Bad Hair Doll.

Remember Mary Alice, the bald doll? The other day, I found her polar opposite. Same place: the thrift store shelf in a tangle of baby dolls, but this doll had hair.

She had... PLENTY... of hair.

I do love a challenge, so I paid the 99 cents to bail her out.

Girl's been living rough. There were sticks and pine needles in that mess. And some narrow, tight braids in random places. And some green streaks that I hoped weren't permanent. Look at those mats. Girl, what have you been up to? I hope you had fun. 

A quick shampoo and condition later, I squeezed the excess water from her hair with a towel and grabbed my Braid Spray, a trick I learned from Neth at American Girl Outsider. (Link Warning: Neth speaks her truth with NSFW cussin'.)  A few spritzes and some brushing later, and I had this:

It's a little blurry, but much better, I assure you.  The green even washed out.

Now, Madame Alexander makes some fine dolls, and has been doing so for decades, but I have to say that I'm not impressed with the hair they put on their 18" line. Like Sangeeta in an earlier post, this doll had a tag saying not to wet the doll's hair. Remember how the company representative I contacted said getting the hair wet would ruin it? Well, obviously that's a bunch of nonsense, and as I searched all over the internet to clarify the meaning of that label and found nothing, I will share my findings/opinion here in the hopes of helping others:

What they mean is that the Madame Alexander dolls have hair that comes styled. There is a starchy product in the hair to help it stay neat. The hair is rooted in the scalp to make the style's hairlines and parts look natural. If you want a different style-- like two ponytails-- bare patches and rooting plugs are going to show. If you wash the hair, the starchy product will be gone, so the hair will be more fluffy and prone to messiness. The hair is washable. But it is cottony and tangles easily, so keep that in mind. Washing won't ruin the hair, but it will ruin the pre-set hairstyle, and your styling options might be a little limited after that.

Why on earth they would make a doll with hair like this for children, who have "brush and style hair" in the top five favorite things to do with dolls, is beyond me.

Good thing she's got a pretty face to get by on.