Dollieh Sanctuary

What do you use? For health reasons I decided not to go with MSC; I went with Vallejo Game Color instead.

I went with Testors matte spray on the resins. Paint on acrylic sealers for the 1/6 and home made crowd.

I actually don't use a sealer at all... which I wouldn't recommend for most people. All my dolls fall firmly into the 'cheap playscale vinyl' category (except for a few exceptions like the Cabbies), poseable by preference tho not always. I don't use pastels in my faceups (yet) just acrylic paint. And I have almost no ventilation in my room so sprays are right out anyway. I bought a brush-on kind once but the stuff stunk so bad I couldn't use it!

Acrylic seems to stick pretty well to vinyl as is, and given my habit of making 'improvements' at erratic times... sometimes it works out better for me to be able to get previous attempts off easily. Like I said, not sealing is not for everyone, but it's been ok for me. So far.

That said, you can't be sure the faceup is really safe from wear or scratches without a sealant. I had to redo one eye on one of my Cabbies once because the paint got a scratch it it, and with the rest I'm careful not to touch painted areas of the faces once I have them as I want them (for now). It's something I need to look back into someday... but so far I've been able to put it off without major disaster.

We use Pledge. Seriously.

It's a brush-on clear sealant usually used on hard wood floors. It has to be Pledge Floor Finish with Future Shine. Anything else won't work. We've only used it on vinyl and ABS plastics so far (mostly playline), but it works really well. It's very very shiny. We don't use pastels either, just acrylics, and the shininess works really well for lips and eyes.
I have Monster High girls that we used it on years ago now and they have held up really well. No yellowing, no stickiness. Plus you get a huge bottle for really cheap. We still haven't used half of our bottle and we bought it well over 3 years ago now. We have some little plastic cups with lids on them that we pour it into to paint with it.

You will need Windex to clean it out of your brushes though. It comes off fairly easily from dolls with a Magic Eraser and 91% alcohol. Also, it smells decently (We also had WhiteDove's problem with super stinky sealants).

I got the recommendation years ago from someone in the dollieh community, though I don't remember who. The link above takes you to Wal-Mart's page for it. That is the newest design of the bottle.

Just a reminder, if you are using any kind of spray sealant you should be using a respirator(half face with organic vapor cartridges). You don't want to seal the surface of your lungs, lol.
I have also skipped sealing on cheap play-line dolls. It works reasonably well and pastels don't rub off quite as quickly as you might expect, though they do fade over time. Not sealing can be a problem if you want to repaint the doll more than once as some paints will leave a stain on the plastic even after they are wiped off.
For resins I use Citadel brand spray, because it was much easier to obtain than MSC and cheaper(8 bucks at my local game store). I haven't noticed any problems with it on resin, but it definitely is not usable for vinyl. It clouded in two of the plastic pieces I tested(doll brush and shoe) and remained sticky on the third (vinyl head).

Does anyone here know how to wipe a faceup done with a water-based sealant/varnish?

Ulti, can you tell the exact brand of the water based sealant/varnish?

I use a water based gloss for my dolls and it goes away easily with 90% alcohol and a magic eraser (on resin dolls, on vynil ones I use acetone free nail solvent)

I have used Liquitex Soluvar Matte Varnish. It worked well and did not yellow or get sticky. Although dust loves to cling to it.