Removing magic marker?

[Adarkdraconis]

Hey there, everyone!

I am excited to announce that on Thursday I will be venturing with my small human to a nearby town where someone on my local CL is selling a large amount of G3 ponies and a lovely pony castle for a very reasonable price!  However, in the ad it said that 'some ponies may have magic marker on them'...

What is 'magic marker'?  Is it like a washable crayola kind or is it permanent?  How would I go about trying to remove it?  *Can* I even remove it?  The price of everything made it worth it, and the picture had a few really cool ponies that I think my daughter and I would love!  I figure, if there are some marks we can't remove then those ponies can just get really cool custom tattoos?  At least their hair has not been chopped off, I draw the line at attempting to rehair!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!  Many thanks! 

[tailrustedtealeaf]

I think it's just washable marker...unfortunately, it tends to stain pony plastic. Some have tried to sunfade G3 ponies, but results have been scarce. You can try to use acetone or a magic eraser but unless someone has something new I think they're just tattooed.

[Purpleglasses]

Magic Marker is the brand name of crayola markers. Scroll on down to the sun fading section of this page for more tips on how to remove it! http://www.mlppreservationproject.com/body.html

[Adarkdraconis]

Thanks so much, friends!  I will try the magic eraser and some acetone, and a coworker recommended hand sanitizer/alcohol.  If those don't work I will attempt sunfading with a couple if my daughter will be patient enough to wait for results (and if I can be patient)    Many look brightly colored so I am hesitant but we'll see how it goes.

I will let everyone know the results!  This is all new territory for me because my little one is very good with all of her toys and has never drawn on them or put stickers on them or tried cutting their hair or anything like that (which I am thankful for because it isn't in our budget to get new toys often.)

If I can get them to load, here are the pictures from the listing!  I am eager to start identifying and cleaning up our new friends!
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[tailrustedtealeaf]

That's a lovely bunch!
Looks like you got Daisy Paisely, the April birthstone pony, Lily Lightly...that white pony with the different colored hair and the missing symbol is Daiffidazey, I'd imagine that would be rather hard to come across without her flower mark.
Just a note to check often if you plan on sunfading.

[Adarkdraconis]

Thanks so much for the advice and the IDs!  I think Daffidazey might be turned around, I don't think she is missing a symbol but they appear to be covered in small stickers so I think that is a sticker on her back non-symbol side?  If it is Daffidazey my B will be so excited, she had me make a salon for her ponies last week and now Daffi can run the salon like she does in the movies! 

I know that the baby white one with purple hair is Goody Gumdrop, we have her (she came with our Minty from ebay), and it looks like maybe there is a Wysteria as well?  I think Daisy Paisley is the coolest pony ever and am super pleased to get her!  To date I have been using StrawberryReef and the Wiki to identify mystery ponies, which are super helpful!   Once I pick these beauties up I will post pictures and can't wait tofind out more.  Squeal!!!   

[Adarkdraconis]

Soooooooo, update.  Ponies have been picked up, total is 20 ponies, 2 babies, 2 breezies, 3 fakies, a lovely castle, a scooter, several brushes, mirrors, shoes, a vanity, a wishing well, 2 strollers, a pet basket, a berry picking basket, and a couple other things I can't remember at the moment.  All for the low low price of $20!  They even showed me how to work the castle and that it has magnets to make the ponies dance on the ballroom floor!  Now, on to the details!

I do feel mislead by the seller. 'Some ponies may have magic marker on them' apparently means different things to different people.  They were in a large bag when I got them, we didn't check them out until we got home.  Every. Single. Pony. Is drawn on.  Some very heavily, some entirely colored, some covered in patterns, some with just random lines or designs, a very few have it very sparsely (like eyeshadow and bracelets).  Here are some pictures, but they don't do it justice as the lighting in the picture is not great.  For example, Goody Gumdrop is entirely boldly colored, her top half is bright pink and her legs are flourescent orange and she has a blue beard?!   She does not look like that in the posted picture so what, they knew they were getting rid of them so they colored them MORE?  Also those were not stickers, they are random small patterns drawn on.  I am also bummed because Dream Drifter, one of my favorites and that I was excited when I saw her in the picture, has the whole orange section of her hair cut out to the base.  Like not even a bob, just completely shorn.  I discovered it after removing the hair ties (they all had old disintegrating hair ties on random hair chunks, partial braids, etc.)  One of the other ponies (I don't know her name yet, she is purple with blue) has her tail cut shorter but it is long enough that it has a curl and isn't totally gone like DD's middle hair chunk!   They are the only instances of haircuts though.

