De-frizzing and American Girl horse tail?

[Denine]

Anyone have any ideas how to de-frizz the ends of the tail? DD has only had the horse since Christmas and she showed me the tail yesterday.

 

[Hannathy]

Has she been brushing it? If she has damaged the fiber there isn't going to be much you can do. You could try using a wig brush and taking little bits at a time to untangle and smooth it. Don't know if something like a "no more tangles" type spray on conditioner would help.

You could try calling or emailing American Girl. My DD's horses tail still look good after 10 yrs but I know she only ever used the wig brush on them and not to much and carefully.

If no one else on here or the American Girl people don't have any solution you could always braid the tail, either in 1 big braid or severall small ones. A lot of real horses have braided tails and it would look better than frizzy.

 

[melancholywings]

My advice is to never use plastic brushes, only metal. Plastic brushes can have burrs on the teeth and cause frizz. The metal teeth American Girl brushes are fantastic and I use them on my collectable dolls.

I'm assuming the hair isn't really hair but synthetic? You can try some fabric softener. I've also had some luck on dolls using human conditioner. Sometimes curling the hair will hide fizz. In extreme cases; I've used an iron on low on wet hair, covered by a tea towel - but this can be really risky and can melt the fibers if you're not super careful.

 

[dragonfly08]

First, make sure she's not using a regular hairbrush. AG doll hair (and I'd guess the horse tail, as well) needs to be brushed with a wire wig brush.

Second, their customer service is great about suggestions for stuff like this. DD has a doll with ink stains on her arms, and they got back to me right away with suggestions for removing them. I haven't had a chance to try it yet so I don't know if it works, but I liked that they responded quickly with something other than "send it here and pay us to fix it".

 

[Denine]

DD only uses the wire brush for her dolls and the horse tails. I know she takes good care of them all. I read about using fabric softener, so maybe I will try that. If that doesn't work, I will try emailing AG. Thanks!

 

[Princess_Meghan <3]

Fabric softener should help. I'm pretty sure that the mane and tail for the horses are the same as the hair the AG dolls have, so you can always look at ways to fix the dolls' hair if fabric softener doesn't work for you.

 

[hgeisler]

Detangler or silicone spray (in sewing section at the craft store) should work.

 

[Denine]

I used the fabric softener and steam. It helped. it isn't perfect, but quite a bit better. I told DD that brushing too much was probably the cause, but she loves "grooming" her horse, so I am not going to tell her to stop.
Thanks everyone!