A question about the smell of Gigo Pony bootlegs
Have a nice day everyone. Please forgive this question if it's inappropriate, and please forgive me for using Google Translate. I came into possession of these two ponies (the seller called them "vintage Bandai ponies") with distinctive pseudo-glass eyes, which, after a Google search, I identified as Gigo Wonder Pony Land ponies. As I understand it, there are people who collect them and even say that these are their favorite toys from childhood, meaning they seem quite popular and, apparently, more or less safe for health. So, if anyone has similar ones, could you please tell me if they have an unpleasant odor? Both of my ponies have a very strange odor from the vinyl parts, which I've never encountered before in Chinese bootleg toys; it's reminiscent of banana peel, stale apple, and vinegar all at once. At first, I even mistook it for mold, but the figures are clean inside and out, and their manes and tails don't smell at all. Besides, the mold smell usually subsides at least a little after washing and airing them out. I've been washing them with liquid soap for a few weeks now and continue to store them on the balcony in the fresh air, but the smell hasn't gone away. I'd just like to know if this is the characteristic smell of these ponies' vinyl, in which case, I suppose, it's permanent, or if the seller stored them inappropriately, in which case there's still a chance they'll air out over time. I understand that these are bootlegs, and you shouldn't expect much from them, but I have much lower-quality and crudely made bootleg ponies from completely unknown manufacturers, and they don't have any bad smell. But these Gigo ponies seem so detailed and neat, and for some reason I was sure that they were of quite high quality, like, for example, Zuru unicorns.