Ponies in Dishwasher - Yay or Neigh?

[AnotherTonic]

New to restoration and customization here and trying.  Have any of you ever put a pony in the dishwasher?

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Why would you put them in the dishwasher?

Also, going to bump this over to the corral so you can get some more answers, this seems more linked to restoration than customizing.

[BlackCurtains]

I wouldn't. The cleaner is probably too abrasive for ponies and would make the hair feel icky, so you'd have to wash and condition it afterwards anyway.

[DreamvalleyMLP]

Ah, yes, trying to cut corners when restoring and customizing... Most of us have been there in the beginning I'm sure  It's certainly giving me flashbacks.
I once ruined a perfectly fine Lullabye Nursery using a cleaning product that was waayyyyy to abrasive. It simply started to eat the hard plastic away, never seen anything like it 

I highly suggest to take your time and go with a hand wash/scrub. Maybe you could use a mild tooth brush. But a dishwasher doesn't even fully clean basic plates sometimes, it's not really going to do much for properly cleaning a toy I'm afraid.

See it as a mindful zen exercise 

[Leave a Whisper]

Only if you're using the wrack to dry them out I guess. Did that with some sea ponies I had to clean inside. Would never put ponies in there while it's running.

Post Merge: June 11, 2022, 01:51:12 PM

Ah, yes, trying to cut corners when restoring and customizing... Most of us have been there in the beginning I'm sure  It's certainly giving me flashbacks.
I once ruined a perfectly fine Lullabye Nursery using a cleaning product that was waayyyyy to abrasive. It simply started to eat the hard plastic away, never seen anything like it 

I highly suggest to take your time and go with a hand wash/scrub. Maybe you could use a mild tooth brush. But a dishwasher doesn't even fully clean basic plates sometimes, it's not really going to do much for properly cleaning a toy I'm afraid.

See it as a mindful zen exercise 

   

[Loa]

I too have suffered the fate of the over eager new collector. Trust these wise words from older collectors!

[maxfieldstanton]

Yeah I'd give that a big ol' no - only if it was a dissembled pony with no hair!

[Trinity]

I wouldn't. The cleaner is probably too abrasive for ponies and would make the hair feel icky, so you'd have to wash and condition it afterwards anyway.

This. And if there was a metal washer in the pony, it could corrode.

Hand wash all the way!

[goddessofpeep]

I once had a plastic lid fall through the dish rack and land on the heating element.   It melted very badly.  There is some serious heat produced by some dishwashers.  Just being in there could warp the plastic, let alone if something slips through the cracks and gets somewhere it doesn’t belong. If the washing up chemicals didn’t ruin things, the heat very well could. I also don’t want to find out what those chemicals do to hair long term.

[applejackbunny]

My initial reaction was NOOOOO! But I guess if you really want to, you could just try it with a very baity common pony and see what happens? I would still agree with everyone else, though, and say that I would just stick with hand washing and see it as part of the process of collecting vintage toys.

[Heelys]

I agree with the prior comment about using the drying rack and experimenting with completely stripped baits. But also, I GOTTA commend your out of the box thinking. I am all about that innovation!

[ChocolateStarfire]

I think you might be confusing vinyl plastic for silicone-based plastic. The vinyl in ponies--new and old--is not able to withstand extreme heat, as other pony collectors here have said. I've lost plastic acrylic cups and straws to my dishwasher, so I don't think that ponies could withstand it at all.

Silicone is different, it's able to withstand and absorb heat due to its chemistry.

Adding my .02 here to say: Don't do this! You will lose your ponies. Hand washing with Dawn dish detergent and a mild shampoo/conditioner, combing and letting air dry works best. If your pony smells of cigarette smoke, or other unpleasant odors, you will need to wash and dry them by hand, then set them in a Ziploc with baking soda for a week or two to remove the smell, along with setting them in the sunshine if possible (though sunfading is something to be careful with too!).

[DreamvalleyMLP]

The more I come back to this thread to read the responses, the more I want to actually put one in the dishwasher just to see what will happen... 

But why stop there? What has the laundry machine done to be excluded from this (other than transporting socks to alternative universes one at a time)...?  ( I know)

[pinkkittywinks]

I prefer the washing machine to the dish washer, the dish washer cleaner seemed to mattify the pony vinyl. I pop them in a net bag, then put through the machine on a 40 degree wash with rinse hold since they don't need to be spun.

Dishwasher or washing machine is really only best for grubby bait ponies, it will damage symbols, twinkle eyes and princess medallions.

Love pkw xxx

[LadyAmalthea]

Eesh!! I've had Tupperware get wrecked in the dishwasher, so I can't imagine what it does to 40-year-old vinyl. Washing machine, maybe? But either would probably make the hair feel gross.