The Puzzling Thing With Puzzlemint

[StormMaeker]

Yesterday I found Puzzlemint behind the counter of a charity shop and so, like anyone might, I got her. She was in a worse state than I thought from what I could see of her. I didn’t expect her butt to be full of dots and have some weird hardened-but-sticky sting in her hair. Anyway, I cleaned her up.
Here is before and after:

Now here is the puzzling part. I cleaned her up as I normally do and the dots weren’t going away. I also used magic erasers and acetone but they won’t budge. They look as if they were printed on her now and won’t go away.

Any ideas on how I can remove it? Also, she has what looks like a highlighter mark on her foot and what looks like a bruise on her neck that also won’t go away

 

[IceCrystal]

Hmm, I haven't seen marks like the ones she has on her bum, but they look like they have leaked into the plastic somehow. I've had great success sunfading highlighter marks on G1s, they usually vanish after a couple of days, but I'm not sure if white G3s are safe to sunfade. A friend of mine tried to sunfade a darker area around Port-o-Bella's neck and her head got a slight sunburn, so I would be careful with sunfading. Perhaps someone has other experiences or tried to sunfade a white G3 in a hydrogen peroxide bath, so not in direct sunlight?

 

[Tak]

I think it looks like pen on her bum, maybe marker on her leg. Her neck should sun fade well otherwise I would ask @Skybreeze

 

[evilbunnyfoofoo]

Looks like she has a naughty bootie disease. Perhaps she needs penicillin.

 

[NovelNerd]

Someone was mad at her I guess. Poor pony

 

[AzaleaArt]

She still looks pretty though
I’ve heard that leaving some hand sanitizer on it for a day or two can remove/lighten highlighter stains, but that was for fabric surfaces so idk if it works on plastic

 

[Tak]

Have you tried dish detergent and a fingernail scrub brush on her bum? My daughter agrees that it looks like someone just poked the poor dear repeatedly with a pen.

 

[evilbunnyfoofoo]

I've recently found Dawn Powerwash spray will clean some pretty stubborn stains off ponies with no ill effects. Might give it a try, it's realitivly cheap at about $5 a bottle. Plus it's good to have in the kitchen!

Have you tried dish detergent and a fingernail scrub brush on her bum? My daughter agrees that it looks like someone just poked the poor dear repeatedly with a pen.

someone used poor Puzzlemint as a Voodoo doll! Pokety poke!

 

[Tak]

I've recently found Dawn Powerwash spray will clean some pretty stubborn stains off ponies with no ill effects. Might give it a try, it's realitivly cheap at about $5 a bottle. Plus it's good to have in the kitchen!


someone used poor Puzzlemint as a Voodoo doll! Pokety poke!

E only agreed because she was 2 and bored and thought her dolly needed freckles like her.

 

[StormMaeker]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone, I’ll try to see what I can do with the dish soap.
Never seen any Dawn around here but I could try and find an equivalent!

When cleaning her tail, there was a few tiny hard black dots in it which could just be pulled out when washing so I’m wondering if whatever it was stained her body. What was in her hair, I thought it was gum but it looked more like weird hard sticky string? I don’t know what kids are using for crafts these days but if I found out, I could see if its something that stains

If I can’t get rid of the stains I’m just going to keep telling myself she just had a freckly butt

EDIT:
Found out that an equivalent of Dawn is Fairy and we always have that. I thought so but I’ll be trying that!

 

[StormMaeker]

So. I tried Fairy. It didn’t work. Tried some hand wash too, didn’t work. Tried acetone again, didn’t work. I even went and tried enamel thinner that’s supposed to help clean paint off surfaces and brushes and that didn’t work and even vodka (it helped clean a Santa at Christmas so…) and that has no effect either. I then tried some detergent but nope… so, I’m gonna try sun fading. If at least the pink mark can fade too then that’ll be fine.

Hey, at least it all looks a bit cleaner, right? …right?

