Don't get Taken!

So you have decided to try making reborn dolls.  The first rule of thumb to follow is, be careful of what type of body that you buy.  There are many sellers on EBay, some good, some bad, and since reborning is an expensive hobby to enter, you don't want to buy a reborn body that is made with inferior material or in inferior conditions such as coming to you stinking of cigarette smoke.  When I was first beginning, I made the mistake of buying a body that came to me reeking of not only cigarette smoke but had dried food on it.  Yuck!  Sellers may say they don't smoke but that doesn't mean someone else in the house doesn't smoke and smoke will permeate all material, including reborn body material. 

Before you buy, ask your seller what type of material they are using.  Doe Suede works well, beware of cheap imitations.  Ask the seller where they bought the material.  If your seller doesn't know what the body is made of, that should be a warning sign to you.  Ask about the pattern they are using.  Many patterns are copyrighted and thus, it is illegal to sell bodies on EBay.  Prilly Charmin body patterns are one example.  If someone is selling bodies from this company pattern, ask if they are authorized to do so. 

Ask the seller what their connection is to reborning dolls, how did they get into making bodies for reborns.  A seller that also loves the art form of reborning and has made their own reborns, understands what a  body needs to be quality. 

Ask to see a close up photo of one of the bodies.  If several bodies are laid together, you can't see them clearly.  Ask if they include the cable ties.  It isn't an absolute but finding the correct cable ties is important to your body looking nice and if the seller is a dolly person themselves, they will often go the extra mile to include the proper ties. 

Also very important, ask the seller for pictures of the body attached to a reborn doll.  Sellers who have good customers or who reborn themselves, will have photographs of their bodies attached to dolls.  This will give you an idea of how well the body is actually made, whether the seems look like they are holding together, how the bias tape has been cut and so forth.  I once bought a body where the seams didn't come up far enough and I had to go back and fix it myself.  (This was someone I hired to sew some bodies to help them out financially.  They didn't sell on Ebay but now I see that they are selling them on EBay.  Let the buyer beware.) 

Most of all, look at the overall feedback.  If they are an infrequent seller on Ebay, there may not be the opportunity to see what kind of customer service they truly give and the quality of their sales.  If they have low or poor feedback in one area of sales, they may not be the best person to deal with overall.