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I have attempted to scrub up a few, the breezies were ok, Lily Lightly had just a bit on her face and it came off with a magic eraser, and the transparent sparkle ponies ended up having it blend into their skin color well enough after enough scrubbing.  But I started on those baby ponies and oh my goodness.  I scrubbed with Dawn, then magic eraser, then acetone, then alcohol, and it *may* have lightened the color a tiny tiny bit.  I'm talking an hour of scrubbing (I accidentally removed Gumdrop's symbol, we will have to do something one she is clean again.) 

The castle was just dusty and after a good cleaning is sparkly, and it is in perfect working order (the top pops up!)  The accessories all look fine too, they will get cleaned this evening.  I will start on some of the other ponies tonight as well, wish me luck...

[Purpleglasses]

Ah sorry you’re having so much trouble! They are looking pretty scribbled on, and often marker pigment has just bled into the pigment and is hard to remove with any cleaning product. I think sun fading is your best bet here.

I know your dear child might be impatient, and that it’s not very sunny this time of year! But, I have a few suggestions. I recently worked at a place that had lights designed to show the true colors of what we were working on. I believe they were called daylight balanced light bulbs. The reason I bring this up is because the room I worked in was in the center of the building and had no natural light. I brought in a pony whose pink hair is prone to fading to decorate my desk and didn’t think much of it...until a little bit in her pink hair faded to white. This usually only happens when it’s exposed to sun, and this room was very much not, to the extent it went fully dark in a blackout. Too bad for the pony, but it gave me an idea.

Now, I can’t promise the following idea will work since I haven’t tried it myself. But I like the idea of lining a plastic box with foil (the foil will help reflect the light) on all sides, bottom and lid, and sticking a daylight balanced light bulb through a hole in the lid. You might have to dremel out the lid hole for the bulb - and maybe your local library rents tools so you can borrow one! I’d lay the ponies in there and just leave the light on for a long while. Bam, all season sun fading! And you don’t even have to leave the ponies outside! It could be a fun activity to check them daily. If you do try it, it would be lovely to see how it turns out! Again, I can’t promise it will work but...science!

Best of luck with your ponies! You might be able to find someone who’s willing to rehair your trimmed pony too.

[Adarkdraconis]

Oh my gosh, I have a daylight bulb in my room that I use to start seedlings in the winter!  I could totally give that a try, it is a hanging bulb that can have its height adjusted so it would be easy to modify a box to sit under it where my plant pots usually go!  I would never even have thought of that!!!

I think some of them I just can't do that with though, like Silver Mist and Daisy Paisley, because their decorative paint gradient might not fare well.  But the poor babies and poor Daffidazey might be my first test, they need help all over!

I will take pictures to document my attempts (and probable failings, let's face it, I usually manage to make things worse, lol!)  I also did have some luck with some ponies last night.   It seems the blue marker comes off of certain colors decently, the others must have been highlighter because they wouldn't budge!  And then some of them have decorations that are kinda cute (Sparkleworks has firework lines on her) so they are now our ghetto TAFs,  . I will take some pictures later for anyone interested in my progress.

Also, has anyone ever tried soaking a whole pony in nail polish remover or peroxide or something to get stains out?  I may attempt it with Gumdrop only because with me accidentally taking her symbol off (and smudging one eye ) I really don't have anything to lose.  We already have Gumdrop so she is a second, I figure I might as well...

[Shaiyeh]

I wouldn't soak a pony in acetone for too long, here's a thread about what happens - pretty long, but it's interesting (and pretty hilarious!)

I'm sorry you had some bad luck with the purchase though It's a fantastic haul (and for only $20! wow, congrats!) though.
Peroxide soak + sun fading might help? I like the idea with a light box too! I hope it helps Sun and patience does a lot - I have this baby boy pony who had "lipstick" (aka pink highlighter) painted on him. Stuck him in a window, not outside, right up to the glass, I think nw facing? that was my room at the time, and it took a couple years, but the stain is completely gone. While it does get to the most stubborn of stain, I get that the method isn't optimal in this case. ^^' (hopefully magic marker is less stubborn than hightlighter!)

I also found these tips . If it's seeped into the plastic I din't think the first one will work, but that one is a good hack, at least with non-erasable markers on whiteboard. just whiteboard marker over it and erase.
I'd advice against oil based products though, they're further down in the list. oil + vinyl isn't always a great combo.