EDIT:
I decided that before I try to sun fade her, I’ll wash everything out that may have gotten into her hair and tail so she’s still very soft afterwards. When I wrapped her up, I realised that it’s covering a lot of her that shouldn’t be when she’s sun fading including all the spots so I’ll do it when she’s dry. The British weather is very unpredictable and I swear it said we’re going to have rain soon so it probably won’t be today or tomorrow. This is her currently:


She looks so clean…
The dots are pretty stubborn and I’m sure they’re in the plastic now. I have doubts this’ll do anything for them but hey, it’s a new experience. I’ve never tried sun fading before. A time to learn

 

[StormMaeker]

So I went to try sunfading but whenever I went to do it, it’ll either cloud over or begin raining.
I’ve gotten used to her having marks and I’ve pretty much accepted them now so I don’t think I’ll go ahead with it anymore.

If I find any other techniques to get rid of the dots, I might try them out.
Right now I accept them as just a part of her and shows where she came from

 

[SoSoftClaire]

So I went to try sunfading but whenever I went to do it, it’ll either cloud over or begin raining.
I’ve gotten used to her having marks and I’ve pretty much accepted them now so I don’t think I’ll go ahead with it anymore.

If I find any other techniques to get rid of the dots, I might try them out.
Right now I accept them as just a part of her and shows where she came from

Good find on her, by the way. I always loved her, and she's pretty HTF as she only came with that plug-and-play game. I got her when she came out because I just love her, and she's really cute in the movie... I think she's in one of the G3 cartoons/specials.. can't remember which.

Anyway, don't know if you want to try it, but you could get some Createx Opaque airbrush acrylic paint and try to paint over the marks using a makeup sponge. I've heard that works pretty well. But honestly, the marks aren't too bad, and the good thing is that most of them will sort of be hidden with her tail. Especially if you curl her tail all big, that'll cover those back marks up.

Good job working on her!

 

[Skybreeze]

So I went to try sunfading but whenever I went to do it, it’ll either cloud over or begin raining.
I’ve gotten used to her having marks and I’ve pretty much accepted them now so I don’t think I’ll go ahead with it anymore.

If I find any other techniques to get rid of the dots, I might try them out.
Right now I accept them as just a part of her and shows where she came from

So I’m confused by your photos, did you just put her outside to sunfade with out any hydrogen peroxide cream on her? Or is there cream there?

This is a Baby Ember I’m currently working on for someone. What the cream looks like after a few hours out in the sun. I always put it on thick and add fresh layers through the day.

 

[StormMaeker]

So I’m confused by your photos, did you just put her outside to sunfade with out any hydrogen peroxide cream on her? Or is there cream there?

This is a Baby Ember I’m currently working on for someone. What the cream looks like after a few hours out in the sun. I always put it on thick and add fresh layers through the day.
View attachment 42635View attachment 42636

I don’t think I used any cream because I thought it was something that burned the ponies? And I wasn’t sure what’ll happened

I don’t think I’ll try sunfading Puzzlemint again since I’m pretty used to how she is now but I’ll keep these in mind if I do try again. Thanks for photos anyway!

 

[Skybreeze]

I don’t think I used any cream because I thought it was something that burned the ponies? And I wasn’t sure what’ll happened

I don’t think I’ll try sunfading Puzzlemint again since I’m pretty used to how she is now but I’ll keep these in mind if I do try again. Thanks for photos anyway!

Yeah, putting a pony in the sun without anything on it or not in an H2O2 bath will burn the pony/make the stains set more.

When I do white ponies I just keep an eye on them. Which is important when sunfading any pony, but more so on white ones. It takes a long time though and if you’ve not got a lot of sun it can take much longer. This is why a lot of people have started making UV boxes to “sunfade” ponies now too.

 

[StormMaeker]

Yeah, putting a pony in the sun without anything on it or not in an H2O2 bath will burn the pony/make the stains set more.

When I do white ponies I just keep an eye on them. Which is important when sunfading any pony, but more so on white ones. It takes a long time though and if you’ve not got a lot of sun it can take much longer. This is why a lot of people have started making UV boxes to “sunfade” ponies now too.

I can see how I got mixed up with cream or no cream now. Good thing the sun wasn’t out for too long the day I tried with Puzzlemint because I could’ve accidentally burnt her
I saw a video a while ago on how to make a UV chamber on YouTube with UV LEDs, tin foil and a box. It seems very easy