Taming Pony Hair!

 I have a 3yo girl, which means we have a lot of dolls. And even more ponies. This also means a lot of synthetic hair. My daughter does not really seem bothered by the unkempt nature of her toys, but for some reason, it annoys the crap out of me. So, with a little help from Google and Pinterest, I thought that I would find a way to detangle all that hair.
First thing that you need to know is that doll hair is essentially plastic. This means that you really do need special tools to tame it. And I am not talking about those teeny little plastic combs that come with each and every pony! I used a doll brush, I think that it came with my American Girl ages ago. You can also use a wig brush, which is fairly easy to pick up at any beauty supply store. You want a metal brush that does not have the little plastic balls on the ends.
First thing that I tried was regular detangler, the same kind that I use on my kids. This worked ok, but not great. Pinterest suggested fabric softener. I used 1 part softener to 2 parts water. This really worked pretty well. I put it in an extra spray bottle and used it just like detangler. It really worked the best on the ponies. In the pictures, you can see before and after pictures. These were two of the worst- The one on the left was one from when I was a kid, and had probably never seen a brush. I don't know if it originally came with such short hair or it got cut at some point! The one on the right is Pinky Pie, one of my daughter's favorites. After spraying and bushing (from the ends, just like any hair) I wrapped the hair around my fingers and twisted it up to re-curl it. Some of the ponies hair turned out more curly than others, I don't know if this is due to what the hair originally looked like or what. I am still experimenting with that. The hair turned out really smooth, and my only complaint is that it is sort of slick, but I think that might go away over a bit of time. If I put too much solution in their hair, it started looking greasy.
For the American Girl, I really found that just using a brush is all you need if the hair is in relatively good shape. I used the fabric softener solution on Molly, since she has probably never had a good brushing, and I got her in 2nd grade! It took a little time to get her hair looking good!
For larger dolls, my best advice is that once you get their hair untangled, braid it or put it in pigtails, or else it will be a mess again in a matter of days!