Reborn Dolls

The art of Reborning also has evolved through time, and become better so that the dolls now look even more realistic than before. The process starts by taking apart the vinyl doll and scraping off the factory paint. Nowadays there are kits available, that have the doll in pieces without any paint on them. Doll sculptors, are sculpting dolls, specifically for reborning, and they come unassembled and unpainted. Usually a purple color wash was given to the inside of each vinyl part, to resemble the undertone of a baby's skin. This particular process has a drawback, as the purple or blue color has a tendency to seep through the vinyl and give a bruised appearance. The exterior parts are carefully painted using different techniques, by which one gets the appearance of translucent skin tones. The special techniques can also give visual effects like veins and blotching of "milk spots", so that it resembles the skin of a newborn baby. Another time consuming process is the fixing of eyelashes and hair. Fine Mohair or Human hair is used in the process. The hair is usually sewn strand by strand, using rooting tools and felting needles. This process can take anywhere between 20 to more than 30 hours, for each single head. A soft and stuffed weighted body takes over the vinyl one. Sometimes the vinyl body is cut in half to create front and back plates. These plates are used to mount the doll for display or for taking a photograph.

The main difference between a reborn doll and any other baby doll, is the appearance and life-like features that are hard to distinguish. In fact there are cases where people have taken these dolls to be real babies. One such incident happened in Queensland, Australia. A reborn doll was left in the car and people on the road thought that a baby was forgotten in the car, and was unconscious. The police after smashing the window, to rescue "the baby" found the doll to be "incredibly lifelike". This major difference in a reborn doll compared to an ordinary doll, causes women to treat this doll as a living baby. Certain studies have suggested that, when women cuddle the realistic looking reborn doll, certain hormones are released in their bodies, which causes emotional well-being. The same effect is not seen when the woman is cuddling an ordinary vinyl baby doll. The realism that is imparted to the doll in the process of reborning, is the main distinguishing factor between the reborn dolls and other baby dolls.