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In working with ponies I have learned how to deal with them so that a pony that looks to be rather worthless, can become a beautiful asset to any collection. Here are some cleaning suggestions:
I don't know about you, but ponies frequently enter my home with all kinds of strange problems. Some of these are marks, some is mildew, some things manage to fall into the category of 'other' whatever that is! ;) But this is the tried-and-true method I have developed for cleaning them the best, with some input by others.
1. Give her a bath: believe it or not this takes care of not only surface dirt, but some marks too. I have found that Soft Scrub with bleach and a toothbrush work best, being somewhat abrasive for the dirt, but not too hard. Sometimes if you want a pony to really come clean, you must put some elbow grease into it, which can be annoying but, in the end, worth it. If a pony has mildew inside (visible from hair plugs and tail, or see through) her head must be taken off and then all of her scrubbed inside. Excellent directions for this can be found here.
2. Work on individual marks: Now it is time to attend to all the spots that didn't come off in the tub. To do this, use a Q-tip and soak it with nailpolish remover. Yes, that is what I said, Acetone based nail polish remover. It removes many marker marks as well as crayon and sticky gook like the stuff off of name tags. EXTREME WARNING HOWEVER!!!!! Because of the nature of acetone, it will not only remove these marks, but will remove the paint in a symbol and on the eyes! BE VERY CAREFUL! When you are doing this, be mindful not to use the same Q-tip for too long. Soon, the nail polish remover will have all been used, and all that will be left is a black or whatever color residue. This can then get smudged back on to your pony when trying to remove another spot. The residue left on is usually harder to get off than an original mark because you have been grinding it into the pores. It will come off, but with a lot more work.
* SoSofts: Most marks on SoSoft ponies come out easily, as they don't reach the vinyl, with just a bit of Soft Scrub and some work, but you CANNOT use nail polish remover on them. This takes their flocking right off. Don't worry about being too hard when scrubbing regular though; it seems they can take that just fine.
**The Smooze, Pen Marks And Stains: The smooze is a blight that attacks mostly the older ponies. The Smooze is little black spots embedded within their vinyl and looks like blackheads. As with pen marks (as in ball point) and stains, I do not know how to remove it. If anyone else out there knows how, please tell me, I love to see ponies in their best condition.
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(Sorry about the initial poor picture quality) The pony on the left obviously is the one before she got her hair done ;) As you can see some of the hair is in good curls, but most of it has just frizzed and tangled out, I hadn't even brushed it yet. In the case of this pony I found it impossible to brush her hair so I washed it and conditioned it first, then I managed to brush it out. I then studied the way the way the hair naturally curled when I brushed it and put it into the foam rollers the same way that it wanted to go, thus maintaining the original curl :) I did the same for the tail and when I carefully undid the rollers this is the beauty I had :) Thus you have an example of my techniques at work. :) |
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For the Hair:
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1. Brush out the pony's hair. Now I know this sounds reasonable, and it is, but there is a twist. If you are working on a pony who has pretty good hair, relatively few snarls or lint stuck in it, then use a comb. It is a good separator and should always be used on hair before you wash it. However, if you are working on a pony whose hair is an absolute disaster zone, a rats nest like none other, then use a brush. Not a pony brush, a people brush. These are better at detangling without damaging the hair or the brush, seeing as you would not wish to break any teeth off of an official pony brush. When brushing, the teeth will bend till the tangle is too much and then let go. This prevents you from pulling out pony hair or teeth from your brush. I say teeth, becuase I mean the type of brush not with bristles, but with the singular prongs. Mine is a Conair and it does a quite nice job on both my hair and my pony's. If dry brushing seems to be a futile effort, as the hair is just too snarled, then try the following approach. In extreme cases it works well to take the pony's hair and wet it, even though it is still tangled. Use a fairly generous amount of conditioner and apply it to the tangle in question. Massage as you would your hair, and rinse leaving some of it in. Then take your brush and work the snarls out. The conditioner allows the tangles to slip out easier, thus not damaging your pony's hair. This has worked wonders for me on several occasions. However, do not use spray in conditioner. I have discovered that this leaves a pony's hair brittle and not silky and it does not work very well to get the tangles out, since it does not leave the hair very slippery.
2. Wash her hair: This includes the super-snarled ponies, since all that was done was conditioning to get the tangles out. Wash and rinse as you would your own hair, but rinse well since the soap likes to get stuck in the base of a pony's tail. Then take the conditioner and work that in and then rinse. Some of the conditioner will remain, that being its nature, for it has fused to the hair, decreasing frizz and increasing silkieness (a goal we all have). Usually, I use Pantene Pro-V Hydrating Curls for my curly haired ponies, but this winter I tried out Suave w/ Balsam Protein because it was about 5 times cheaper and it did a super job too :) It's a guess-test process. Everything else I have tried so far, however, just weighs down curls and makes them fall right back out. Anyway . . . Let her air dry (I put mine in front of a fan to speed it up), making sure that you comb the hair in the manner you want it to appear when she is dry. Where it is during the drying process will determine where it likes to fall once it is dry. This even applies to ponies with pretty crazy hair. However, curls fall under a different category and are very special.
3. Curls: This is the last step and perhaps the hardest. If you have a pony who is supposed to have straight hair you are already done, but if you have a pony with curly hair you still have to take care of that. I have found that the best way to acheive the purfect curls that every culy-haired pony deserves is through foam rollers. Yes, the way to the perfect curl is a foam roller. Be sure to study the bedraggled and tattered original curls of a pony before washing her though so that you will know how to properly divide them and which way to curl them, forward or backward. If you currently have no experience with curling, practice on a low grade pony several times so that you won't mess up a good pony. If done correctly this can actually retain the original curl, simply holding it in it's original position to dry so that it will dry the way it is supposed to be. Wrap the hair tightly on the roller, and evenly spiral up the roller, and the curl will attend to itself. On ponies, such as Sugar Sweet, a different method should be used. On the candy cane ponies you are trying to get the alternating colors. Pick out the two colors that seem to go together in the original curls and roll them on the same roller. When you are rolling you want the colors to overlap so that, in Sugar Sweet's case, the aqua will overlap the white all the way to the end of the roller. This will then look like a completely aqua roller, but try not to overlap the aqua also when doing this. When it is dry, a process usually taking 24 hours (unless you use the fan and then it takes about 6), unwrap the hair from close to the neck on down. Instead of rolling down the roller or simply pulling it out, twist it out of the hair in the opposite direction the hair is curling. This a hard process to explain in words, but it is the best I can do. This gives the best curl results, as the curls do not get roughed up this way. For the mane, small rollers should be used, and for the tail use medium rollers. After they have dried, I like to go back after taking the rollers out and smoothing them by rolling them on my finger and gently pulling the finger out. It gives smooth fat curls that are gorgeous :)