I never did get a Spike. The dream castle was the one playset nobody in my household ever had, I think it was discontinued by the time I started getting into ponies, and in those days that was the only way to get a Spike. If I ever see him reasonably priced, I'll grab him for sure...if not for me, then for my son at least; he loves Spike. He's 4, and missing his friends at school right now, and he's starting to pretend Spike is his imaginary friend. 

Quote from: Leave a Whisper on March 31, 2020, 09:31:21 AM

[quote author=LadyAmalthea link=topic=385476.msg1809558#msg1809558

I don't care much for pre-styled hair either. My Basic Funs have twisty hair and I straighten them too. I like running my fingers through hair.

It looks pretty when other people curl their hair, but really that is partially how they're meant to be played with.

THIS!!! SO MUCH!!! Make hair styleable & manageable, so the kids (& us) can style it how we like please!!! In my Ponyworld every Pony gets a braided tail & a nice ribbon at the end of that braid. It may not be original, but it's a good quality satin or metallic ribbon wi a colour complementing the Pony. I also love to style the manes of Ponies wi long hair. You give us toys wi hair, we're going to groom & style it!!!

Yes, I like to run my fingers through it as well, and smooth their manes down, it is a comforting thing, I guess. I have tried curling hair by wrapping it around a crayon and binding it up with paper towels,  but I can't get it to look as good as others' pics I see online.

I braided all my childhood ponies' hair probably a decade ago after my stepkids outgrew them and I was putting them into storage for a while, in hopes of preserving their hair. I fastened the braids with those little rubber ties (usually clear to look invisible, but these ones were neon colored). When I recovered them, the bands were dry-rotted, but the braids were still in! The ponies had survived a basement flood, so maybe the braids saved their hair, I don't know! They were still in a lot worse of shape than I remembered leaving them; the ends of the braids were now frizzed. Most cleaned up all right, but I like your idea of getting them ribbons for their hair, maybe once we're cleared to shop again, I'll hit the craft store and buy some! 

Post Merge: April 01, 2020, 06:49:02 AM

I love factory curl

One pony I will never change from her factory curl is my Lickety Split. Her curly hair was part of the storyline my sister and I made up for her. She was the Perm Shoppe's #1 customer. Our original Lickety was lost in a flood, but I found another on Ebay (in what was supposed to be a bait lot!) not only with original curls, but still pink even!

When I was a kid, I took a red or pink ballpoint pen and drew an 'X' on the bottom of some of my ponies' hooves, and my initials on some others. My best friend and I used to take our ponies back and forth to each other's houses and I didn't want mine to get mixed up with hers, since we had some duplicates between us, and I took better care of mine than she did hers.

Obviously I'm not the only little girl in the 80's to have done this, as I'm finding out from marks I see on Ebay pony finds...but I regret it as an adult collector; the marks have faded out some but still are unsightly.

An unpopular opinion I have is that I don't like ponies (or any toys, really) with factory-curled hair. Whoever thought it was a good idea to curl pony or doll hair and then give it to an unruly child....smh. 

I have been about 50/50 on recurling my ponies' hair when restoring them. Some I am unsure if they actually came with curly hair or not, like Baby Surprise/Firefly, because I never see any that have it now, and their manes aren't very long, so I've just been styling them straight.

I recently bought my son a set of Mane Six brushables (mostly to steer him away from my G1s that I don't want him to destroy), and the curly haired ones are already trashed. I haven't given him Pinkie Pie yet, because I was going to try to wash and straighten her hair first in hopes of saving it; it's like they came with this factory glue(wax?) in their hair to make it look nice in the package, but man, it wreaks havoc the minute a child tries to play with it. Like, were these not meant to actually be played with? 

Can't decide if I love or hate her color scheme. I tend to love ponies with bright hair, but is it too much with the intense purple? I'm leaning towards liking it, but I still voted pass, mostly because SS's aren't my cup of tea. I would have voted 'have to think on it' if that had been an option.

This made me have to get up and check my white ponies to see...most of them are painted, but I don't think my Sugarberry's are. Thankfully she is still fairly white! That's weird.

My random thought is: why, why, WHY did so many children cut the forelocks off of their ponies?!? Who on earth would think that would make them look better? I've seen so many ponies that are in good shape except for an annoying chopped-off forelock. Like, I could rehair that, but if I don't already have that color of hair laying around, is it really worth the expense and trouble? Just one of my pony pet peeves... 

Nah. I just won't buy 'em if I don't want to pay what they are asking. If they really want to sell, they'll realize they'll have to drop their prices on their own eventually, I figure. I see some sellers on ebay asking ridiculous prices for all their ponies, even common ones, and it makes me wonder if they ever sell any at those rates, but unless I put them in my watch list, I guess I'll never know.

I was in the process of restoring my surviving childhood ponies; I've gotten most of them cleaned but am still working on it. Right before all this virus stuff shut everything down, I had just taken a load of cleaned ponies over to my mom's house, since we are in the middle of a home remodel and I don't currently have room for all my playsets here. I spent a couple hours at her house setting up a big pony scene in a back bedroom with Paradise Estate and all the freshly washed/styled ponies. I now regret it because I'm separated from them until we are cleared for nonessential travel! I miss looking at them so much!

I have 3 kids under 5 and it's hard to find time to restore ponies while my oldest isn't in school; most days I get 2-3 ponies cleaned, depending on how bad their hair is. I have a couple hairless ponies I'm hoping to try my hand  at rehairing, which would be a great project, but my husband just got laid off and I can't justify putting a big order in for hair right now  Guess I can just sit and plan the colors I'll choose for their future hair...