How do I spot a re-hair?

[Skeen]

It looks genuine to me.  His stickiness could be plasticizer leakage.  A few of my Brazil girls (who are already prone to it) get sticky inside so they get a full inside & out wash once a year. 

[LadyMoondancer]

That's a good point.  I have a pony whose outside feels fine but her interior is sticky from plasticizer leaking.

[Baby Sugarberry]

I got the impression it was concentrated/limited to the hair but if it's the whole inside of the head, I'd agree with Skeen - plasticizer leech seems a likely culprit!

[Shaz]

Another vote for 'looks like genuine hair to me'. Sounds like that Show Sheen stuff might be the culprit and you'll just have to keep washing him until it's all gone. Argh, why do people put sticky products like that on ponies?

[Taffeta]

Another vote for 'looks like genuine hair to me'. Sounds like that Show Sheen stuff might be the culprit and you'll just have to keep washing him until it's all gone. Argh, why do people put sticky products like that on ponies?

Agreed, I wish they wouldn't. I hate having to wash product out of pony hair and it can do such damage.

Sunburst is prone to plasticizer issues. Just throwing that out there. I've had a few in the past. He's not as much of a problem for discolouration etc as Thundercloud, who also has regrind issues, but yeah. That's worth consideration, although if it is just the hairline then it is more likely to be product. Depending on how the hair is rooted. Though it is also possible that the hair might have been partially fixed (I know some restorers take hair from the tail to fix minor flaws such as cut forelocks, so that's possible) and then glued to firm it in place.

[SaraMari]

Hi everyone, thank you all for sharing your knowledge and pointing me in the right direction so I could narrow down the issues!

I took a good ten minutes looking inside the head today, it appears to be weaved in like was mentioned. Though there seemed to be some pieces that looked suspicious so maybe there was a little re-hair work like taffeta mentioned.

The hair was most certainly tasted with show sheen even if she back peddled on that because the hair is so slippery. Based on the replies here and doing a little googling about silicone based hair products that it is going to take a while to clean out.

I felt the inside more and it seems like the stickiness is more that just at the hair line.  It's around the head and body inside. I guess I'll be doing some insane cleaning and giving Sunburst some space to breath. Though I can't be entirely sure if the show sheen went down into head.

Again thank you everyone for coming in and sharing your tips and ideas! The knowledge of our community always amazes me