The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Luxrayx on May 21, 2016, 05:08:00 AM
-
So I was combing my G4 Plumsweet, using no more force than usual... I noticed strands coming out a lot, but didn't think much of it. But when I tried to style her hair, even the tiniest bit of pulling caused it to snap! You know, like really damaged human hair, but somehow even worse. I picked up Rainbow Dash, who I've had the longest, but no amount of pulling harmed her. Snowcatcher, whose hair is sort of the same color, also didn't have that problem. So is Plumsweet the only pony with poor quality hair? Has anyone else had this happen?
-
Hmmm... *pulls in my Plumsweet's hair* mine's is ok. Maybe you got unlucky and got a bad one outta the batch? :(
-
Hmm, that unfortunately sounds like the Avon ponies in G3 who had a certain color that came out at the slightest touch after only a few years.
:(
I don't have a loose Plumsweet to check.
-
Oh noooo. :( Yes, that reminds me of the Avon pony problems too.
What colors are Plumsweet's hair? And if it's multi-colored, is all the hair effected equally? Or are some colors much worse than others?
-
What colors are Plumsweet's hair? And if it's multi-colored, is all the hair effected equally? Or are some colors much worse than others?
It's three shades of pink, and the lightest one seems to be the sturdiest. I'm not familiar with Avon ponies, could someone fill me in on them?
-
What colors are Plumsweet's hair? And if it's multi-colored, is all the hair effected equally? Or are some colors much worse than others?
It's three shades of pink, and the lightest one seems to be the sturdiest. I'm not familiar with Avon ponies, could someone fill me in on them?
As far as I'm aware, Avon ponies were sold in the avon catalogues as two sets. The ponies had lower quality hair, especially the pink, that was prone to 'crumbling'. It falls out to the touch. I haven't owned any of the ponies prone, this is all research. Not just ponies from the catalogue had it, I think it was the vibrant pink hair that had it worst. I found a thread here (http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,368990.0.html) that talks about it and has some pictures, you might want to have a look to see if it's the same?
-
Mine was never removed from the package, but I do have a "Frankensteined" pony I got second hand that has Plumsweet's head, if you like we could trade Plumsweet heads (I had planed to use it for a custom, so having one where the hair falls out is no problem)
-
What's terrifying about this is that the Avon ponies crumbled some years after their release. How old is Plumsweet? She can't be that old? And I know we discussed a while back the implications of this and G4 QC, but I really hope this is a one off bad luck bad batch pony with something up in her fibre, and not the start of something much bigger.
I guess what we need to know is if it's the SAME shade of pink that the Avon ponies lost. And whether anyone else has had this issue with any of the G4.
-
Ugh, this is so disheartening to hear. :cry: Plumsweet has such an amazing mane colour too. I never found her, but she was one of my favourites easy. I, too, hope it's a one off and not the signs of G4 deterioration already. :(
-
Some of the other G3s had this hair problem besides just the Avon ponies. If I recall correctly, some of the TRU exclusive sets also had terrible hair problems....
Princess Peppermint's hair comes to mind - it's white but it has the same problems as the light pinks that disintegrate.
-
That really sucks! :( Have you ever noticed it happens to some of the prettiest ones?
-
How old is Plumsweet? She can't be that old?
Plumsweet is one of the oldest G4 toys, though of course that's only old in G4 terms.
-
How old is Plumsweet? She can't be that old?
Plumsweet is one of the oldest G4 toys, though of course that's only old in G4 terms.
I looked her up and apparently she was 2011. That is only 5 years, much less time than the g3 I think. But it could be a one off with that pony yet...let us hope so.
-
I haven't had any issues with g4s, but I've had a couple g1s' and g3s' hair completely crumble out! And they all had varying shades of pink hair except for the one g3 who was rainbow haired and all of mane the colours (pink/yellow/orange) rotted right out. :huh: It'd be nice to know if the pink dye has anything to do with it? It sure seems like it.
