Hannah Montana Glow-Up

Hey everyone, and if you've visited before, welcome back! I'm excited to walk you through my first toy rescue/restoration. It was a fairly simple one, so I was confident that I had the skills and knowledge for it to be successful.

I found this doll at an op shop for $4. I'm not familiar with this doll in particular, but my research has led me to believe she is a Disney Hannah Montana singing doll, potentially from 2007-2008. If anyone has any further specific information on her, please let me know in the comments!

When I got her, she had definitely lived like she'd been loved, so I feel she deserved to be treated as such. Her shirt was missing rhinestones, her hair was matted, and her batteries had died and corroded so she no longer sang. To my surprise she still had her accessories (necklace, earrings and bangle), but was missing shoes. Again, not too familiar with her, and from combing through the internet I can't actually figure out if there were any other accessories that came with her or what shoes she might have been wearing, because every other one that I've come across has significantly less than the one I found. She also had a bit of an old, smokey smell to her clothes and hair, either from being in a smoker's house or from her contact with other secondhand toys in the op shops. Either way, there was no burn marks or any significant aging, so that's an easy fix.

Here are the original before photos:

Before photo from the front.

And from the side.

And the back.

A before close-up of the front.

So, the first thing I'll do with any doll after the initial inspection is undress them and wash their clothes. How I wash them honestly depends on the type of clothes, and these were very similar to the material we would wear, so I just put them in a laundry bag and in the washing machine. There were already rhinestones missing from the shirt like I said before (and as you can see in the above images), which would have been the only reason to handwash, so no big deal if a few more came off as I was going to replace them anyway, I then air-dried the clothes in the shade to prevent shrinking or fading.

While I waited for the clothes to dry, I gave her a quick wipe over with a damp cloth, then tended to the hair. As you can see from the pictures, it was misshapen, matted, and a little dirty. Just brushing didn't cut it, so I shampooed it with warm water, being careful not to get any in the battery compartment. You can removed the heads off of most dolls, but unless you need to re-root the hair, I like to avoid it to prevent warping the plastic too much. While the hair was still wet I combed it and tried to shape it as best I could, but by the time it dried it still had a slight bend in it. So I got a hair straightener and straightened it on a low heat setting. It didn't need much pressing and it turned out great. If you do try this at home, please be careful not to press for too long - I literally only held it on for half a second at a time as it heats up very quickly! Most people will just use a warm damp cloth to shape hair but I'm impatient. Finally I added a little bit of argan oil to smooth it out, and then hairspray (sprayed it on my fingers and then smoothed it on by hand) to keep it in place. Once the hairspray was dried, I combed it through again so it felt a bit softer. This haircare process worked way better than I expected it to; I'd tried the same on an off-brand My Little Pony I had from when I was a kid, and the hair just fell apart at the shampoo stage. I guess that might be the difference between cheap, mass-produced toys and ones that are made with quality products, like this Disney doll.

The hair after washing while still wet, from the back.

And from the front.

After washing and drying. You can see that the shape of the hair is still not right and has a slight bend to it.

When her clothes had dried, I started working on replacing the rhinestones. The pack I got had a mix of 2mm and 3mm rhinestones - the 2mm being too small, and the 3mm being too big to match the ones she had. Since I couldn't get an exact match, I removed the rest that were still attached and replaced them all with new ones. The 3mm looked best, so I went with those.

The final thing to tackle was to get her singing again. I removed the old - possibly original - batteries, and unfortunately they had corroded a bit. Not too badly, and I'm sorry but I didn't take any photos, I just got too distracted haha. I got some white vinegar and a cotton swab and gently wiped the plates until all the residue from the corrosion was gone. Once I had let it air dry for a day or two (you don't need to leave it that long, I'm just a busy mum of two, so these things take a while for me), I replaced the batteries and tested her out. And she sings! I got her dressed and styled for her photoshoot, and here are the results:

Short demonstration of Hannah Montana singing.

This restoration was reasonably simple, but it got me super excited to work at this art form and hone in my skills so that I can eventually take on some more complicated projects. I really hope you enjoyed reading about this one and seeing the progress pictures!