A Review of Lorifina (Discontinued) by Hasbro

Lorifina is a 20" articulated plastic and vinyl fashion doll line that was made by Hasbro a few years ago and is now discontinued.  These dolls have inset acrylic eyes and long changeable wigs.  When it was first introduced, the Lorifina line was special because you could design the appearance of your doll online and then she'd be shipped to your house from the factory.  There were at least two skin tones, three eye colors and many wigs to choose from.  The dolls came in two-piece sleepwear, but you could select additional outfits from three city-themed collections: London, New York and Tokyo.

When Hasbro unveiled this line in 2009, I got caught up in the excitement for a little while.  I spent some time on the website, designing various dolls and seeing how they looked in all of the outfits.  I don't know why I never hit the checkout button.  Perhaps it was the $98 price tag, or the fact that together with all of the cool clothes and shoes I had also added to my cart, the price was discouragingly higher than $98.  I can't remember exactly.

Last year, I saw a picture of a Lorifina doll's beautiful face on Flickr and went in search of these girls on the secondary market.  Nothing.  Maybe there was one on Amazon for close to $200, but again, I can't remember the specifics.  What I do remember is seeing another picture of these dolls on Flickr just recently and feeling compelled to start the search again.  This time, I was well-rewarded.  There is a bounty of these dolls on eBay right now, and (with some patience) they can be won for around $50...often with many accessories included.  I figured this was a good time to do a review.  Here's the one I got (this combination of hair and skin color was the most common on eBay during my hunt):

Lorifina: light skin tone, green eyes and a blonde wig.

The doll came in a nice pink cardboard logo box:

Inside my box, there were four extra wardrobe items, each in their own small pink box.  The main box has a special area for extra things off to the left hand side:

The doll is attached to a cardboard backdrop, and this whole thing just pulls out of the main box:

Empty box?  Meet recycling bin.

The insert with the doll still attached:

Here's the back of the insert--just a few rubber bands anchored on black plastic holders and one large plastic strip holding her hair (but--the hair isn't sewn onto this plastic strip.  Yay!):

Easy as pie.

She's free!

So.  Here's what I noticed right off the bat.  She is not super-flexible.  Her joints are a bit stiff and she does not have amazing articulation.  Her wrists don't bend, which is odd since her toes are articulated.  The range of motion in her joints is not great, except for maybe her neck, which has nice, natural movement.

I think her lower arms and head (and maybe her feet?) are made out of a hard, slightly bendable vinyl and the rest of her is plastic.  What's surprising is that the vinyl on her arms and feet doesn't match the plastic of her torso and legs. Look at the difference between her ankles and her feet:

And between her hand and her leg:

Frankendolly!

She also has a green stain on her forehead just above her eyebrow and a shiny/smudged tip of her nose.  Those marks had me really worried, but both were easily fixed with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  

Before I removed the stains.

The wig is held on her head in a similar way to the Liv wigs.  There's a hole on the top of her head:

...and then a peg on the wig cap that fits securely into that hole.  Notice how part of the scalp is missing so that the wig cap sits snug to the head.

The wig cap is very flexible vinyl:

The wig goes on easily and stay on well.  The hair is fantastic.  It is super-soft and shiny and has several different colors mixed in.

Here's a peek at the body's flexibility:

Painted underwear on the bottom, nothing on top.

Torso joint.

There's good side-to-side action in the hips, but no rotational movement:

She has trouble striking natural-looking sitting or lounging poses:

Here I am, uh, relaxing on the beach...

But, she can point and wiggle her toes!

There no way she's kneeling.  This is the closest she gets, and I have to hold her hand to keep her from face-planting:

Here's the range of movement in her head:

Up

Down

Side to side.

All of the dolls come in this sleeping outfit that consists of boxer shorts and a camisole top:

The clothes are very nicely done.  The stitching is neat and secure and there's a lot of detail.  Notice the lace accents at the sides of the shorts:

Very nicely finished inside.

Beautiful ribbon and lace trim!

You can find several different offerings on eBay in terms of what accessories come with the basic doll.  I am not sure what happened at the Lorifina factory, but I suspect that the extra stock was packaged up and sold out in bundles, because many of the lots on eBay are similar in what they contain, and many of them seem to be coming from Texas.  My particular auction had two extra pairs of shoes, a pair of pants, and an extra shirt:

Like the containers Mc Donald's pies used to come in!  Do they still come that way?

Groovy.

The workmanship on the pants is excellent.  Look at all of those carefully done seams and stitches!  The button at the top is a real working button, although there is no zipper below it.  Real belt loops and working pockets. too:

Silver stretch jeans!