-
I saw this post on the 21st and then had this happen to me yesterday! I was brushing baby Tea Lily's hair and the pink part of her mane fell right out! The Green part is fine and I tugged on her tail and the pink there didn't come out.
Poor balding baby:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
-
Didn't Plumsweet have 2 variations? One with a lighter and darker pink stripe? Maybe only one is prone to this.
-
Didn't Plumsweet have 2 variations? One with a lighter and darker pink stripe? Maybe only one is prone to this.
Yep, one came with the mini dvd and one without
-
Didn't Plumsweet have 2 variations? One with a lighter and darker pink stripe? Maybe only one is prone to this.
Yep, one came with the mini dvd and one without
Well, my Plumsweet came without the dvd, if that is useful information. But if no one else has had this problem with her, I'm going to hope I just got a bad one :)
-
I saw this post on the 21st and then had this happen to me yesterday! I was brushing baby Tea Lily's hair and the pink part of her mane fell right out! The Green part is fine and I tugged on her tail and the pink there didn't come out.
Poor balding baby:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Oh wow. Poor Tea Lily!
-
I saw this post on the 21st and then had this happen to me yesterday! I was brushing baby Tea Lily's hair and the pink part of her mane fell right out! The Green part is fine and I tugged on her tail and the pink there didn't come out.
Poor balding baby:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Yes, sadly I had the exact same thing happen right after deciding to open my mib set just a couple years ago. :(
-
That photo is the stuff of nightmares...
What is it with G3s and G4s degrading so much? G1s and maybe G2s I can understand, but most G3s are only a decade old, and some G4s are already beginning to degrade after only four or five years...
-
Some of the other G3s had this hair problem besides just the Avon ponies. If I recall correctly, some of the TRU exclusive sets also had terrible hair problems....
Princess Peppermint's hair comes to mind - it's white but it has the same problems as the light pinks that disintegrate.
My G3 Blossomforth (the version that came with Spring Fever), who was one of the first ponies in my childhoood collection, had this problem - her hair crumbled and fell out entirely!
-
Mmm, this is concerning seeing this problem become more common... I really hope it is largely restricted to a few ponies in all generations. :blink:
-
:cry: This makes me afraid to open my box of G3's in storage. I would be so heartbroken to open it and find some bald ponies and a pile of hair strands in the bottom of the box!
-
I've had this happen to G3 Petal Blossom as well -_- but in her hair had also been matted for quite a while (I think) and it was only when I attempted to de-tangle it that it started to fall off in chunks.
For some reason the tinsel had no problem staying in.
-
I think the G3 Petal Blossom who came with the free baby pony had a different hair type than the one that didn't come with a free baby. I tried to dye a free-baby Petal Blossom once and her hair didn't take the dye at ALL, which was a first. Usually G3 hair soaks it right up.
-
Aw man, how horrible D: I remember seeing the post about the G3s a while ago. Sad to see that it has happened with G4s as well ;m;
-
That photo is the stuff of nightmares...
What is it with G3s and G4s degrading so much? G1s and maybe G2s I can understand, but most G3s are only a decade old, and some G4s are already beginning to degrade after only four or five years...
Cheaper materials, due to cost cutting. The basic price for a MLP has remained about the same since the 80's, and inflation dictates that it should have gone up. Since it hasn't, that cost has to be absorbed somewhere, and it comes out of materials, safety practices, labour, and the like. Why do you think Hasbro went to one sided printing for G3 onwards? It wasn't because it improved the product, but because they could get away with it and still have the toy look just as good in the package.
That's why we get smaller, flimsier ponies with no quality control that break down faster than ever.
-
I am wondering what other factors might play a part in this degeneration process. I know that with the glitter in the G3 ponies, there was thought to be some correlation between high temperature/humidity and the breakdown of the glitter/plastic. I've had my only remaining glitter G3 out of the storage box and on my desk for a year or so now, and she's still fine. She's still glittery and her normal colour and no sign of any issues. But it's not hot here. So I tend to think that's a reason why.
