Pony Talk > Pony Corral

Bleach or lighten dirty pony hair?

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kid80:
I've just deflocked SS Buttons, but her fresh new look is conflicting with her janky, discolored hair. At the roots of both mane and tail is the nice, original, cerulean blue, but the hair begins to darken and desaturate towards the ends, which end up a dark slate color.

Not sure what caused this as I'm not the original owner, but I'd like to lighten the hair so that it will take dye. So far I've tried sunfading and soaking in hydrogen peroxide, but no luck yet.

Does anyone have any advice on how to lighten or bleach the hair--toothpaste, baking soda, Oxiclean, etc?--or is it just not possible?

Crossing my fingers that I can avoid a complete rehair... :)

Artemesia's Garden:
I would bet you someone used bleach, oxyclean or peroxide to get that effect in the first place. The hair is made of nylon and the dye in it is incorporated into a very stable polymer chain that is resistant to most chemicals. So in short, you can't bleach pony hair without damaging it.

To look into the products you mention a bit more: toothpaste is a mild alkaline abrasive, I often use it to get rust out of tails where the washer has gone rusty inside. This will remove surface dirt but not usually harm the nylon as long as you soap it all out and condition the hair afterwards. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so again an alkali but it has a more active chemical action. Oxyclean is similar but another level up and more active. Oxygen is released removing dirt. However it can also start to break down the pastic polymers leading to loss or changes to dye but also damage to the structure of the plastic. I tend to use bicarb for scrubbing stubborn dirt like pindot but I don't go as far as oxyclean because I think it makes future yellowing and plastic damage worse. 

Personally I would find a re-hair easier than dyeing if you're looking for a perfect result. Any mistakes with blue dye will be really obvious on a light pink pony. You already de-flocked the pony therefore it's been customised, so there's no need to do a full woven restoration on the hair. You could just add loops with a re-rooting tool and secure with PVa glue.

lovesbabysquirmy:
agree with AG

kid80:


--- Quote from: Artemesia's Garden on October 25, 2021, 11:11:12 PM ---...there's no need to do a full woven restoration on the hair. You could just add loops with a re-rooting tool and secure with PVa glue.

--- End quote ---


Thank you for the analysis and advice, Artemisia's Garden! And thanks for also weighing in, lovesbabysquirmy :) I have to buy some needles to rehair Seaflower so I'll add some hair for Buttons to that order!

The method I'm planning on is loops and glue, but, out of curiosity, what is a full woven restoration?

tailrustedtealeaf:
Fully woven is similar to the factory hair-if you look up "Lock and loop method" you will find something similar. It's a way to secure the hair without glue. There is also the knot method for rehairing without glue-both methods take longer time than just the rehair tool/needle push method that is more popular today.

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