If you have been collecting Nendoroids for a while, then you might have stumbled across a “problem” mostly suffered by old Nendoroids: stickiness. Yes, some old figuresThis is a common problem among Nendoroid collectors and there was no definite solution to resolve it – until now, that is.

Yep, Mikatan has just posted an article covering about this particular issue, and I have extracted the most important parts of the article, as follows.

Cause of Stickiness

The reason the figures become sticky is because of the plasticizer used when making them. This plasticizer is added to the PVC (the main material used in figures) in order to make it softer – the more mixed in with the PVC, the softer and more flexible it becomes.
However, over a long period of time this plasticizer vaporizes, and when this happens while a figure is sealed up in it’s box the vaporized plasticizer has nowhere to go, and thus sticks onto the surface of the figure creating a sticky layer.

How to Prevent the Stickiness

・ Don’t leave figures in the sun for long periods of time. (This causes the plasticizer to vaporize faster)
・ Don’t leave figures in sealed boxes for too long. (This includes leaving them in the blister packs!)

How to Remove the Stickiness

Make use of a mild washing liquid – the same you’d use to clean things like eating utensils. Note that I can’t guarantee that this method will work for all figures, and there may be unexpected problems or damage to your figures.
You’ll see that I have tested a few methods below, but please keep that in mind that everything you try on your figures is your own responsibility!

Mikatan also introduced some methods to remove the stickiness:

(1) Clean with some bubbly washing liquid!
Making use of a sponge or brush might damage the figures – it’s best to gently wash it with your hands instead!
This should remove any light stickiness from the figure! When you’re wiping off the water after washing, be sure to use a soft cloth instead of tissues.
The reason for this is that if any stickiness is left behind, the tissues will end up sticking to the figure!

(2) Soak the figure in diluted washing liquid!
Left Side: 10 Parts Water – 1 Part Washing Liquid
Right side: Bubbled up washing liquid
I tried leaving the figure parts in each of these for 12 hours! The results…
Left Side: Almost all the stickiness came off!
Right Side: The bubbles all died away after a few hours.

(3) Clean with a Scouring Liquid/Cream (Caution!)
I used this method on some expression parts and it seemed to work very well at getting rid of the stickiness! The problem with this is that these cleaning liquids usually include an abrading agent which have a very high chance of damaging your figure! They’ll also likely remove the shine on any glossy figures.
It’s not a method I recommend, but it certainly works at getting the stickiness off and having a very clean figure! Whatever you do though, don’t try to clean them using scouring powder, as that will almost definitely damage the figure!

… and according to her, the best method is combining method #1 and #2.

I think that overall, the best method is to first soak it in left hand liquid from (2) and then wash it with bubbles and hands as in (1). One thing to note is that the smell of the cleaning agent might cling to the figure a bit, so if you’re sensitive to smells you might want to keep that in mind!

Kindly visit Mikatan’s blog if you want to read further details about this topic.

Well, what do you think about it, Nendonesian? Are you going to try it?

via Mikatan’s blog