I don't have any issues with them, except the "none" (that's it, shaved head), which not only doesn't sticks, but also changes to random hair style.
Best thing to do, is to clean the old saves.
If you've been playing for so long, you might have some old save conflicting somehow.
Note:
there are TWO save folders.
One is on the Lifeplay folder (probably you've seen it), and contains the characters (Player and NPCs) data.
The other is hidden on
Local disk (C: )>Users>[your name or whatever]>Appdata>Local>Lifeplay>Saved
This one is the one you need to clean.
Personally, I'd wipe all saves here, but I guess you can keep the current one, and delete the others (though, most likely your current run is compromised)
You can start over, since NPCS are saved on the other folder (which you don't need to clean) you can rebuild everything without losing your favourite NPCs..
I did this, and usually don't have issues (despite using pretty much all the mods lol).