Smooze vs In-ground Dirt I am so confused

[tulagirl]

Recently I bought a pony that was described to have smooze.

 I looked carefully at the pictures, but I didn't see any smooze. I get the pony and I still don't see any smooze.  Now my eyes are not good, I will admit that.  I could feel and see tiny surface crevices on the vinyl of the legs and I have encountered this before.  I always assumed it to be dust particles on the mold at the time of pouring. 

Wouldn't it seem that what tiny little speck I may see here an there on the legs is most likely in-ground dirt inside these little crevices on the vinyl due to a dirty mold?  Or are the crevices (tiny little dents in the vinyl) created by smooze?  The pony doesn't smell, she is bright and white and I just don't get it.

There is no point in taking a photo because there is nothing to photograph and even with a magnifyer all I see is those tiny craters some may be a little dirty but it doesn't show up in a picture.  Is it possible that the seller just doesn't know what smooze is? Or do I not know?

I am still concerned though because, I don't want it to spread to my other ponies if there is something there I didn't see.  I had a Firefly with this same issue and an oxy bath in boiling water with a magic eraser got rid of all the black dots and I could see and feel the same crevices and felt all along she had in-ground dirt.  Am I just totally wrong?

[himmie]

Isn't smooze just another term for in-ground dirt?

[tulagirl]

See that is what I was wondering LOL. I thought maybe smooze was a form of mold, I mean why give in ground dirt such a horrible sounding name if all it is ... is dirty?

[Eldarwen]

They're basically the same thing. 

There's so many different names for it. Inground dirt, pepper dirt, pin dot dirt, pin dot mold, smooze. But they're all the same thing:

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Some names are really confusing, because it isnt mold. Its simply dirt in the pores.

[tulagirl]

Oh boy now that is what I would expect to see with a smooze diagnosis. My pony doesn't have anything like that.  The thing is though dirt is not contagious to other ponies and mold is.  So, is it really a good idea to call both pin dot and dirt smooze?

Post Merge: May 17, 2013, 04:28:41 PM

Oh and thanks the term pores, I couldn't think of how to describe what I was seeing but that is a perfect word.  Its like a pony has blackheads lol.

[Eldarwen]

Yeah, that Snuzzle had a REALLY bad case of in-ground dirt.  But even if your pony has just a few dots of that, its still the same thing.

The reason there are so many different names is that we used to think that this was caused by mold. It was later proven to be just dirt, but the names are still there. The good thing is, this is easy to fix and wont spread to other ponies. 

Here's actually a really interesting thread about it: http://mlparena.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=259561.html

[tulagirl]

Yea!! Thanks Eldarwen!  I really appreciate the information.

Post Merge: May 17, 2013, 04:38:32 PM

Oh wow that was a wonderful thread. Thank you.  That explained away my total confusion.  I wish we could get that onto this forum. I bet I am not the only one that wonders about these things.

[reanna-mator]

I've got a Snuzzle that looks just like that. Poor girl. The dirt is really in there, too.

[hathorcat]

Black Curtains experiment is a perfect way to explain

As Eldarwen says its confusing because some people do call it pin dot mould but it is essentially in grained dirt - over the years it has just been given a name which does not accurately describe what it actually is.

I would guess from your description that either perhaps your seller did not know what smooze is...or more likely they were being very precautionary in their description and even the small pock marks with the small amount of dust inside them was enough for the seller to list the pony as having a problem. 

[Dludnerad]

I always thought smooze referred to thick and icky stuff like old nailpolish or other goop like chewing gum that was stuck to the pony and difficult to remove.