Resin or vinyl?

Should you go for one in preference to the other? There are pros and cons for both materials. The Bold Doll puts on a lab coat and lights the bunsen burner …

Fashion is fickle, and it’s a foolhardy collector that chooses their fashion dolls for investment value. As with any sort of collecting, love the object first, and if you happen to strike it lucky and it increases in value, good luck to you. Although this is a given for collectors, nobody wants to be throwing their money away, especially as the more rarefied high fashion dolls are an expensive obsession.

So keeping in mind that we’re spending tons of cash anyway, should we be sticking to vinyl (not in the car seat kind of way) or opting for resin? Which type of doll is likely to last longer, and might therefore have some chance of being worth something to our descendants as antiques of the future? Or will they disintegrate long before that time?

The unpleasant, and not uncommon, experience of opening the box of a carefully stored doll, only to find it has distorted or discolored, is not welcome. I’ve heard stories of dolls that have developed widely diverging knee joints just from being kept in their boxes. Many of us will have seen different body parts of dolls change color alarmingly. This is not just for vintage dolls either, it occurs with relatively recent products too.

Dolls with poorly formulated vinyl will crack and fall apart in time, and sadly there is no remedy for this phenomenon. Sticky face or shine, found on vintage Barbie dolls for example, is caused by plasticizer in the vinyl migrating to the surface. Similarly, gray looking vinyl can be caused by oxidized plasticizer on the surface. Both of these problems can be mitigated by using a proprietary brand such as Remove-Zit. This product can also help with fungal growths on plastic and in restoring the flexibility to hardened vintage vinyl clothing.

Resin fashion dolls, being relatively recent additions to the market, don’t have the same history with collectors as vinyl. Although marketed as a higher-quality product than vinyl, resin is also known to yellow over time when exposed to light. Both materials are classed as plastics, but we really don’t have any direct comparisons for the longevity of resin versus vinyl. The only answer is to keep our dolls in the dark as far as possible – although this technique may not be completely successful either.

An example of a vinyl color shift is illustrated nowhere better than on the deluxe Amanda Lepore dolls. These fragrant beauties from Integrity toys, expensively produced only 10 years ago, are not aging well – unlike Ms Lepore herself of course. The resin material of the bodies is retaining its creamy complexion nicely. But the vinyl heads are another story. They are darkening with an alarming intensity. The dolls are scented with the Lepore signature perfume, and it could be that the fragrance itself is responsible for this color change. I have tried remedies such as soaking repeatedly in alternate baths of baking soda and vinegar, along with keeping the doll out of the box, in the dark, and with plenty of air circulation. This seemed to remove the perfume initially, but that scent has legs and reappears again in due course, along with the inexorable darkening of the head. Yikes! If anyone has resolved this particular issue, I’d love to hear.

As well as the obvious difference in feel and appearance of the two materials, with resin offering a more luminescent quality as opposed to the more solid flesh-like appearance of the finest vinyls, there’s a marked difference in how the facial screenings sit on these substrates. The paint tends to sit on the surface of resin, whereas there can be a slight absorption of colors on vinyl. These differences are subtle, but it can mean that the face ups of comparable dolls (such as Gene Marshall) can look a little harder, or more precise, in resin, and softer, or slightly less defined in vinyl. This is not to criticize either one, both looks have their place depending on the desired effect.

In a nutshell, the difference between resin and vinyl is that resin is a harder, but more brittle, material, in which more detail (more character, perhaps) can be sculpted into a doll’s face. For example, resin is used in miniature figures, 1″ tall and less, with an astonishing amount of detail meticulously reproduced. Resin is the choice for truly sculptural artistic dolls and miniatures

Vinyl is soft and pliant. A vinyl Barbie doll’s head doesn’t take sculptural detail so well, but can stand up better to rough treatment by children. The old 12″ GI Joe dolls from the 1960s also had vinyl heads. Vinyl is better for mass-produced items.

Designers who are planning to make their own doll often wonder whether to produce the figure in resin or vinyl. Either material may be used to great effect.

Naturally-occurring resin is a compound consisting of mostly organic ingredients found in plants and trees. What we commonly see in dolls is actually a synthetic resin. It’s more akin to a solidified liquid, like soap or glass. The production process is similar to epoxy glue – combining two liquids together to cause a chemical reaction. The advantage of resin is that it’s relatively easy to sand and cut, while sturdy enough to hold up weight. High quality resin is typically very dense and can withstand quite a bit of pounding, but will shatter under significant pressure. Resin reproduces small details well, but is relatively fragile compared with vinyl.

There are two types of vinyl: hard and soft. An example of the latter is Rotocast PVC, formed by is heating a rigid pellet and pouring it into a metal mold. The mold is turned, depositing the vinyl evenly throughout the negative space. The vinyl cools, becoming firm enough, and flexible enough, that the shaped figure can be pulled out of the mold whole. This type is generally used for heads of body parts where seam lines are undesirable.

To make hard vinyl, the sort often used for doll bodies, showing seam lines where the molds join – for example in vintage Miss Seventeen dolls – a fine PVC powder is suspended in a resin-like matrix. It comes in a soupy form and can be poured cold into a metal mold. It is heated to cure, and becomes rigid. It is flexible enough during the curing process to be pulled from the metal mold in a single piece. Vinyl is less prone to breakage than resin.

By volume, raw resin is more expensive than raw vinyl. But the silicone molds for casting resin are less expensive than the metal molds used for casting vinyl.

This means that for very small runs of figures, resin is a great option. The silicone molds required for a run of 60 pieces might cost somewhere in the range of $300-$500. Each unit might cost somewhere in the range of $15-$35, depending on size and complexity. Total cost for a run of 60 resin figures might be somewhere from $1200 up to $2600, depending on the source of the sculpt and the size and complexity of the design. Each piece ends up being $20-$45.

For a larger run, from 500 to 1000 units, vinyl is the smarter option. Metal molds might cost somewhere in the range of $2000-$6000 depending on size and complexity. Each unit might cost somewhere in range of $8-$25. Total cost for a run of 1000 vinyl figures might be somewhere from $10k to $31k.

So if you are considering producing your own range of fashion dolls, the bottom line is that resin costs more per piece, but the total out of pocket is less for the smaller run. Vinyl costs less per piece, but the total out of pocket is higher for the larger run.

Of course if you are concerned about the environment, either choice is disastrous. This is not something that most collectors want to hear, but neither material is at all biodegradable and may ultimately add to the alarming amount of microplastics found in our water supplies and food chains. To help our world perhaps we should try to reinvent modern doll-making with old techniques using wood, leather, sawdust, rags, clay, and even wax. The best advice is probably not to constantly buy yet more dolls, but to to build on what you already possess. Many of us have forgotten what we have stashed away in storage and at the back of closets. To paraphrase the tidying-up guru, Marie Kondo, a great first step would be to pull everything out and keep only what speaks to you. Then to store your most precious dolls with care and out of the light, no matter what they are made of.

This feature first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine in 2015. Figures were correct at the time this article was first researched.