I also wonder, therefore, whether the hit and miss breakdown of ponies outside of those like Tea Lily etc whose problems are chronic...has anything to do with climate/storage temperature/anything like that? Something that maybe hastens the breakdown of hair in regular release G3 and something that could therefore be avoided with the G4 to preserve them as long as possible?
What made me think of it was the mention of G3 Blossomforth, above. I have my Blossomforth out, too. She is fine. She's got no problems. But she wasn't sold with Spring Fever in this country, they were sold separately, so I guess there's no reason why they'd be related in terms of batch or production quality.
It just seems odd to me that some ponies have diametrically opposite fates in terms of this hair rot thing. And there must be something we can track down as a trigger to make it happen faster or slower, since otherwise it would be more uniform in terms of colour, age and pony?
Also, is there a connection between distribution areas and this issue? Avon aside, with the regular ponies...is there any kind of pattern we can trace?
-
Did you mean Petal Blossom? This is the pony I was thinking of:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
As far as I can recall, there were two Petal Blossoms sold at the same time--one with baby, one without. The one with baby had cheap feeling hair while the one without baby had good quality hair. I assume the poor quality hair was a way of offsetting the production cost of the free baby.
-
That's why we get smaller, flimsier ponies...
While I agree that most companies will do almost anything to cut production costs, it's more likely that the smaller size of the G4's is due to anthropometrics rather than a reduction in quality. Someone probably pointed out that the ponies of the previous generations were quite a bit larger than the average child's hand, so it would be more difficult for kids to get a comfortable grip on them or hold several of them at one time - how well an item fits into a person's hand features largely in product design - and so Hasbro decided to make the G4's more 'child-sized' to improve sales. Saving money and materials was probably just a bonus.
I am wondering what other factors might play a part in this degeneration process.
...has anything to do with climate/storage temperature/anything like that?
It probably does have something to do with temperature.
Metals and plastics tend to become brittle if they're exposed to constantly changing temperatures - more specifically being heated up and then cooled down several times.
So if you stored nylon-haired ponies in a room where, for example, the heater doesn't turn on at night, the nylon would then be continuously exposed to a 'room temperature' environment during the day and, potentially, cold spells during the night.
Basically any environment which undergoes daily and significant changes in temperature is not ideal for storing and maintaining the quality of plastics (or metals).
That said, unless the temperature change is frequent and drastic, it shouldn't really be affecting the nylon too much, which leads me to think that there might be something in the formula for that particular hair colour which makes the material particularly vulnerable to environmental changes over time. They would've carried out several quality checks at the factory in terms of strength and durability, but long term effects are difficult to predict and test for so it's easy for something like a gradual vulnerability to go unnoticed. I doubt they'd recall or revise the hair colour unless half of the world's pink-haired ponies suddenly went bald.
The initial quality of the hair would also make a contribution - my G3 Petal Blossom was the version which was packaged with the baby pony (Flower Flash, I think?) so I guess it sort of makes sense that her hair became brittle fairly quickly if the hair quality was lower. Although, in my case, Petal Blossom's hair being matted for a good five years was probably one of the main factors - I'm not entirely sure how her hair got to that state, but I remember I was going to re-hair her in light of how bad the tangles were and then decided to at least attempt to de-frizz it ....... and then ended up re-hairing her anyway.
In Plumsweet's case - did you buy her new from the store or loose from an ebay seller in China? I haven't noticed many differences between the two (aside from occasional missing item numbers and zap codes) but perhaps, if you didn't buy her new, the quality might not be as great?
-
That's why we get smaller, flimsier ponies with no quality control that break down faster than ever.
While I agree that most companies will do almost anything to cut production costs, it's more likely that the smaller size of the G4's is due to anthropometrics rather than a reduction in quality. Someone probably pointed out that the ponies of the previous generations were quite a bit larger than the average child's hand, so it would be more difficult for kids to get a comfortable grip on them or hold several of them at one time - how well an item fits into a person's hand features largely in product design - and so Hasbro decided to make the G4's more 'child-sized' to improve sales. Saving money and materials was probably just a bonus.
