A 10-year study indicates that treated surfaces turn yellow more severely than untreated plastic parts — retrobrighting does more harm than good to consoles

Retro and vintage tech YouTuber Tech Tangents, who goes by Shelby Jueden, showed on his channel the effects of retrobrighting after ten years on an old Sega Dreamcast. According to the YouTube video, he applied the classic hydrogen peroxide-and-sunlight method to the top and bottom cases of his old console (excluding the lid) way back in 2015, which had some effect on reducing the existing yellowing on the case at the time. He then left the entire thing disassembled on his shelf and only got around to it this year. This sort of accidental experiment showed that retrobrighting isn’t actually suitable for the console, with the non-treated surface appearing better after a decade.

Jueden says that retrobrighting is the process of reversing the natural yellowing that many plastic parts undergo over time. There are many different catalysts for this yellowing process. Still, he explains in the video that plastic parts tend to miscolor as the fire-retardant chemical in the material oxidizes, either through exposure to light, UV radiation, oxygen, temperature, and many other factors.