I just saw that I blogged nothing for about a month. The last month was a very busy one for me. I had less time to work on my projects after work due to winter weather. We got a lot of snow that caused traffic problems. I wasn’t able to use my bike for some weeks. Let’s cross our fingers that the winter will be over soon.
Coming home later caused some time problems. I was not able to blog so much as I did before. I somehow felt tired after work and my projects from January were time-consuming. For example I did a re-root and 3 days after working for approx. a hour daily on it, we got snow. We got a lot of snow. Approx. 50 cm in 26 hours. It was snowing all day long. Nice to look at but bad for the traffic.
So my project lasted longer than I wanted it to last since I did work on several videos when I did my re-root. Last year in September I found a Barbie head worth to re-root. I prefer the Vintage Barbie dolls at the moment. It’s less work because you just have to root the outer circle and it’s not full re-root. I think a full one would have lasted even longer. I already did a Ponytail Swirl Barbie in 2019 in a flamboyant red tone. This time I wanted to do a blond version. Somehow she reminded me a little bit of Marilyn Monroe while I did this. I even found a photo with a similar style. That’s how she reminded me of Marilyn.
The styling always needs a lot of time because the hair in not cooperative. After all I had 4,5 hours of film. I filmed the whole re-reroot of this Barbie but I knew I had to cut it down. Starting with 4,5 hours I managed it to come down to 1,5 hours without problems but even the 1,5 hours were way too long. I didn’t want to make a documentary. I wanted to show my viewers the makeover, the transformation. After cutting for one week I finally came to about 40 minutes. This was way more acceptable than the 1,5 hours. At the end I came down to approx. 35 minutes. Way better than before. If you want to see it, have a look below. I linked the video.
You haven’t heard anything in the last weeks from me but here I am. Many things came together in the last weeks that kept me from blogging. Often I was only home for two hours a day and for sleeping at night. Not enough time to blog anything…
So I thought hey, why not wait until the time-consuming phase is over and then blog again? That’s now. Well, we had a lot of work in the last weeks due to the marriage of a befriended couple that we know from the dancing staff. It was their wish to let us participate with some dance interludes. This was of course partly unknown to the couple. They only wanted us to participate in only one but we had planned even more which they were not aware of. As you can imagine leaving home after work just for dance training two or three times a week is time-consuming. The schedule for every day of the week was planned, when to leave, when to practise and so on. We did everything outside and this here permitted again since several weeks.
Help! DaVinci Resolve ….
After the marriage I found out that my main PC was not crashing anymore after choosing Windows 10. For more than 1 year the problem occured that the system forgot its graphic drivers with every new start. This gave me the opportunity to improve my skills in video cutting since I got DaVinci Resolve last year but have not been able to test it ever since. Within a week I had watched a course with the most important features and used it almost immediately. After doing so from Monday – Friday I was away on Saturdays so that only the Sunday was left for filming activities and cutting which was in fact not very much. At least I wanted to have a little rest from my weekly work.
That’s why I’m a little bit late in these weeks to blog anything new. My parcel with some donated dolls came. I have a few new Barbie dolls, really Vintage from the early years. I’ve been searching for some for a while now. On the literally hottest Friday evening of this year I find the time to finish this post.
Greetings and yeah, the crazy Barbiecollector is back with a new topic for you. Let’s talk about the hair today. Yeah, that’s what I want to talk about. I guess you never thought about the fibres on the head of a Barbie doll. I asssure you that you’re not the only one. There are different fibres that were used for different dolls in different decades. I give you a pic for every fibre as an example.
Saran hair
I can’t prove it because I’m no chemist but I think the first form of hair for Barbie dolls was Saran hair. Saran hair is soft and silky. In general it’s available in natural colors like different shades of blonde, brown, red and black. I can tell you from my experience in rerooting that it’s a material easy to work with. I heard collectors talking about that Vintage Barbie dolls – the very first ones – have a kind of mohair but nobody was able to proof it. So there a two fronts among the collectors – the ones who believe it and – the ones who don’t it.
I belong to the front who don’t believe it. Why? Saran hair is/was mainly produced in Japan. Guess what? Early Barbie dolls were produced until 1970 in Japan too. Mohair is more expensive. I can imagine from what I know of the Mattel history that production centralisation is/was an important factor. In times before stock reduction and in-time production I’m convinced that they used what they had in their production area or maybe in their own country due to short delivery ways, time and costs.
Importing goods is always time-consuming and expensive when you consider the import-fees and taxes. Wouldn’t it be cheaper produce with the products you have in your own country?
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Let's welcome my latest #modbarbie. She's a Platinum Twist n Turn Barbie who recently found her way into my collection. I hope you like her as much as I do. #barbietnt #tntbarbie #vintagebarbie #barbievintage #dollstagram #barbiemod #barbie1967 #barbieblond #superstarbarbie #barbiesuperstar #busybfromgermany #barbiedoctor #barbiedoctora??
Ein Beitrag geteilt von Busy B from Germany (@busybfromgermany) am
Nylon hair
The material Nylon itself was discovered in the 1930s and mainly used for stockings for ladies at first. I found out that the first Nylon wigs were available in the 1960s. I found an ad on youtube. Since I only found chemical formulas I would estimate that Nylon hair was in the 1960s probably too expensive to use it for Barbie dolls. Do I have to mention that Nylon hair is very shiny and comes in thousand different colors? When you need a wig for carnival Nylon is your material. I assume from what I’ve seen so far that Nylon hair was used first for Barbie in the 1980s. The first dolls I know with this kind of hair are Barbie & the Rockers. Nylon hair was not used as widely as Saran hair was for Barbie dolls. I think it appears several times on special occasions but it was no standard.
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De vuelta a la vida ? #barbieandtherockers #barbierockers #80sbarbie #1986 #barbiefashions #barbiestyle #barbielife #ilovebarbie #barbiegram #instabarbie #barbiephotography #rockers #barbierocks #barbiespain #bringbacktolife #barbielover #barbiefan #barbieholic #matteldoll #barbie
Ein Beitrag geteilt von Gabriel Gómez. (@bdollsgabs) am
Kanekalon hair
By the mid 80s a new form of hair was avaiable for Barbie. At first only a few dolls hat Kanekalon hair. I saw a Dream Glow Barbie with it and a Doctor Barbie. Maybe these dolls were something like a test if a child would accept it or not? I don’t know it. Anyway, Kanekalon hair is one of the big topics of the 1990s. Suddenly all Barbie dolls came with Kanekalon hair. There are a few exceptions like Hollywood Hair Barbie and Strollin’ Fun Barbie and Kelly/Shelly but 98% of the production of the 1990s had Kanekalon hair. As far as I was able to find out… Kanekalon is a cheap kind of hair, easy to produce and easy to work with although it tends to tangles. Probably cheaper in the dozen.
That’s why you often see Barbie dolls with bad hair cuts from the 1990s. You find the explaination why these dolls have hair cuts in the fibre itself.
Ein Beitrag geteilt von 90s Barbie (@90s.barbie.world) am
Conclusion
These three types of hair were used in the last 60 years. I don’t think that there’s much going on the market. From what I’ve seen in the last decade Mattel started to use Saran hair again. The amount of hair is smaller than it was 20 years ago but Saran hair is still used as Barbie hair while Kanekalon hair and Nylon hair are almost gone.
