Fun In The Sun

I live in Crescent City, California.  This is a small coastal town on the border of California and Oregon.  As with many parts of the world, we have been having a bit of an odd winter here.  Winter normally means almost non stop rain from October until May or June.  We had a late start to winter and with it came unusually cold weather (for us!)  Don’t hate me all you east coast people!  Freezing temperatures, even during the night are rare.  There has been frost several mornings and the rain is here to stay.  This week we had some sunny weather.  And while it was still too cold for me to lounge on my patio chair, the Breyer horses have found use of it and laid outside during the day to tan!

 I see you rolling your eyes.  I’m not insane, at least not completely.  I have had a lot of luck with whitening old Breyers using sunlight.  The hard part is, we don’t see much sun here =p  Ironically, the first thing I think of when we have clear skies in the morning is “Gotta put the Breyers outside!”  I don’t know the chemistry behind it but sunlight seems to reverse the aged yellow look that white plastic takes on.  If you look at the picture, you will see a lovely yellowed old glossy alabaster Breyer Proud Arabian Mare and Proud Arabian Foal on the top left.  These are recent purchases for me, from Ebay no less!  The alabaster Belgian on the top right isn’t really yellow but I put him outside for one day just to see.  Now, there are multiple causes for yellowing on Breyers.  Sunlight itself can cause yellowing as can smoke and various chemicals.  I have only had luck whitening some horses and I think that these have been the ones that have yellowed either because of the sun or simply because of normal aging.  I have heard that some paint colors are susceptible to fading when exposed to sunlight.  I personally have never experienced this but we don’t get a lot of sun so it’s hard to over due it 🙂  Please do use caution but if you have a yellowed Breyer, try putting it in the sun and see if that doesn’t help brighten it up a bit!