Originally Posted by littlebitoheaven

This past spring my sister, who is 89, gave me 4 1950s dolls that her girls had. She only has grandsons. She asked me to give them to my granddaughters. I have decided to try and restore them and give them to my 2 youngest granddaughters (13 and 14-years old) and 2 to my great granddaughters (11 and 3-years old). All dolls will be kept for "looking at" and not "playing with" as they are very fragile. The eyes still work and their faces are still beautiful but the hair is quite fragile.

I checked on line and started my NEW journey. The first doll that I picked to start with is a "Revlon Doll". She has an older body and face. Also, her hair is attached directly to the head. The 2 larger dolls, which my sister calls "Chatty Cathies" are 18" baby dolls with hair attached to a mesh fabric, which disintegrates upon sewing.

The blonde doll's hair was in better shape, except that there is a bald spot on one side. The other 18" doll's hair would just "pull off" so I sewed the pieces to a mesh fabric and glued the hair pieces back on. So far so good.

The last doll is a Horsman doll. She is 15" high and is also a baby doll. Her hair was a bit easier to manage. The advice that I used from on line was to pick the hair with a "dog comb". I do not have dogs or a dog comb so (of course) I used a large needle. Strand by strand. They also said to spray the hair with Skin So Soft, which I happened to have for mosquito repellent. The oil is natural and brought the hair back to a beautiful shine. They said to roll on perm rods and use hot blow dryer to set synthetic hair. The small doll is not finished yet!

Once I had the hair under control, I decided to make new clothes.

Here are some before and after photos. 1 is before, middle ones progress and last ones after.
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