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Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 06:10:31 AM

Title: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 06:10:31 AM: Hi there everyone
Recently I bought a Mountain boy Sunburst and when I received him I noticed immediately his hair felt strange. It was thinner and more slippery then any pony hair I've felt before.

I opened the head up halfway and noticed the original washer and clamp are in there but I'm sure it's not difficult to reuse the clamp.

After that I asked the seller about it and she said the texture was due to a treatment she put on the hair called show sheen and will wash out. Actually I had already washed him at this point and the hair feels the same. And the tail just looks thinner than usual.

She is upfront about other types of restoration work in her other listings but I know a re-hair would lower the value more than other types of work.

Is there anyway to confirm a re-hair? What do you think about this situation?

Thank you!
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: tailrustedtealeaf on October 27, 2018, 06:16:43 AM: What does the inside of his head look like? You could compare that to another pony to see if it looks like it was messed with.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: LadyMoondancer on October 27, 2018, 06:49:21 AM: Can you post a picture of him?
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 07:16:57 AM: It looks about the same inside the head as far as I can see though it is difficult. However I feel around the hair inside and it was all sticky with glue. I've not felt sticky got inside a pony mane before

I can post pictures later today
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: banditpony on October 27, 2018, 07:32:20 AM: I would scrutinize the weave in the head...

and then compare that hair to the tail?

but ugh, the seller shouldn't be putting product in pony hair.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: cyberunicorn on October 27, 2018, 08:42:27 AM: If she has used show sheen it can take multiple washes to come out. I know I did an inhand show this summer and it took at least a month of rain before it came out of sams coat. He had a wearied texture when I stroked him for ages
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Taffeta on October 27, 2018, 08:56:45 AM: Quote from: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 07:16:57 AM
It looks about the same inside the head as far as I can see though it is difficult. However I feel around the hair inside and it was all sticky with glue. I've not felt sticky got inside a pony mane before

I can post pictures later today

I've never heard of in-head sticky on a pony, either. That doesn't sound great regarding rehairing. You might also be able to tell by the cut of the hair and how it lies, though if the person is really skilled...? Colour matching might also be a clue. I am way away from my ponies at the moment, sadly, so I can't match my childhood Sunburst to anyone else, but maybe someone on here can find a good exact match for Sunburst among other ponies so you can see whether the hair he has is the right shade. IMO most replacement hair shades are not exact to the original, even when they are sold as being exact...

I seem to remember Sunburst's red is quite distinctive, as is the gold streak.

Also agree that putting product in pony hair is a bad thing to do. I have had pony hair rot away and fall out because of stuff left in pony hair that goes hard and then makes the fibres brittle. It just isn't worth it to make a pony look "shinier". And I don't know this particular product, but it doesn't sound like something that should be used on plastic ponies.

This is why I believe in marking rehairs, since it's more than possible this individual *didn't* rehair him, but it doesn't mean that he wasn't rehaired :/
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 01:31:44 PM: Now she's saying she didn't use any show sheen on it because I brought up the danger of using random chemicals on ponies lol. If this hair was not rehaired there has to be something done to it because it just doesn't feel right.

Taffeta you make a good point, it could've been the person the seller got this pony from that rehaired it.

I have some photos hopefully they work
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The colors aren't so good in a couple but hopefully these are good enough to see what's going on.

Either way I guess this is a learning experience for me haha >_<
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: PoserBeachball on October 27, 2018, 02:40:52 PM: If it helps on the Show Sheen: it is a hair dressing for real-life horses. It is silicon-based.
Personally we don't use it on our native ponies as it makes the mane and tail hair brittle and liable to snap.

Have never used it on MLP so don't know what it does on nylon.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: nhal039 on October 27, 2018, 05:04:42 PM: as suggested I would look at the plugs, in rehairs often a plug might be missing along the hairline, sometime plugs might even be split.

Inside her head the mane would lack a weave, it's often easier to compare when looking at another ponies weave. I have seen one on eBay recently that I thought was a rehair but the rehair wasn't disclosed, the pony was tornado from memory
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: SaraMari on October 27, 2018, 08:03:33 PM: PoserBeachball thank you for the extra info on the show sheen, I'm not to sure what reactions silicone can have on nylon but it is hydrophobic so it will be hard to remove.

Nhal039 thank you for the tips about what to look for, it's hard to see inside but I'll find a good flash light and try to a better look.

Anyhow the seller does not accept returns so I'll have to suck up the money lost but I want to be sure if it's fake hair so I can start looking for a donor
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Baby Sugarberry on October 28, 2018, 02:26:25 AM: While I can't comment on Sunburst's particular hair shades, the cut and lay of his hair looks about right. Most of the time when ponies are rehaired the plugs never quite curve correctly without a lot of training. It is concerning that the inside of his head is sticky though - I wonder if it could be excess show sheen that soaked in? Really not something that should have been used on a vintage toy. :huh:
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Taffeta on October 28, 2018, 02:57:53 AM: I have to agree with Baby Sugarberry about the lie of his hair, rehairs don't usually manage to imitate the original shape quite so well. But the hair *looks* ok just from the photos. Though there are some very skilled people out there, it is possible there's another reason for the in head sticky.

If this is still a subject of concern in a week or so when I go home I will get my Sunburst out and do some comparisons. As I have had him from childhood I can be 100% that his hair is original, and it might help.

In the meantime, I only have this picture of my Sunburst. His hair does fall kind of funny, either because of how he was packaged or how I played with him (I had him when I was five xD) but it might give some idea of colour/length/thickness comparison.
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Edit to add: If anything would concern me between those two ponies it would be the forelock, actually, but then you can't rule out batch differences. Mountain Boys weren't sold for very long but they were sold in the UK and Scandinavia and I think even in Malaysia, and there might easily have been enough batches for significant variations in the hairing.

Second edit: Looking at other pictures of my other MBs, they all seem to have forelocks with fewer plugs than Sunburst does (two of those are also from childhood) so I suspect that could just be factory after all.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Teddy on October 28, 2018, 02:58:09 AM: Just going by the pics, it looks genuine to me. The key will be what it looks like inside his head, factory weave or no.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: LadyMoondancer on October 29, 2018, 06:03:39 AM: His hair looks real to me. It has body / volume. Most rehairs have limp hair compared to genuine MLP hair (except some of the late-late ponies, like the Flower ponies and Romance ponies, who also have limp hair, lol.)

Worth noting that the gaps between hair plugs will look more obvious on a pony with a strong body color like his bold yellow. :)

Edit: I too think the stickiness could be due to show sheen leaking into the head through the hair-plug holes.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Skeen on October 29, 2018, 04:01:20 PM: 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.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: LadyMoondancer on October 29, 2018, 09:00:31 PM: That's a good point. I have a pony whose outside feels fine but her interior is sticky from plasticizer leaking.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Baby Sugarberry on October 29, 2018, 09:06:00 PM: 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!
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Shaz on October 30, 2018, 02:12:30 AM: 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?
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: Taffeta on October 30, 2018, 04:57:26 AM: Quote from: Shaz on October 30, 2018, 02:12:30 AM
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.
Title: Re: How do I spot a re-hair?
Post by: SaraMari on October 30, 2018, 02:20:54 PM: 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