older hanks just to see... but I don't have time... but it is useful for info in this case

[NoDivision]

And, of course, it would be ridiculous for anyone to count the strands of hair in a My Little Pony hank and see if that number comes to 1680, but there's no reason why it shouldn't come to that number, or at least something close to that number.

874. Yes. I counted. That means I have HALF the hair you say is SUPPOSE to be in these bags. 874 strands is not anywhere near 1680 strands. So even with this reasoning, weight aside, I don't have what I paid for.

I know you don't have a scale, but doing the math based on my own counting (that my 11g hank has 67 "plugs") I'm guessing yours weights about 6 grams .

With the business owner stating that she is there all day every day and is strictly overseeing the whole process, I'm curious how something like that gets through. Especially as multiple people are reporting hanks that weigh 9grams or less.

[Alatariel-Silimaure]

Wow yay someone counted, I might need to do that with some of mine that we know are normal sizeish.

However, it is also possible that we're all telling the truth... I would encourage Tina to check her stock... see if there was a factory error that caused there to be less strands on her spools. Because if she is overseeing it and is doing exactly as she says she is doing, then of course there would be no reason for it to come out less, UNLESS her supplier screwed up and sent wrong spools, then it would not be her fault that things are coming out less, but rather the FACTORY fault.

Regardless, looks like people aren't actually getting what they paid for.

I'd also encourage others who have time on their "thin" spools to count the strands if they can, and see if it comes out, if this is a re-occuring theme, then it would make sense for there to possibly be a manufacturer issue that Tina should check into for her own sake since she paid for all this hair and might have gotten HALF of what she paid for.

all in all, we still don't know what the actual issue is, whether it is a dollyhair mistake, or a supplier mistake.

[JoshsPonyPrincess]

As I have stated before - I normally only buy 38" hanks but they have usually been around the 25 gram or higher weight - if they are suddenly only going to be 22 grams - I need to rethink some things as well - i rehair very thick and long and I cannot (and the hairdos I do) cannot be done on way less hair. I have grown acustom to my 25-30 gram hanks and do not wish to give them up - all other places I order from - I also order the biggest they offer.

[NoDivision]

I am finding that the plugs that separate naturally, presumably how they are on the spools, do indeed have about 22-24 strands in them. So it is not a factory issue. In these hanks that have far less hair like kaoskat reports, less hair has been measured out when it is cut from the spool and bagged by dollyhair.

[Alatariel-Silimaure]

hmm... is it possible that they're only using one spool instead of two by accident in some cases?