Alright, so I had this idea, right? A doll you can actually put makeup on. Not like those ones where the makeup is painted on and that’s it. I mean, like, real makeup that you can wipe off and do again. Seemed simple enough at first. Boy, was I wrong, but hey, that’s how these things go sometimes, isn’t it?
Finding the Right Canvas… or Doll Head
First thing, I needed a doll. Not just any doll, mind you. I went through a whole bunch of them. Some were too small, others had this weird shiny plastic that nothing would stick to. I remember this one time, I bought this fancy-looking doll online, thinking, “Oh, this will be perfect, nice smooth face.” Nope. The face was all textured in a way you couldn’t see in the pictures, and makeup just looked… awful. Like a clown threw up on it, seriously. My kid took one look and just burst out laughing, which, okay, fair enough. So, back to the drawing board, or, well, the endless scrolling through online stores, again and again. It was becoming a bit of an obsession, my partner started calling me the ‘doll head hunter’, and not in a complimentary way, let me tell you.
The Makeup Trials (and Many, Many Errors!)
Then came the makeup part. Oh boy, the makeup. That was a whole adventure in itself. I figured, “Hey, I’ll just use some old makeup I have lying around.” That was a spectacularly bad idea. Most of it was too oily, or too powdery, or just plain wrong for plastic. It either slid right off or stained the doll’s face permanently. I had a few casualties, dolls that ended up looking permanently surprised or like they’d been in a bar fight and lost badly. I tried pretty much everything I could think of:
- Kids’ play makeup – you know, the cheap waxy stuff? Just smeared everywhere. Total mess.
- My own old eyeshadows – stained one doll’s cheek bright blue. Permanently.
- Face paints for kids’ parties – these were a bit better, but they cracked when they dried. Not the look I was going for.
It was chaos. My little craft corner looked like a rainbow had exploded and then cried about it. And don’t even get me started on trying to find a good way to seal the doll’s face so the makeup could be wiped off without ruining the base. I must have watched dozens of videos, most of them for like, repainting tiny action figures or something totally different. Talk about going down a rabbit hole; I think I know more about miniature painting now than I ever wanted to.
That One Time with the “Permanent” Solution That Wasn’t
There was this one weekend, I was just so over it. I’d just spent hours, and I mean hours, trying to get a smooth base coat on a new doll head, and the cat, bless its furry little heart, decided to do a graceful leap right across my workspace. Paw prints. Tiny, perfect, primer-colored paw prints. Everywhere. I nearly threw the whole project in the bin right then and there. My friend called right in the middle of my meltdown, listened to me rant for a good half hour. She’s a saint, that one. She actually suggested using some kind of clear varnish, but the first one I tried made the doll’s face super sticky. Makeup just clumped on it. It was a disaster. I remember sitting there, looking at this sticky, clumpy doll, thinking, “This is why people just buy toys from the store.” But I’m stubborn. Or maybe just easily distracted by a challenge. Probably a bit of both.
Finally, Something Clicked! Or at Least, Didn’t Stick Too Badly
Eventually, after a lot of trial and, let’s be honest, mostly error, I found a combination that sort of worked. It involved a specific type of vinyl doll head I found after much searching, a particular brand of primer that actually stuck, and then using certain types of water-based acrylic paints for the “skin” that could be wiped clean if you were gentle. It wasn’t perfect, not like something you’d find in a fancy toy shop, but it was mine. You could actually draw on eyeliner with a washable marker, put on some eyeshadow (powder worked best), and then wipe it off with a damp cloth. It took ages. Way longer than I ever thought it would. My initial idea of “a quick weekend project” turned into a month-long saga of paint fumes and plastic heads.
But seeing my niece finally play with it, carefully applying bright pink eyeshadow all the way up to the doll’s eyebrows, that was pretty cool. She then immediately tried to feed it a piece of toast, but hey, that’s a whole other problem for another day. So yeah, that’s how I ended up making a doll you can put makeup on. It was a journey. A messy, frustrating, but ultimately kinda rewarding journey. Would I do it again? Ask me next year. My craft room still hasn’t fully recovered from the glitter explosion of ’23.
