Bleaching Vinyl

So we all know how scary it is to have your vinyl doll stained by its clothes, and wonder about how to remove those stains. 
Vinyl stains so easily from so many things, darker colors that is.

but for my next project what I really want to know is can you make a tan soft vinyl LIGHTER permanently?!

has it even been attempted? I’m definitely not prepared to start testing chemicals on vinyl, I’ve no clue how the materials react.

 

my project: I bought a tan(chocolate) skin 1/6 imomodoll and I want to color her tummy, chest, bum, and strap lines light to give her a swimsuit tan lines look!!!😍

ive considered buying another(light) body and swapping the torso but… what do I do with a tan torsod light limbed body…but also having the shoulder and neck colors not matching the head would be very bothering to me :,(

I can't remember where it is now, but someone on here shared a Japanese blog post from years ago, where someone had bleached their MDD head (with actual bleach). At first, the vinyl did lighten visibly, but after some length of time, it changed colour to become very yellow.

I haven't yet seen anyone lighten/bleach vinyl successfully, but I have seen people dye vinyl/resin a darker colour - usually this is done over the whole body, but some people have used hot glue to draw designs/lines before dunking into the dye bath to preserve the colour underneath, perhaps this technique could be used for tan lines? 

  On 11/4/2023 at 6:42 PM, plasticyears said:

I can't remember where it is now, but someone on here shared a Japanese blog post from years ago, where someone had bleached their MDD head (with actual bleach). At first, the vinyl did lighten visibly, but after some length of time, it changed colour to become very yellow.

It was Chinese iirc.

Maybe a year or two ago, I posted a link to a Japanese blog that used a commercially available (in Japan) bleach mixture to de-yellowify Saber Alter’s head, but it probably won’t lighten the vinyl; it only seems to return it to its original colour. Also, the verdict is still out on the long-term effects of this method.

To my understanding, the pigments that give the skin its color are suspended inside the vinyl substrate. So any bleaching agent would have to seep or chew through the vinyl first before it become effective. (Whereas stain pigments hang out in the pores, where they are comparatively accessible.)

So I'm not sure you can do a reliable bleaching without potentially damaging the part itself.

 

I wonder if you could lighten the skin enough with light colored pastels?

Both my Saber Alter and Santa Alter now have newer SW bodies, but I haven't actually taken them out in the sunlight for pictures. If I see a definite difference between their heads and bodies, I'll consider commissioning someone to blush their heads to match the bodies. otherwise, I'm not going to worry too much about it. 

I don't have a tan skin Kiddo, so far, but using bleach on vinyl just gives me a "No!! Don't do it!!" kind of feeling...