How to remove yellow spot on my Mariko head

Hello all! I'm trying to come back to the DD hobby, so I rescued my Mariko Sensei from the closet, but I found she has an awful yello shadow near her mouth (same near her right ear). I know how delicate is her white skin, so I was keeping her head with a plastic face mask, then wrapped with a white plastic pad, and finally inside a Volks DD head plastic box, so I don't think this is a case of color transfer. I'm so pissed because she's my favourite doll and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to ruin her faceup if I apply any product on the area. Any ideas? Thank you in advance

 

 

 

If his is age yellowing, then it may not be treatable. You could try stain treatment on the spot near her ear and see if it works. If it doesn’t, then as far as I know your only option is to have her head repainted, starting with a base coat that matches her skin tone. 

If the stain treatment works, then you can use it on her mouth, but it’s going to remove the paint of her lips. If her head was never sealed, you might be able to get away with just having her mouth repainted. 

Yeah if this is the white skin ver. it's probably aging and can not be treated.

Thank you for your comments. I will try to treat the ear area first, but I'm super disappointed to hear about this aging problems, they are so expensive... I'm super frustrated, Mariko is my favorite DD so far =_=

Nature of the beast when it comes to plastics, I'm afraid. There's a channel called OddTinkering on Youtube where the host uses uv light  + a hydrogen peroxide bath to get rid of decades worth of severe yellowing by letting the items sit in the bath with the uv lights on overnight, although I am not sure on how that treatment would work on vinyl.

I successfully removed a yellow spot from the back of a DD headcap. I'm not sure where the yellowing came from, as I received the head that way. It could have been age, but it could have been staining from a wig cap. I was able to remove it completely with remove-zit, but be careful with that approach. Remove-zit is extremely potent and will take the faceup (and sealant) right off. But there is no guarantee this will work as I'm not certain what caused the yellow spot to begin with. You can find it here.

Yellowing is a problem of vinyl and resin dolls unfortunately. They do not last forever. That was a very hard pill for me to swallow as a beginner. That's not to say they're disposable either. With caution, the dolls can last for a long time. With even more caution, they can last for even longer. Kept in a cool dark place, out of sun and such. But then enjoyment is lost. Each owner has to find the right balance of preserving the dolls and enjoying them that works best for their situation.

I hope you can restore Mariko and wish you the best of luck.

2 hours ago, Satsuki_Yatohji said:

Thank you for your comments. I will try to treat the ear area first, but I'm super disappointed to hear about this aging problems, they are so expensive... I'm super frustrated, Mariko is my favorite DD so far =_=

If it turns out that you can’t remove the yellowing, then try talking to a face up artist and see what can be done. 

If painting the entire head is an option, and you no longer have the original white skin body, then I would suggest having it painted to match semi-white skin as opposed to the original white. You can get an SWS body new, but white skin is no longer being made.

Sadly, yellowing is something we’re all going to have to cope with in time.

Awhile back @baldylox had some of his yellowed dolls redone, so he may have a better idea of what options are out there. 

2 hours ago, Selenae said:

Nature of the beast when it comes to plastics, I'm afraid. There's a channel called OddTinkering on Youtube where the host uses uv light  + a hydrogen peroxide bath to get rid of decades worth of severe yellowing by letting the items sit in the bath with the uv lights on overnight, although I am not sure on how that treatment would work on vinyl.

RetroBrighting does work on vinyl!  The main issue here however is there's no telling what it would do to a factory faceup.  I would assume that it would fade the faceup, but, you can technically RetroBright via a spot-treatment method, using a cream solution instead of a 12% hydrogen peroxide soak.  You can cover the original faceup parts with painters tape to block the UV light from fading it, while still being able to fade the yellow spots.  This technique is used in restoring Breyer model horses, to protect the pink inside their ears and on noses, which fades very easily otherwise, and is very effective.

One other concern I would have in this case is that you could apply spot-treatment, only to find that it lightens the discoloured spot past the rest of the vinyl's current colour; aka you could start out with a yellow spot, but end up with a bright white spot instead.  I still think it could be done effectively in this situation, though, especially if you removed and reapplied a cream solution daily, checking in between applications to see how much the vinyl has lightened.  This would give you the best chance of lightening the spot to the correct colour to match the rest of the face, instead of having to RetroBright the entire face colour to match the new bright white spot, if that makes sense.

I'd love to get my hands on some old yellowed DD parts just to experiment on them sometime, honestly...

Anyway, you can find more about RetroBrighting vinyl (and eyes!) in this thread:

 

Thank you so much all for the good tips and ideas. I'm trying with benzoile peroxide low concentration by the moment, but will look into Retrobright or similar formulas as those look more suitable for my issue. Will post here the outcome!