Why were there 3 Starshines? Wacky Head Photo Included

[WingsOfMasquerade]

Thanks to a great trade here on the Arena...
I have finally been able to shelf-replace my original, childhood Starshine. Since she's CH I'll never throw her out or customize her. But then, you might say, why do you NOT want that original mail order childhood on your shelf?

Well....it's time to see:
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Guess which one is the new traded nice one?
**I know it looks fake or photoshopped or like it's a different pony head-swappin' gag photo but it's sad because it's real & I can't fix it**

Mine is factory sealed, child-hood, single owner, mail order. She started off uniform, but you'd never think it now!
She never sat in the sun, got too hot in an attic, sealed into a bag, used chemical on, or any other problem-inducing behaviors. The only thing she did was sit on a shelf in the shade of a room since I got her.

The older she gets the weirder her head gets. I am wondering how dark it will get before it stops. But it's IMPOSSIBLE to rip her head off. I've tried so many times & short of shearing it with a ceramic knife, it's going no-where. Which is sooooo frustrating because I can ALWAYS get pony heads off but this one has destructo glue or something on there. It would be a snap to just head swap! (Baking, Boiling, Stomping, acetone, hydrogen peroxide wiping...I've done it all)

But, annoying problems aside, it got me to thinking...well there had to be THREE Starshines didn't there? Why?
Store Starshine
MO Starshine
Combination Starshine

One of them had a matte-white very opaque body.
One of them had a shinier semi-transparent outerlayer body.
One is ultra-prone to glitter rust/cancer etc. the other isn't.

They were clearly making her out of different stuff, you can see how mine is sort of glossy, while the new is very matte. But it looks like someone was making 'combo starshines' there at the pony maker machine because otherwise...how's that head work? I can understand re-releases made out of different plastic. That's totally logical & normal. But it doesn't explain how they were combining her like that or why her head went so wrong. It's probably unanswerable, but it is a curiosity to look at.

*Sorry for anyone who's pony-peeve is head/body differences this post could be a nightmare

[Haruna]

Yeah, that's interesting! I had a Starshine cross my path who had a brown head like yours does. She wasn't shiny-bodied or anything, so I think she was one of the other two releases. I soaked her in hydrogen peroxide for days, and her head lightened but never totally improved. I wonder why this is? At the time I assumed it was sun exposure, but now that you say yours was never in the sun I wonder if it's just something Starshines are prone to. I think I also just saw another brown-headed Starshine in an auction today on Ebay. Weird!

[MandarinCupcake]

Her head colour is so bizarre! So is the fact you can't get her head off! I'm glad you have a great display one!

[ValeofSpring]

I'm going to hazard a guess that the Starshine Brown Head Syndrome (which I've seen many times) is the product of many of the store-release heads being made out of a different type plastic than the bodies (although quite often Starshine bodies are brown, too).  Hasbro produced a massive number of the same ponies in Years 2 and 3, and they likely did this in a number of factories.  Since the heads were made separately, it's possible that some heads weren't even made in the same factory as the bodies they were joined with.  It's hard to say!

Majesty is the other pony that often gets Brown Head Syndrome.  I've never seen a Glory or a Moondancer with it.  And not all Starshines and Majestys seems to get it.  So best guess is that some of the plastic assigned to these unfortunate two just wasn't of the quality used elsewhere, and the ponies affected now bear the marks of this.  I'm guessing sun/humidity/etc contribute to the unattractive breakdown of this batch of white plastic.

[hathorcat]

I think part of it simply comes down to the sheer amount of times Starshine was released. Its not as specific as one for store, one for mail order and one combination. 2 ponies on the same production line, packaged and produced at the same time could simply deteriorate differently over the years - show different ageing, depending on the variables they are exposed to.

I have never seen a head go quite as dramatically different from the body! Thats a real radical difference! Kind of cool!