[Adarkdraconis]

Oh my gosh, that link was so unexpected!!!  Thanks for the warning, I would've ended up with giant mutant Gumzillaa.    It was such a well documented experiment!  And thanks for the tips, I will try the dry erase marker, the peroxide, and the tea tree oil on different colors for their effectiveness! 

I have had some success so far, Peach Blossom had huge blue flowers on her but they are almost completely off, just some very faint ghost marks, and Glitter Glide had just a bit that came off with medium scrubbing and she now looks like new!  The blue does not come off of everyone so easily, though.  Magic Marigold has large stars all over her that are much lighter than when we started but seem to be stubbornly hanging on, they are still very noticeable, and Scootaloo's blue is about the same.   And none of the other colors would even budge, so many ponies are still a hot mess!

On a side note, I also made new wings for the Breezies out of spare ribbon (they had no wings when we got them), and my little lady is so pleased!!!  Lily Lightly not only is clean but also has lovely ringlets now instead of a pile of frizz, but her batteries were corroded in her so she does not light up even after a battery change.  But she does blink, so Miss B is thrilled!  So far she says Flower Garland is her favorite of the rescue ponies we have cleaned up.  I work all day again today and have a cold, so we will see if I can muster up some energy to scrub ponies when I get home...

[Artemesia's Garden]

Best of luck with the others. I have found that acetone scrub, then wash it off with soap and water, then dry pony, then rub in mineral oil, then sunfade can be a good combo especially on blue permanent marker.

[Adarkdraconis]

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't updated.  I got super sick and had a lot of stuff going on.   I just wanted to let interested people know what progress I have made.  I will post some more pictures later but for now I wanted to share my repaints I had to do.  Poor Gumdrop and Daffidazey were beyond help, like seriously bad bad, and nothing would remove the coloring because it had sat on the white for so long. 

We already have a fabulous baby Goody Gumdrop so I asked my daughter if we should just repaint her white or turn her into a different pony and give Gumdrop another sister (Minty is her big sister, it is a candy family).  She asked if I could make a Skittler pony (that is what she calls Skittles. They are her favorite. )  She asked for a purple pony with 3 red Skittles as her symbol, with a flower behind so she kinda matches Gumdrop.

So I present to you... Baby Skittlers!  Please be gentle, it was my first ever pony repaint.

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And Daffi, here I was almost done, just finishing up  with just a touch of color left around her eyes for a bit of an eyeshadow look.  Her symbol fabric flower is tied up with an elastic here, it worked perfectly.

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[Heelys]

Oh my goodness, I LOVE baby Skittlers! Sometimes you've got to make lemonade with life's lemons, you know? You may not have gotten ponies in perfect condition, but you've got ponies with personality and potential to become something entirely new.

It looks like whoever owned them before was trying to work off of their original cutie marks-- I notice that Sparkleworks has some added fireworks and the yellow pony next to her in the photo has more flowers. Perhaps some of them can just have these spots painted over to accentuate the design, like in this lazy proof of concept?
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...I know, that's more of a hobby project, and while I'm a nut for that sort of thing, you might not be. But I think it would be fun! Your kid's very own G3 Twice as Fancy ponies.

[Adarkdraconis]

I love the idea, and your flowers are great!  We kept Sparkleworks and a few others 'tattooed' and fancy because it worked for them.  Believe it or not that pony with the blue flowers drawn on (Peach Blossom) actually had all the blue marker come off and looks great except for some mild discoloration that looks a bit grey but is very unnoticeable!  She is my most successful rehab!

Some of them look good, others not so much.  Like poor Gumdrop with her hot pink body and bright orange legs and blue beard with blue stars all over, and Daffidazey had hot pink in her ears and nose and all over her forehead which made it look like she was bleeding, plus a blue mustache, large yellow patch over her whole neck, yellow chicken pox all over her face and body, and random pink, orange and blue stripes and spots and chicken pox on her body.  Poor girl.

I wish that they all were at least cohesive with a design, some just have big patches randomly or a bunch of lines everywhere.  A couple do work well though, Starflower has V shaped lines that I think were supposed to be flower stems and they look good all over her, kind of tribal almost and it is in a nice complimenting color.  She is the one with the short bobbed tail, and with her haircut and tattoos my daughter said she reminds her of me    One has butterflies all over her, Flower Bouquet I think, that she wants to keep as is because she says the butterflies are pretty and make her happy, so