I promise this works.

[tasha]

It's really not a huge deal, but personally I am not fond of my puppies turning yellow.
My solution. Brake cleaner.
A fair warning.
Do not soak them. They will not make it out, in the condition they went in.
A toothbrush or Qtip works.

Attachments:

[Christi.]

Cool tip! It looks like it works really well. I've always wondered what that yellow stuff was and how to go about removing it. I have heard keeping toys out in the sun will help turn them white, but it didn't do a thing to my puppies.

[Jenna]

Interesting! I scrubbed mine with a toothbrush in warm water and baking soda. It helped, but not as much as this!

[tasha]

Aw Christi I'm sure they enjoyed the day in the sun
I've also tried baking soda, toothpaste, bleach and laundry detergent. Nothing has ever worked like brake cleaner. Who knew! I hope you guys try it. You'll love the way the look after.

[tasha]

** they

[vicki]

I always thought you were supposed to keep them out of the sun to stop them turning yellow. I've just bought a spiffy and a mungo from eBay who are very white with no yellow whatsoever. They smell like they've been in a loft so away from sunlight. I might ask the seller where they kept them .

[Kate]

Bonbon over at the LPS forum has had great success soaking her figures in undiluted hydrogen peroxide to reverse yellowing. She's tried it on many pieces now and it hasn't damaged the original painted details at all. I'm not sure if this would work the same on IMP because they are a different kind of plastic, but maybe someone could test it out on one of their yellowed duplicates.

Here's a link to her thread about it where you can see her results.
LPS Renovation

[edwardinsane]

Resurrecting this old post to repost a comment I made in a different thread, just so the info is all in one place.


I discovered that wet melamine sponges (magic eraser) is quite effective in removing yellow on the white figures! Actually, I was surprised it worked at all, as I hadn't read anything about using melamine sponges for removing yellowing from plastics. But I gave it a try, as other techniques I read about, like using OxyClean or hydrogen peroxide, was not effective in the slightest.

It's kind of a messy process, as all the ridges on the puppies tear the sponge to pieces. And the effectiveness of the sponge depends on how well you are able to actually scrub the area. Places with tight crevices can be pretty tricky or impossible to fit the sponge in there and then also be able to scrub it around. But for the most of my puppies, I was able to remove the majority of the yellowing. I'm very pleased, as the yellowing bothered me a lot!

Some tips:
Melamine sponges can remove paint, though I didn't find that it removed any of the original factory paint. It only removed the touch up paint I had put on their noses. I tested it a little on some of the Dalmatian puppies, and none of the spots came off, although I didn't test too hard. I have a feeling that whether the paint comes off or not depends on the color of the paint. It seems like some colors are more likely to chip off than others (oranges especially). So I would be careful using the sponge on puppies that have extensive paint chipping, as it could make it worse. I didn't have any issue with this, but TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

A rapid back and forth motion in small areas was the most effective in removing the yellowing. This can be difficult, like a said, since the puppies are small and have a lot of ridges and crevices. Sometimes I'd gather up some of the crumbs from the sponge and used a toothpick to sort of scrub them around in there. This had various levels of success, none of them as good as just squishing the sponge in as best as I could and scrubbing it around really fast.

I don't know how long this de-yellowing will last in the long term. I read that yellowing plastic is due to a chemical reaction, and it will always return once that process has started. So it's definitely possible that it will come back someday. If it returns, I'll give an update here in the future. This might just be a thing I have to do regularly as maintenance.

I hope this is helpful to someone!