Cleaning a friend's childhood ponies. Before and after. *more photos added*

[balletpot]

Edit, May 2013: The rest of my friend's ponies are added to the bottom of the first post. And I've just started to sunfade Moon Jumper.


A friend brought home her childhood ponies from her parents' (in another town). I went over to have a look and brought some of my ponies. I offered to take home and clean some of her ponies - she's not a collector plus she doesn't have the time to clean them. Here are some photos.

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I love Fifi. I didn't know she was this adorable in person. I think I need to get one of my own.

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And she has his brush too.

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If anyone has any cleaning tips for her I'd be glad to hear them. I've used: baby wipes, magic eraser and toothbrush + hot water + dish soap + soap for floors. I then tried acetone and later bleach pen under one of the hooves, nothing happened.

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She actually gave me Moon Jumper. Yay! I told her how much she's worth and that she doesn't come up that often for sale but she still wants me to have her.


Here are the rest of the ponies:

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I didn't know that I would like the colour combination of Magic Star until I saw her in real life. They're very vibrant.


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Fixing Megan's hair was quite icky, wet doll hair. *shudder* I bought a new ribbon for her pony tail.

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Megan and Sundance in the snow in the after photos (taken in March/April).


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Messy hair. Don't know if the end result was that good.


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Glittering Gem was my friend's favourite pony so I wanted her to end up looking really nice. She had some dark spots on her that I had to sunfade. All of them didn't go away but I'm very pleased with the result. I didn't want to sunfade a coloured pony forever, to be on the safe side.

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And no the pony didn't fade in colour, it just looks like it in the photo. I don't cover the symbols too carefully when I sunfade and there's no difference in the pink around the symbols.

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Baby Rainribbon's blue stripe was a real mess. I had to iron it a couple of times. How come certain colours in a pony's hair can end up being so frizzy/messy and others don't?

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I almost don't want to show you Starglow because I didn't manage to preserve her factory curls.

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Recurled with MLP curlers. At least my friend isn't a collector...

[Rhubarbpie]

That's some lovely grooming there!!  I had a particularly grubby Speckles and got some good results using a denture cleaning tablet. I de-headed her and removed the tail (she had a rusting issue as well) and whilst I was sorting the tail out, I dunked the headless, tailless body in a bowl of hot water which had 1 Sterident tablet in (Sterident is the brand I  used) she came up quite lovely in the end!!

[Eaglefeather]

They each turned out wonderful! You did a great job cleaning them! I wish mine would clean up that nicely.

[kezrob23]

I love these kinda threads. Great work on all of them! Do you know what it is on moon jumper? May help for others to give you cleaning tips her hair came up awesome btw 

[balletpot]

I don't know what's on Moon Jumper. I suspect it's the same thing that was on Sherbet, which came off easily (baby wipes + magic eraser), or maybe there's something left on Sherbet too but you can't see what's left because she's a darker shade? Moon Jumper doesn't smell funny and doesn't have anything odd at the base of her tail or mane. I haven't opened her up. I think they had been stored in a shed/garage etc. outdoors. This is in Sweden so it's not super hot or moist, maybe a bit cold during the winter. I have denture cleaning tablets that I've used for other ponies. I'd rather not open her though - as usual. She displays lovely, just hope she doesn't have anything that's contagious. Although, what's most likely to suspect is mould, right?

None of the hair on the ponies was that dry, just messy and a bit dirty from age. I think Moon Jumper's hair had been braided and then brushed.

[Seraphia]

Great job, especially with the hair! It looks so nice and silky!

She actually gave me Moon Jumper.

YAY, congrats! Moon Jumper is such a gorgoeus little thing. Good luck on getting rid of the remaining spots, I'm sorry that I can't offer any advice on that.

[DannyAzazel]

Sadly with all that work on it, I think the only thing you could do to make it go away is sunfade, and I'm sure you'd rather not. Either way she displays well so I wouldn't be too worried about it!

The others look really great too, I love seeing threads like this.

[balletpot]

Sadly with all that work on it, I think the only thing you could do to make it go away is sunfade, and I'm sure you'd rather not. Either way she displays well so I wouldn't be too worried about it!

The others look really great too, I love seeing threads like this.

I would actually like to sunfade her but I read that it's a bad idea on purple and blue ponies and she has a pinkish purple tone, however I remember someone transforming a dingy Windy by sunfading her. I could try doing the bottom of a hoof, unless someone yells no.

Thank you all for the kind words about the fixing up. I'd like to clean more of her ponies. She has a Starglow with some factory curls left. Would love to try to restore those. She also has a Glow that still has pink hair. Yep, she has some nice ponies. Although, I also started appreciating my childhood ponies a bit more. I'm about five years older than her and I have the common early ponies but I love them and none of hers had glittery symbols whereas for me, that's something I strongly link with MLPs.

[josiekat]

I think she turned out lovely. They all did. Personally, I'd leave moon jumper alone. She looks great. What a nice friend you are.....and what a nice friend you have!

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Congrats on new gorgeous ponies!

[DannyAzazel]

Sadly with all that work on it, I think the only thing you could do to make it go away is sunfade, and I'm sure you'd rather not. Either way she displays well so I wouldn't be too worried about it!

The others look really great too, I love seeing threads like this.

I would actually like to sunfade her but I read that it's a bad idea on purple and blue ponies and she has a pinkish purple tone, however I remember someone transforming a dingy Windy by sunfading her. I could try doing the bottom of a hoof, unless someone yells no.

Thank you all for the kind words about the fixing up. I'd like to clean more of her ponies. She has a Starglow with some factory curls left. Would love to try to restore those. She also has a Glow that still has pink hair. Yep, she has some nice ponies. Although, I also started appreciating my childhood ponies a bit more. I'm about five years older than her and I have the common early ponies but I love them and none of hers had glittery symbols whereas for me, that's something I strongly link with MLPs.

Ah yeah, I thought it was the darker ponies but you're probably right! I've never tried sunfading (I live in western Washington so it's pretty hard to do here) so I never remember all the details.

I'd love to see some more clean ups or restores.

[Lucky_Ladybug]

Beautiful work! I'm awed and impressed every time I see how well some of these poor little Ponies clean up.

And what a lovely Pony to get at the end of the day! I adore her coloring.

[blonde2themax]

Her hAir is gorgeous.

[scarletjul]

They look lovely!  Great job!  And how awesome that she gave you Moonjumper! 

[michelle53]

Ooooohhh balletpot, you do such a lovely job with pony hair:).  Your transformations look just heavenly, especially on little Moon Jumper!  I have no idea what's on her belly, but boy does she look so beautiful now.  Your High Flyer must be so excited to have a new sister.