Cleaning and restoration problems

[DalaPony]

Hey, everyone.  I could use some help with a few ponies I'm having real problems with 

First up, I have a Tornado who has the worst frizz I've ever seen. His tail is like cotton wool, and the ends of his mane are also affected.  Photos under the spoiler:

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I'd eventually like to repink him, but obviously it's not going to work very well if his hair is like this.  Is there anything I can do to get rid of even some of this frizz, or is it a lost cause?

I also have a couple of ponies with really bad smooze:

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It's spread all over their bodies and I'm kind of at a loss for what to do with it.  Is this actually mould, or just really bad ingrained dirt?  Would soaking in Oxyclean help?

[DreamLight]

Oh man i'm not one to say it but that looks pretty bad have you tried boil straightening his hair? Poor thing

As for the smooze I think warm oxiclean baths wouldn't be a bad place to start

[Shileah]

The hair doesn't look too bad, it will be some work, but you should be able to get it into decent condition again. I'd do the following:

- Wash it with warm water - as hot as you can stand - and a mild shampoo. Rinse thoroughly.
- Work a good amount of anti frizz conditioner into the hair. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then rinse.
- Carefully press out the excess water with a towel.
- Make yourself comfortable, put on a good TV show, grab your hair straightener, and work on one small hank at a time. I'm really talking small hanks here, like one or two plugs in size. Heat the straightener to 100-120 °C. Work in a good amount of anti frizz heat protection lotion into the hank, and pull the hank through your straightener until dry. Repeat with the rest until done.

The hair will look a bit dull and be heavy due to all the products in them, so you may want to rinse the hair carefully under hot water again - just let it flow over the hair, and pat it dry again with a soft towel.

This method helped me for example with this poor baby Lemondrops:

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[SunbeamV]

Along with the already mentioned advice for frizzy hair, I'd also recommend massaging some olive oil into the pony's hair and letting it sit for a couple hours. As for smooze, after a good bath, run your pony under very hot water for about 30 seconds to a minute, and then lather them up in some regular liquid handsoap, and you should be able to scratch the smooze off with a fingernail or similar tool. Just keep repeating the heating up + lathering process each time the pony cools down too much for the scratching to work. It can be time consuming for serious cases but it yields great results in my experience!

[DalaPony]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. Looks like I have a couple of projects for the week ahead...  I've tried de-smoozing one of the ponies today and some of the dots have come off, but my fingernails are really not up to it, so I think I'll be shopping for a stiff brush tomorrow!

[StarlightFrost]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. Looks like I have a couple of projects for the week ahead...  I've tried de-smoozing one of the ponies today and some of the dots have come off, but my fingernails are really not up to it, so I think I'll be shopping for a stiff brush tomorrow!

That doesn't look like dirt to me, its too dotty and random with no smudgey dirt spots to accompany it.. Pindot/Smooze more than likely.

Also i've dealt with a few smoozed up ponies, a super hot (boiling hot, but the heat didn't transfer fully into the bucket I was using, energy loss and all that) using oxiclean bath worked wonders. After they came out of the water the smooze just rubbed off. Hopefully that will work for you.

A bit of a warning. I used a scrubby pad thing to get rid of some VERY stubborn smooze on a Firefly, it worked but ended up sanding her a bit. So she has a few slightly faded spots on her, I don't really mind it myself, but I wanted to give you a heads up about that.
(And I probably shouldn't have used a straight scrubby pad, but i was pretty done at that point, I must confess.)
Just something to keep in mind when looking for something to brush/scrub with!

[DappledHazel]

Hopefully you can clean them up

[Tzan19]

I second Shileah's technique I have used it on a few ponies with great success. Just wanted to add that I have found that if you re pink with rit dye for some reason this seems to improve the hair condition further.

[DalaPony]

So, a little update.  I haven't had time for the de-frizzing yet, but I've tackled the smooze.  I took StarlightFrost's advice and gave Blue Belle and Peachy a nice long soak in hot oxiclean.  When I took them out and rinsed them most of the smooze had already soaked off.  They both still have a few very stubborn marks on them, but I'm a lot happier with them now, and Blue Belle actually looks blue now instead of beige! 

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Thanks for all the advice, everyone.  Hopefully when I get round to tackling Tornado's frizz I'll be able to make a neat happy pony of him too!

[Sweet_Stuff]

Hope all goes well!

[hathorcat]

A butter knife and very hot water should manage to get rid of the rest of the ingrained dirt

As for Tornado, I do hope the flat iron method works for you. However, it is possible for hair to be "burnt" on the ends to such extent that complete recover is not always possible. It comes of the hair having been stretched/brushed too much and it essentially breaks) although we cant see the breaks. Fingers crossed for you!