Vintage Barbie

A while ago, I thrifted a vintage (70s) Barbie.  She has the lovely Steffie face mold.  I figured right away that the body her head was one, while it's a legit vintage Barbie body, wasn't her original one.  I have acquired a few of these dolls, and the body just didn't seem right.  It was heavier than the other dolls', and the skin tone was off (which could be discoloration from age, but still, it wasn't right).

She also had black stains on her face, on her forhead, nose and chin.  I thought this was the perfect time to try the benzoyl peroxide zit cream (I found some at Dollar Tree) in sunlight method.

Husband:  Why is there a doll head on the window sill?
Me:  I'm trying to get rid of black marks on her face.
H:  How?
M:  With peroxide cream and sunlight.
H:  How does the sunlight help?
M:  I don't know.  That's what the internet told me to do.

*A few hours later*

Husband:  So, as far as the sunlight goes, the UV from the sun doesn't actually help the peroxide to work, it's the heat apparently.  I have a heat lamp you can use, since there's not a lot of heat coming through that window.
Me:  Wow.  You've done a lot more research than I did.

Anyhoo...under the heat lamp she went!  It worked like a charm!

If only zit cream worked this well on humans.

She also didn't have much of her original hair, so next step was the reroot.  I used Golden Sun that I had in my stash from DollyHair.com.  It was during rerooting, I discovered cracks in the vinyl of her face, one at the back of her head, and a few fine ones at the bottom of her chin.  I glued them with plastic adhesive.

When I finished her hair and tried to put her back on the body she came on (the one I suspected to be wrong).  All the splits cracked open again.  I realized why.  The neck post was too large for her tiny neck hole, and the force of trying to get the head on caused the cracks.

Great.  Now she needed a new body.  I scoured through my donor body dolls (Made to Moves, older articulated Fashionistas, and Liv), but couldn't find the right skin tone match.  I finally found a match, but the doll wasn't in my donor pile.  It was a Raquel (I think?) Fashionista, but I wasn't ready to behead her.  She's just too pretty.

I went to Walmart in search of a body.  I finally found a budget Barbie doll (basic articulation) with the right skin tone, for around $10.  Success!

Left to right:  New body, Raquel Fashionista, old body

This doll was such a pleasure to unbox.  There were only about 3 plastic ties to clip, and NONE IN HER HEAD!!!  I hate those stupid plastic ties they put in the head.

Off came her head...NO PRONGS!!  Yay!!!  Just mounds of glue stuck to the post.  Ugh.

The neck post was still a bit wide for the head, so I got out my Dremel tool and ground it down.

I didn't want to re-glue the cracks in her face until I was done fitting her head on the neck, to lessen the chances of them splitting open again.

This crack was the only one I could really capture in a photo, it's also the biggest.

I just love her.  Her face paint doesn't even need to be touched up!

Thanks for stopping by!