I bought my Realborn Harlow second expecting factory paint and some minor flaws. She had both, which I was fine with. I cleaned her up the best I could, and put her first layer on, and then in the oven.
There is a small split behind the ear (which you have to press to see. I wouldn’t have minded this)
A pretty good sized split between the eyes. I could’ve even fixed this.
The back of the neck above the flange completely collapsed in the oven and upon closer inspection, is completely split open. Even if I wanted to attempt to repair it, I’d never in good faith be able to sell this doll.
I baked her at 265 for eight minutes. Dolls before and after her have been perfectly fine.
Unfortunately this is going to be my last purchase from bountiful for a very long while. I appreciate the forum here and the uniqueness of realborns, but they aren’t cheaper than sculpted kits now and this kit was completely unusable.
Maybe I did something wrong, but all my other kits with the same treatment are fine. I just didn’t think a second would be this bad
That’s bad !
Bountiful will collapse if they do nothing about the vinyl quality. Why buy at this price (plus 40$ shipping for me) if we can’t know if the quality will be good or not ? It’s a guessing game at this point, even with 1st quality kits. I can deal with minor defects but this is becoming ridiculous.
I totally agree with you, they must do something or they are going to loose all their customer’s. There are to many unrelated things going wrong with these kits. I believe I read from CYN today that she also had splits, and sadly she was questioning whether she was doing something wrong. I believe she is working on her second and third. I saw her first doll and it was excellent for doll number one. Folks put their hearts into reborning, this is costing them money and tons of extra work and then they’re concerned about selling them!
Thank you so much hun, Fortunately mis kits do not splits, but they have a lot of problems like too much shine on the limbs (I also bake them at the right temperature) I am scared to melt my kits to this point, yellow spots and blackheads everywhere, even in kits that I buy long before Covid and all my kits are top quality, it is painful to spend so much money and that this kind of thing happens, especially that the kits are split is unacceptable, and it is true the kits now are not cheap and the quality is very bad, I think we are not the only ones with so many problems with BB kits ( I’m from Latin America, so buying the kits for me is three times as expensive) I think they should do something to fix the situation.
Note I am a begginer and I definitely thought I did something wrong.
I haven’t yet. I got the kit on sale and honestly I don’t know if I want to go through the process of trying to get a refund. I’m stressed enough over it as is. I’d rather take it as a loss and move on.
I’m also still torn over if I did something wrong. I know none of my other kits have problems, but I always want to make sure I haven’t done anything wrong first
The thing is that we can’t know for sure if it will be the new vinyl or not. In the last year I bought kits that are soft, hard, regular flanges, thin flanges, dark/greyish, pale… I don’t want to make a research on each and every kit to see if it’s a good one or not.
Omg @bountifulbaby should be made aware that this is happening. The newer vinyl doesn’t seem to be the same quality at all. It doesn’t take the heat the same or paint the same now this… this is really bad
If I was in charge of which factory I would stop using them. But… that would mean waiting a long time for new kits and shipments due to the other factory still being “slow”
Did some of the factories close? Can they just not get supplies? The poor quality seems to be getting worse. I’m concerned that BB will lose too much business to remain open because of it if they can’t find a reputable company to make the kits. Are these problems happening with kits from other distributors? I wonder where they’re getting their kits made.
( I’m from Latin America, so buying the kits for me is three times as expensive) I think they should do something to fix the situation.