Cleaning the Mew Ichigo Perfect FigureIt’s finally “another day” and I wanted to t
Cleaning the Mew Ichigo Perfect FigureIt’s finally “another day” and I wanted to talk about my experience with this figure and my battle with a sticky substance known as “plasticizer”, which is quickly becoming the bane of my figure collecting existence. I’m also sharing how I cleaned her up and got her looking presentable again (and about 80% goo-free).[ Click on “PHOTOS” or “NOTES” to read the article if the cut below doesn’t appear.]So what is plasticizer? It’s basically something added to PVC which allows it to have flexibility – after all, if the plastic was all hard and rigid it would break easily. However, over time this substance can start to escape, resulting in your figure becoming sticky and shiny and gross. In my experience, this happening to your copy of a particular figure is pretty hit or miss, but it occurs a lot with trading figures and other figures with bendable pieces, and Mew Ichigo here, unfortunately, is no exception.By my best guess, I’ve had her since around 2005-2006. She was a full-time member of my college dorm room and I had her proudly displayed on my computer desk. Sometime after college, though, she went back in her box: safe and sound, right? Well… no. See, during that time she was becoming very, very shiny and getting absolutely no chance to air out.Recently I inherited a curio cabinet, and I was excited to unbox my favorite anime figures and populate it with them. And when I got to Ichigo, I was.. in for a surprise. I’d had this happen before, but never with such a NICE figure. And considering how much Ichigo is worth these days (she sells for no less than several hundred dollars), I knew I needed to be careful. So I did what I always do – I started googling how to save her. And I’ve found a few different ways to proceed. The main rub about this figure is that the paint is prone to deterioration. I’ve noticed on my own figure, at least, that there are spots on the skirt part of her costume where the pink has become almost translucent, so I definitely could not use anything abrasive. I’d also had mixed results with trading figures in the past that simply remained sticky no matter how many times I soaked them in water and dish soap. But I decided to use them as my guinea pigs, as I tried out the most gentle plasticizer-busting methods I could find that might actually be effective.So here’s what I did. You’ll need:- a copious amount of q-tip cotton swabs- a small container of cold water- a separate small container of Dawn dishwashing liquid (you’ll only need a little bit! maybe a button-sized amount)- and a microfiber cloth. Also a towel or something so you don’t get your work area all wet. If you wish, you could also try rinsing her off in cold water to remove dust and let her (air) dry, but I didn’t do this step. Make sure you take her off of the stand for this whole process so the support piece won’t crack or break.Working slowly, I started off with wetting a q-tip and gently, gently going over the affected areas – you won’t need to clean any area that isn’t sticky, just leave those alone. I started with the soles of the boots as a test, since it was the least conspicuous place if something went awry (because confidence). Do not apply too much pressure or scrub at the figure, just take it nice and easy and careful. I noticed that even by doing just this, a little pink color would come off on the q-tip when I went over her costume, but none of the paint seemed to actually be coming off the figure itself. When I was satisfied that I was not going to ruin her forever, I repeated this process with a little bit of the dish soap on a q-tip mixed with a little bit of water, working into the crevices, and then going back over with a regular wet q-tip, and then over again with a dry q-tip with a gentle rolling motion. (Don’t worry, you can keep using these same q-tips for a while unless they start looking too dirty/pink.) As you can imagine, this process took a few hours in total. The microfiber cloth is to gently, gently wipe/pat dry the areas that you’ve cleaned up. I would then test the area carefully with my finger to see if it was still sticky, and then repeat the process again if necessary.Target areas for me were: the top piece of Ichigo’s costume (the “corset” portion if you will) - front and back, but especially around the chest, tummy and waist; her gloves; her tail bow; the ties on her boots and the bottoms/soles of her boots; the flexible wisps of her hair that stick out; her upper arms (they are a harder kind of plastic than the rest of her body, and while her legs and face weren’t sticky at all, these were).After a while, and after I let her dry, the stickiness was much less noticeable than before. She’s still not 100% perfect, and I may need to repeat this process every now and again, but she’s so much better than she was.And that’s…pretty much it! Some parting figure tips: it’s a good idea, if you are storing figures in their boxes, to take them out and let them “air” every once in a while. And never leave your figures in direct sunlight or close to a heat source, as sunlight can cause them to fade/discolor and heat can cause PVC to bend. -- source link