Argh! Help Me Handle This, Please

She wouldn’t ever confess to the dark clothing. She thinks something is wrong with the vinyl. :persevere: I really, really feel it all adds up perfectly for it to be dye transfer that she tried to then clean off.

She’s going to send the baby to me to try and fix. She understood she had to pay for all of the shipping. I told her that I would give her a quote on the fix once I saw the extent.

I am not going to repaint this whole baby. If there’s anything that’s happened beyond what she’s shown me, I will have to tell her that she’s going to need to buy a new baby.

I am such a people-pleaser/backer downer that I hope I can stand my ground in all of this. I wanted to just tell her that I’m sorry the doll got messed up, but I’m not liable for something like this. (I give care instructions.)

She tells me she read online about dolls “turning black.” I was afraid she’d leave a review somewhere saying my babies turn color and it having a really negative impact. I’ve only just started selling online/to collectors.

I ramble, obviously! Lol! So this was a novel reply; but I’ll post back once the baby arrives. :wink:

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I totally understand about being afraid of bad reviews everywhere. None of us want that!

I recently took a doll apart to recycle that looked exactly like this. I’m thinking I threw away the parts since I have plenty of test parts around here and basically no time to paint, but if I didn’t for some reason I’ll post a pic… This doll had been given to my daughter, three at the time, to play with because it was one of my first when I was in the beginning stages of trying to figure out what I was doing. In this case, the dye transfer was from a very dark crib that she was using.

Your buyer probably read online something about overall “bruising” which sometimes did occur back when artists did those internal washes. But in this case, absolutely not. They are responsible 100%. They stained the doll, tried to clean it up, had an oh :poop: moment, then tried to dump this on you. Not fair at all.

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You are much too kind. I hope you give her a fair (to you) estimate for the amount of work you’ll have to put in. Don’t undervalue what your time and skill are worth.

The dolls turning darker thing stopped when artists stopped painting the insides of the kits for undertones to my understanding. She’s probably found some very old information.

I understand your fear that she’ll leave you a poor review. I sincerely hope she doesn’t do that. Best of luck restoring your work if you do decide to take it on.

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It’s definitely dye transfer, although possibly not from the doll’s clothes. My daughter’s first reborn got dye transferin exactly the samespots when my daughter held her wearing a navy blue shirt. The doll’s fingers, toes, and knee on one side got stained from touching my daughter’s shirt while she cradled it without a blanket. It came off easily with benzoyl peroxide acne cream.

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