G1 hair texture over time

[skyline]

So I live in a pretty dry place (SoCal) and my collection here is stored in a cabinet with UV light protected windows. But I've definitely noticed that new additions that come to me with minty soft straight hair (a Star Dancer, for e.g.) have been growing more brittle than I'd like. Obviously these toys are pushing 30 years old, but if I can receive them in pristine condition there must be a way to preserve that without locking them in a dark moisture controlled box.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I feel like the solution is probably something on the pricier side...

[BlackCurtains]

Hmm. I live in a really humid place and have different issues, but, you could try a conditioner made for synthetic hair. Some of them are spray and leave in. I've never tried it myself, but I would start there.

[goddessofpeep]

Huh.  I also live in SoCal, in a notoriously hot and dry area of it, and I haven’t seen anything like that.  My collection conditions sound a lot like yours. I’ve seen some hair issues in G3s, but not G1s. There are some ponies in my collection with brittle hair, but as far as I can remember, they came in like that.  Usually it’s due to over brushing. I haven’t noticed much of a decline in the hair.  It’s usually age spots popping up unexpectedly. 

Since I don’t know your exact conditions, here’s few possible factors for my collection that may be different than yours:

1) Many of my ponies are washed and conditioned(Pantene) when they came in.  Not all of them though. If the pony is in good enough condition(especially if it has factory hair), I just leave it alone.  Some may also come in already conditioned.  I never use any kind of leave in product.  I also don’t use any kind of heat on them.  Just water, shampoo(usually something cheap like Suave, or occasionally dish soap), conditioner, and air dry them.

2) After some initial styling when I get it in, I usually leave them alone.  I’m not big on restyling hair over and over. Repeated brushing can destroy hair.

3) My area is dry, and the house is usually dry(summers are brutal, and those Santa Ana winds are miserable), but the pony room has a bathroom attached that I use to take a shower in every night.  Now, I never open the door to the pony room until the bathroom is completely clear, but I keep some of those “Damp-Rid” containers in the cabinets, and they do fill up slowly.  There is some moisture. I am very anal about keeping the shower moisture away from the ponies, but a little might make it into the room.  Is it enough to affect hair?  No idea.

4) My husband used to mess around with the thermostat in the summer(he’d turn it off when we left the house), but then we got a rabbit.  She can’t handle the heat at all, so the house is kept at a constant 78-80 in the summer.   I know that’s helped the age spot issue.  Maybe it’s a factor with the hair too? It used to get up to 90-100+ in here after a day out until we got that rabbit.  The yo-yoing temperatures were a source of fights for a while, but the bun solved all that.

[Taffeta]

It may be that I live in a different climate so haven't seen this, but the only G1 I have with brittle hair came that way, because someone had left hair gel in her mane. She still has a mane, but she can't live in the cupboard as it's too risky.

Pantene is stupidly good at making G1 hair silky, even if it isn't designed for that. Most of ours ended up shampooed with that back in the nineties when they came in from carboot sales just because we had it and it didn't do much for any of our hair...but it worked pretty nicely.

I've never used anything harsh on my ponies, either. Only soap and water, other than the pantene. I don't know whether using other cleaning stuff like oxyclean etc has a long term impact on the hair or not, I only know about the acne cream discolouration issue and that's another matter.

...I think it's quite rare for G1 to exhibit brittle hair syndrome in the way G3s do. It could be bad luck with a specific pony or two, but if you're seeing it across a lot of your ponies, there's a possibility they've been exposed to something that's impacted on the hair quality.

[BlackCurtains]

I have found that oxiclean leaves the hair feeling weird and crunchy. I don't use it on ponies anymore.

[skyline]

I should clarify - it's not COMPLETELY brittle, but the silky feeling in the hair (which is untouched - I don't shampoo or condition pristine G1s when they come to me) is gradually becoming drier and drier over time. I do know that a bit of Pantene would probably restore that feeling, but I'm loathe to intervene with something that might detract from, like, the original fresh out the box pony smell some of these gals have. But thank you all for your input!!

[toyjunky]

So I live in a pretty dry place (SoCal) and my collection here is stored in a cabinet with UV light protected windows. But I've definitely noticed that new additions that come to me with minty soft straight hair (a Star Dancer, for e.g.) have been growing more brittle than I'd like. Obviously these toys are pushing 30 years old, but if I can receive them in pristine condition there must be a way to preserve that without locking them in a dark moisture controlled box.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I feel like the solution is probably something on the pricier side...

I live in Southern California also and have not had that experience with my G1s. My thought is could it be possible that it is because of a product that was used on the pony before it came to you. If you think about it, most G1s have been cleaned in some way. If you are buying them from someone, most likely they were cleaned at some point before being sold. Unless you found someone with a secret stash of MIB ponies to open.

[TwistedRiver]

I've thought about trying wig shampoos and conditioners on one of my thrifted G1 tails from a rehair I did forever ago since they are made for use on synthetic wigs it might work well with pony hair but I've not gotten around to it yet.

[Taffeta]

Toyjunky may be right. It's one reason that I generally wash/shampoo even those with factory curl (the latter VERY carefully, I've not destroyed a curl, not even ringlets yet!), since a lot of the time they arrive with some kind of product or residue already in the hair. That was the situation with my Butterscotch, the ones whose mane is brittle enough to break if combed. She and all her companions had hair spray residue or something in their hair. The others all survived except her.

Even using pantene, although it makes the pony smell like the shampoo for a little while, that fades. I don't really mind much about original pony smell, though. It's chemical related and I kind of don't want to spend time inhaling it too much xD.