Variant or Fading? What do you think?

[Elisto]

Oh, thanks, although I'm a little confused now!

edit: never mind, let me rethink what I'm looking at

edit 2: OK, so that bubblegum pink is like a slightly darker version of fading pink? Or did you say that already?

[hathorcat]

Lol - I warned you it was confusing.

The problem is finding a pony with completely unfaded pink hair - almost every single pony which has the fading hair even if they have only had the most limited UV exposure are not the same shade as they were originally.

In its unfaded shade, fading pink is incredibly close to bubblegum in colour - its like a slightly milder/less intense shade but it is very very close. The only reason its easy enough to tell the difference is because the bubblegum doesnt fad so when you have a pony with this intense a pink its most likely bubblegum BUT it could just as easily be an unfaded fading pink.

[LadyMoondancer]

Oh my goodness, just LOOK at the hair on that pony on the right!  *swoon*

Yes, the one on the left is faded.    You can't go off whether the pony has other types of damage because that pink hair can fade very fast.  I've purposely faded G3s (for customs) in only a few days--and I mean totally faded, from factory-pink to pure white.

You also can't go by the roots . . . I took the head off of a G3 Minty that I faded and even the roots on the inside of his head had turned white.  I guess mean ol' Mr. Sun blasted right through the plastic.

I can actually see a bit of a tint left on the pony on the left . . . I do find that previously-pink hair sometimes shows a bit of a sheen in pictures, even when it looks whitey-white-white in real life. 

IMO part of the reasons there are "variations" of fading pink in the package is that it just fades so easily.  If a pony was exposed to sunlight, even briefly, even in the store, even when the box is being unloaded, even in the factory itself, that hair is going to start to fade.  And who knows how this hair was stored.  I'm sure none of the factory employees knew that it would fade, so they wouldn't take precautions against that. 

So basically I think the "strong" pink, like on the righthand Curly Locks, is the "truest" shade, but what with one thing and another almost every pony with that shade of hair ended up being faded at least slightly.

Edit:  Although now that I think about it, G3 had at least two shades of fading hair--one seen on curly-haired, all-pink-hair Minty and a stronger pink seen on straight-haired, white-and-pink striped Minty.  I still feel it's likely that all G1 ponies started out with the same shade of pink hair, though.

[Sunshine]

Ahhhh I see... yeah it makes sense - like once exposed, it'll just break down that pink color through time, even in a package.

So, the question becomes - this is the same pony then, right? I don't need to keep both of them in my collection for any reason if I'm purely looking for condition - right? Hehhehe

[hathorcat]

Its the same pony yes...however it is possible they have different pink hair one with the fading pink and one with the bubblegum pink. Unfortunately as mentioned the bubblegum is very very close in colour to the unfaded pink so the only way you will know for certain is to expose the super pink hair to sun to see if it fades which you really dont want to do.

Personally I would kept both as I would be reasonably certain one is bubblegum pink but if you dont collect variants then you are safe to move one on and just keep the nicest for your collection.