I'm working on my first reborn baby, she's coming along ok and will soon start to assemble her. Is there any problem with using plastic pellets instead of glass beads. I have quite a bit of those and would like to use them as long as they won't interact with the vinyl. But everything I read mentions only glass beads. Thanks for the help.
No hun, you are fine with the polypellets! You can use them as long as they are not "baby fat" pellets. The regular hard polypellets will not cause any reaction of the vinyl as I have used them just fine in my babies for over, well.... lets just say a really looooooong time!
When baby fat or baby fat pellets come into contact with any vinyl, silicone/vinyl mix, plastic, etc... after some time they cause the parts to deteriorate, become oily, drippy, slimey, and the like. Not a pretty scene and not good for the new mommies either! It starts out subtle then goes like wild causeing the parts to (in some cases) moosh!
They do have some what they call solid baby fat that is covered and they say it's safe but I personally wouldn't want to hear from my buyer several years down the road that their baby was destroyed and they want a replacement or their money back.
We as sellers/artists are supposed to KNOW what we use in/on our babies and we are supposed to be reputable. But if we use something just because others do, well, it's on us! KNIM? How many of you keep track of your buyers several years or even several months down the road to see how their babies are doing or if anything has changed? Not many if any right? So how would you know (for example) if the colors you used faded or if the hair all fell out, or anything like that eh?
Stephanie Sullivan (of Secrist DVD fame) first called the alarm to the reborn world on this. Some still use them in the cloth bodies but any contact with the parts will cause this to happen.
Some have even tried taking them all out and washing/rinsing but it doesn't work. And when the pellets came out (what they could get out) they were kind of a melted mess.
Yes, glass pellets weigh more so people have been using them in the limbs but still using polypellets in the head and body.