Around here, everything is last minute… total spur of the moment. As Abby’s excitement about attending Disney On Ice tomorrow night grows, I realized there were several things I had overlooked taking care of. Number one thing was something for Abby to wear.
Wait… let’s try that again. I totally had a couple of dresses on hand for her to wear. I pulled them out today to show her and let her pick because she’s suddenly quite opinionated about what she wears. Just my luck, none of the dresses met her approval. Oh no, these simply would not do. She wanted Rapunzel! Of course, we have absolutely nothing Rapunzel in her closet and, just my luck, none of the stores around here carried anything. A quick call to Abby’s Mimi and the clothing disaster was averted! Mimi found a couple of clothing options, all featuring Rapunzel, and we’ll let her pick tomorrow when Mimi gets here.
Thank goodness, one less problem to deal with.
Next…..
Abby suddenly decided that her toddler Rapunzel doll simply must go to Disney On Ice with her! Abby went in search of her doll and got quite frustrated when she discovered how tangled (haha!) Rapunzel’s hair had become while tossed in the toybox. According to Abby, her doll did not look like a pretty princess anymore. I attempted to brush the doll’s hair, just as I did several weeks ago, and just like last time I quickly gave up. This hair was a total mess, one big tangle with no hope of getting it smoothed out.
That’s when I decided to head to Pinterest to find a solution, something to help detangle doll’s hair. I remember seeing a post recently (it even showed Rapunzel in the picture, I’m obviously not the first mom to have fits with this hair!). Sure enough, I quickly found exactly what I was looking for.
I quickly followed a pin over to Tie a Little Ribbon, her post was so cute to read and definitely made me confident that this little hair repair trick would work. The solution? Fabric Softener! Yep, seriously! Some of you might be thinking “why didn’t I think of that!” but I honestly never would have thought of it. I don’t use fabric softener and this is really Abby’s first doll with hair so it’s my first experience with massively tangled doll hair. Yeah, I dealt with it plenty when I was little but back then I either didn’t care or I did the same as Abby… I took my doll to my parents for help brushing out the tangled mess. As a mom, this is my first experience so I was thrilled to discover this awesome blog post.
Amazingly, I had fabric softener in my laundry room. Yes, I’m just as surprised as you are considering I just said I don’t use it. It’s a small bottle so my guess it was a sample that I just stuck up in the cabinet and would later pass on to someone else that needed it. Good think I had it! Next I had to find a small spray bottle. This proved to be more difficult than the fabric softener. The only small bottle I could find was an almost empty Scentsy room spray. I tried but the smell was still too strong so I found an almost empty eye glass cleaner bottle. It’s not small but it would do.
I grabbed Abby’s doll, all my supplies and got to work.
According to Tie a Little Ribbon’s post, she simply filled the spray bottle with fabric softener. I also found via another Pinterest Pin that you are to use 2 TBSP of fabric softener and then the rest water. I went with that because I didn’t want too much fabric softener (or the smell, thanks to this migraine I’m super sensitive to smells).
Abby was quite curious with what I was doing and decided to be my little helper. She ran and found Rapunzel’s brush and insisted we use it to brush her hair. Okay, time to get started. Rapunzel is a bit of a hot mess right now….
A few small sprays and suddenly I could easily brush this tangled mess! About halfway done I had to stop and compare, even Hubby was impressed!
Wow! What a difference it makes! A few more sprays and some quick brushing and we were all done…
Abby’s Rapunzel was Princess Perfect again! I showed Abby and she was like “adorable! pretty princess!” yep, she was excited that princess looked a bit more like a princess now and that she could actually brush her doll’s hair.
I was also inspired by Tie a Little Ribbon creating Rapunzel’s fancy braid from the movie; I loved that she included how she did it and since we are getting ready to attend such a special event I decided to give Abby’s doll the pretty hairdo as well.
haha … okay so not quite the same but it looks cute and definitely a huge improvement! Not sure what I did wrong, maybe the braids are too fat but our doll’s hair definitely looks shorter than the picture I went off of! Perhaps I need lessons in braiding doll’s hair 🙂 oh well, I’ll add a pretty ribbon tomorrow and she’ll be all set to attend Disney On Ice with Abby 🙂
There you have it, a super easy solution to fix majorly tangled doll’s hair. Although Abby doesn’t have many dolls with hair right now, I’m sure she’ll have plenty eventually and this is going to really come in handy!!
This is definitely not how I thought I would be spending my evening but it’s well worth it since it made Abby so happy! I think I’ll call it quits for tonight. Abby now has something super cute to wear, her doll’s hair is brushed and fixed, all that’s left is making sure my camera is all set and figuring out what I will wear.
Oh… and again, sorry about the cell pics. This was totally spur of the moment and I actually almost forgot to take any pictures.
Gotta love Pinterest!! I have a boy, so probably won’t have to deal with this, but it looks like it worked great!
oh my gosh I love Pinterest lol I’ve had this pinned for awhile but just never got around to trying it. Since Abby wanted her doll ready for Disney On Ice I knew it was the perfect time to try it out (that and if it didn’t work I was about to do a very messy bun for the hair LOL)
GREAT to know. Chloe’s doll’s hair is like that. Time to fix them!
I was surprised with how well it worked, I definitely had doubts. You can possibly use a little more fabric softener but I just couldn’t handle the smell with my migraine.
This is so awesome!! I love it!!! Love the braid.
Thank you Katherine!
OH!! Thanks for sharing this! My daughters have TONS of dolls that have messed up hair! I am so going to try this!
So happy this trick worked out for you, Rapunzel looks as good as new 🙂
Thanks for this great tip. I used it on a Vogue Baby Dear and it worked great!
Thanks got my size Barbie s (5) and they need some SOS for their hair. Thank you thank you thank you. Great job on the hair braid
Hi, I tried this method on my granddaughters doll. It worked really well.I was totally surprised. It took a little experimentation on how much to spray on the hair before I brushed out the knots. Also found that
about 3 TBL in 2/3 cup water is a good mix. After I got the hair untangled I ran the dolls hair under the faucet to rinse out the fabric softener. dried it with a towel and then brushed it again. Looks really good.
Thanks for the tip!
Wonder if this would work on Meridia’s (sp?) hopelessly tangles hair in our house? I’m sure it would but does anyone know if it would take the curl out of her hair?
I know it’s been a few years so I’m sure you have an answer already. I used it on Merida’s hair and just used a wide tooth comb to gently smooth/pick apart the tangled curls. Definitely worked and looked so much better.
Wow…………her hair looks great!
my doll will thank you!! lol
You’re trippin! Lol, while Reading your perspective on the turnout of the braid, I laughed and said to the phone that you’re trippin. It looks great!!! Good job!