On the contrary, I feel that G1's were/are the perfect size for small hands. Anthropomorphizing (attributing human characteristics) has less to do with the size of a toy, but more the features, placement, and ratio between those things that makes us like faces or find things 'cute'.
G4's are too small for any of the natural grips to feel good; even a small child can't fit more than one finger around one of the fillies, maybe two on an adult's torso, and similarly you can't wrap your hand around a single leg either, the two main ways G1's through G3's are held. I suppose you could claim the entire toy can be palmed, but that's not very comfortable given the hard plastic of a G4. As an adult it's even less feasible to grab a G4, at least myself I find I have to pinch them between two fingers to hold either on a leg or rump.
It's fuzzy but I seem to recall that one of the interviews with Bonnie talked about how G1's were designed soft and squishy specifically to feel nice in a child's hands. Most plastic horse toys up to then were hard.
-
It could be that some of the hair is coming from a different supplier; I've seen a few colours that don't seem to match any of the colours on Dolly Hair, so it could be that those have a different formula that's causing the problem, or simply a bad batch. Not to mention there have been some hair colours that had issues that would show up early in the toy's life since the beginning (i.e. Fading Pink)
There are external factors as well; it's easy enough to point the finger at toy companies prioritising cost reduction over the quality of the finished product, but they are in a somewhat tricky business. Baby Sugarberry made a good point about inflation, and on top of that anything considered a luxury has a fairly rigid price point (To give you an idea how rigid, there's a chocolate company that for decades would decrease and increase the weight of their chocolate bars rather than change the price), and toys are often considered a luxury and many parents aren't willing to spend a lot of money on them, some aren't even willing to spend money on books for their children (though in some cases not even spending, when I worked in my local library parents often forced their children to choose fewer books when they could have taken out all the ones they wanted by putting some on their card).
Granted, not all parents are like that, but enough are that it can make changing the price difficult, especially since with a lot of things related to childhood people tend to use their own childhood as a benchmark; people expect toys to cost a similar amount to what they cost when they were growing up, parents give their children a similar amount of spending money to what they received, babysitters are paid similar amounts to what the people hiring them received (I know the person that used to babysit me was shocked the first time she watched me because my parents paid her more than $5 an hour, which was usually the most she received). And other factor is that these toys have to be something children could conceivably save up for.
Simply put both parties are at fault in a way; yes toy companies try to reduce the cost of their products, but the customers don't let them raise the price of their products. The toys still cost about $5, and this is what $5 buys in 2016.
Still there have been some improvements, some of the issues with G1 toys have been addressed, true some new issues have popped up but even some of those have been worked on. For example the first two generations were prone to leaking plasticisor, the chemical that makes the plastic soft, while the current toys are a more rigid plastic that still has some give. The more recent generations are also less hollow which makes them harder to damage in certain ways.
They've also addressed the issue that earlier G4 toys had of the heads and bodies not matching by molding the head in two pieces, using the same plastic for the faces and bodies with a different ones being used for the back and even within that the seem between the two it less obtrusive than it once was. They've also mostly fixed the G4 specific issue of inaccurate eye decals, some of the minor and background characters still have different eye-shapes than they did in the show, but most of the main characters have correct eyes now (The only one who hasn't been corrected is Applejack and even she has more accurately coloured irises)
-
The first pony I ever had with the sticky plastic problem was a G3. I have a few G1 now but yeah, I think we can say the first THREE generations. G4 is too young to really know yet.
I also used to carry the ponies by their tails as a kid. I still do, actually, unless I know the tail is loose. It's not like I'm carrying them miles, just from room to room, and it saves several trips. None of my childhood ponies suffered from this. The three that ended up with loose tails got them from overvigorous brushing...