The shoes are packaged exactly like real shoes--inside cardboard boxes with tissue paper and then cardboard inserts holding the shoes in shape:

Red high heels!

Space-age silver boots!

The shoes are also very well made.  They are plastic or vinyl (red heels) and plastic and pleather (boots).  They have great detail and nice style.  The boots look like they might be hard to get on.  Am I going to have to undo that tiny buckle?  I hope not:

These shoes make me think of Olive Oyl and Minnie Mouse for some reason.

Here she is in the second outfit.  Those pants fit like a dream.  I wish I could shimmy around in pants like that!

The boots go on and off really easily!

The camisole top is held on by one small hook in back and the stretchy fabric in the bust line.

Don't sneeze or anything...

Here she is, trying to sit in those tight jeans.  Actually, the jeans don't slow her down too much, they are pretty stretchy.  The stiffness of her pose is mostly just those joints:

Part of the problem is that I don't have a chair the right size for her, so she has to sit on the box.  That's not necessarily comfortable.  Let's see if I can get her too trick you into thinking she's relaxed.  How about this?

Maybe this?  Hmm.

Don't tell, but I am about to tumble over backwards...

She can model much better standing up, but has nowhere near the range of motion that an AvantGuard doll or an older Liv has:

Her clothes are first rate, and I wish I had more of them, but they're getting pretty scarce.  I've heard that some of the Teen Trends clothes fit, but haven't tried those yet.  I am also wondering if the BFC Ink doll clothes would fit.  Need to investigate!

The wig is so nice that I don't have any desire to change it right away, but just for the sake of research, let's see what other wigs might fit.

Original wig = awesome

Monique size 7-8 wig

Kemper size 7-8 wig

Remember that the Lorifina wig cap actually sets into the scalp of the doll.  This means that when the wig cap is off, there's part of the head missing.  This makes it very difficult for her to wear other wigs.  I could get the Monique wig to stay on long enough for pictures, but that Kemper wig kept falling off.  I think it is in the process of falling off in the last picture.  What I want to do is try taking the hair off another Lorifina wig and then use the wig cap to fill out the head so that regular wigs fit. I'll let you know if it works.

Since they're all sharing wigs, let me show you Lorifina next to two of my Dollstown girls, Seola (left) and Ariel (right):

Seola is 18" (46cm) and Ariel is 23.6" (60cm)

The Dollstown girls out-pose Lorifina like nobody's business.  But they didn't cost $50.
Here's Lorifina next to Liv and Frankie:

She's big!

Lorifina has a beautiful face, I think.  She reminds me of a Disney princess.  Her expression is very neutral--she's not smiling, but she's not grumpy or spacey.  Her eyes are set very nicely and they are a good green color--not so bright that they look unnatural.  The face paint is very soft and versatile.  From what I understand, there was no variety in face sculpt, so no matter how else you customized your doll, this was the the face you got:

Bottom line?  I think I made the right call by waiting and getting one of these dolls discounted on eBay.  It would have been fun to design my own doll and select from all of the different options that were available, but I think for the $98 price tag and with all of the time invested in designing her, I would have felt slightly disappointed by the final product.  Lorifina's articulation falls short of what I'd expect from a $100 doll.  It seems like with a bit more thought to her hip joints and some articulation in her wrists, she'd have been remarkably better.  The fact that there is a color discrepancy between her arms and feet and the rest of her body is distracting.

Lorifina's face, hair and clothes are top-notch.  Her eyes are well-set and the color is great.  Her face paint is natural and carefully done.  Her hair is silky-smooth and very realistic.  The design of the wig cap is clever and works well, although it makes the doll unable to share wigs with BJDs.  The clothes are fashionable and beautifully made.  She is a large, sturdy, impressive doll.  I actually find myself being rather fond of this doll despite her difficult photo shoot.  She's very pleasant to have around.  I'd love to have more Lorifina-brand wigs and clothes because these items really make the doll rise above her articulation shortcomings.

Summary:

Age Level	Box says 8 and up and I agree.
Value	For $50 on eBay, this is an excellent value.
Quality	Doll is very solid and sturdy.  The placement of the eyes is great, face paint is nice and the quality of the hair is outstanding.  The clothes are very well made and have wonderful details.  Articulation of the doll is stiff and limited and not all of the plastic in the body matches.
Packaging	Great.  Very attractive and almost all of it is cardboard.
Collectable?	Probably not.  I don’t see this as a collectible, even though the line has been discontinued.
Versatility	She has a neutral face that could embrace many personalities, and a large selection of clothing and wigs.  The product is discontinued, though, so accessories are becoming hard to find.
Overall	Recommended...if you find a deal comparable to the one described here.