I just wonder if it is a perfect storm situation. Right mix of temperature changes plus right mix of dye/hair colour in the factory equals meltdown in a certain proportion of ponies which meet those criteria. It means that any pony with that hair that didn't meet the storage or temperature issues would be okay for longer, as would any pony with better hair that did. But if the two elements coincided, then the hair breaks.
But with the Avon ones, it seems to just be poor quality fibre. And since they were only sold in that one way, I suspect they were all made at the same time/same place and with the same materials, thus providing so many issues in those specific ponies.
-
I saw this post on the 21st and then had this happen to me yesterday! I was brushing baby Tea Lily's hair and the pink part of her mane fell right out! The Green part is fine and I tugged on her tail and the pink there didn't come out.
Poor balding baby:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
Yep, I had the exact same problem with that one. It's a shame, her colors are so pretty!
-
On the contrary, I feel that G1's were/are the perfect size for small hands. Anthropomorphizing (attributing human characteristics) has less to do with the size of a toy, but more the features, placement, and ratio between those things that makes us like faces or find things 'cute'.
Ah, you've misunderstood me. Sorry about that - I wasn't exactly clear in my explanation.
I wasn't referring to anthropomorphism, I meant anthropometrics; it's the study of the human body and it's movement, and it involves research into measurements which are relevant to people (i.e. average height, arm length, palm width etc.). Usually it's one of the only factors besides material cost and availability that influences the size of a product, like how wide a seat should be or the exact shape of a handle.
I only mentioned it because, I as well, am aware of the fact that the only way to firmly grip a G4 pony is by enclosing it in a fist, and I wondered if that was Hasbro's intention - that somehow they believe children have a desire to be able to wrap their entire fist completely around handheld toys. I'm not sure how they could've reached such a conclusion, I would assume that most people (regardless of age) quite enjoy being able to to actually look at whatever they're holding. I wasn't trying to imply that the previous generations are difficult to hold (because they aren't), only that the G4's might have intentionally been designed to be 'palm-sized' because Hasbro decided to take a different approach than before.
Personally I also disagree with the G4's small size, specifically because I have a bad habit of dropping things and having to resort to holding a G4 pony between the tips of my fingers does nothing to help it. Heaven forbid someone bumps into me and I suddenly have to try catching an airborne Fluttershy.
But, back to the hair issue, it is a little strange to have this kind of problem with a G4 pony, so something definitely must've sped up the degeneration of nylon. It's just a case of identifying what, exactly, happened to Plumsweet.
-
Wow, that's terrifying. I do remember there being a hair variation with Plumweet but I don't recall exactly which strip of hair was different. Was it the front piece?
Which section of her hair was crumbling on yours, Luxrayx, or is it pretty much all of it?
I just checked mine and her hair seems ok. I think mine was the one that came with a dvd. She has magenta up front, pale pink in the middle, and red in back of her mane.
(edit: dug up old threads on the variation
http://www.mlparena.com/archive/Forums//viewtopic/printertopic=1/t=281541/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0/finish_rel=-10000.html
&
http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,318660.0.html )
-
On the contrary, I feel that G1's were/are the perfect size for small hands. Anthropomorphizing (attributing human characteristics) has less to do with the size of a toy, but more the features, placement, and ratio between those things that makes us like faces or find things 'cute'.
Ah, you've misunderstood me. Sorry about that - I wasn't exactly clear in my explanation.
I wasn't referring to anthropomorphism, I meant anthropometrics; it's the study of the human body and it's movement, and it involves research into measurements which are relevant to people (i.e. average height, arm length, palm width etc.).
Ponyfeathers, that makes much more sense, I completely misread that (and this is the first time I've met 'anthropometrics', huzzah for a new word today!) I have the tendency to drop G4's too, they're just so darn hard to get a grip on especially if they're slippery from sitting around with conditioner on their hair. T__T;
-
I remember having two Plumsweet, both similar shades of colour but not the same. The dark pink strip was the most obvious difference between the two. I no longer have either (I think????) but I do wonder which one is the flawed one, RIP.