Monster High Skultimate Roller Maze Lagoona

Many of you voted on which Monster High Roller Maze doll I should de-box next, and Lagoona won with a whopping 48% of the votes!  I'm so glad you picked her because she is my favorite Monster High character.  Ghoulia was the second most popular pick with 18% of the vote, and poor Frankie came in last--but just by a hair (16% of you wanted me to open her).

Here's the lovely Lagoona!

Skultimate Roller Maze Lagoona.

The art on the back of the box shows the girls roller skating together.  I like the doll Lagoona better than her cartoon counterpart.  On the box, Lagoona claims she's a "fish out of water" on skates, but I find that hard to believe.  I'd rather imagine her as being ultra-suave on the skates, giving high-fives as she passes all of her friends.

Lagoona comes with the same eye-sore yellow backdrop and nuclear green stand as Operetta:

She has two large curls on top of her head that weren't as noticeable when she was in the box.  Not sure I like those.

M-I-C, K-E-Y...

Here's Lagoona out of her box.  I'll save the helmet for a little bit later, because it wasn't immediately clear to me how to put it on correctly.

Those hair curls are very distracting.  They really do look like ears...or maybe Princess Leia buns:

Help me Toy Box Philosopher, you're my only hope!

And they don't really fit what I imagine to be Lagoona's chill style.

What are...are these...am I turning into a teddy bear??

What.  Haven't you seen a fish with ears before?

Well, in my opinion, Lagoona is lovely enough to make the hair ears work.  It just takes a little extra effort:

I have always liked Lagoona's sweet, freckled face and aquatic coloration.  This version has the typical green eyes and purple eyebrows, but she also has green freckles and green highlights added to her yellow-blonde and blue hair.  I think the new colors look great:

I find Lagoona's eyebrows a bit harsh for her otherwise pale palette, but as someone who owns a pair of fairly, um, distinctive eyebrows myself, I am excited that perhaps thicker eyebrows are coming back into style.

Lagoona has yellow, blue and purple eye makeup, and a tiny bit of gold glitter under her eyebrows that might be hard to see:

Extreme close-up.

I don't know the significance of all the added green in this roller skating line, but in some dolls it works really well.  Lagoona's hair is one of those places where the green looks great.  It goes with her water themed character, and it actually brings new brightness and depth to her hair.  

The blonde of her hair is a bit yellower
than some of the other Lagoonas.

The curls are distracting, but try to focus on the green.  It's like algae:

She looks very...photosynthetic.

Here's what those two curls look like up close--they're each little pony tails with the end tucked back into the rubber band to make a small loop:

The green doesn't seem overdone to me, it's very subtly sprinkled throughout her hair:

Lagoona's dress is pretty simple.  It is basically just a black mini dress with a pink ribbon around the bottom.  What makes it interesting is a raggedly cut yellow band of material that adorns the top.  If I am not mistaken, the print on this yellow fabric contains angler fish.  ANGLER fish.  On a doll dress.  How cool is that?

Let me just tell you a quick story about angler fish, you know, because I am a biology teacher.  Angler fish as you usually see them (like the ones on Lagoona's dress) are all females.  The males of the species are tiny, not at all scary, and actually can't live very long on their own.  They can't even eat.  What they do is find a female and attach to her, eventually getting permanently melded to the female's skin as a little lump.  A sperm-donor lump.   So, when the female needs some sperm, she's all set.  How about that?

So, any of those little lumps could actually be Mr. Angler.

Speaking of disturbing, look at my Lagoona's right hand:

She has a huge shard of vinyl in her hand.  Ow.

Back to the dress.  Here it is from the front and the back:

It has a neon green ribbon strap holding it up on one side, and an off the shoulder sleeve on the other.

Lagoona's roller skates don't match her dress (which I think is fine--it' normal, actually), but they do match her helmet.  Both are decorated with fish scales, fins and what look like bubbles or pearls:

The skates have the same mismatched wheels as we saw on Operetta's skates.

The helmet looks amazing, but it isn't clear to me how to get it on over her big hair, or even which end is the front.  I'll deal with that later.

Lagoona has the same knee pads that Operetta had, but hers are teal green to match her other gear. 

It's easier to see the skull face on these lighter knee pads:

Here are some shots of Lagoona before I start to wrestle with her helmet.  Forgive her for not being safety conscious.

Ok, so, the helmet.  The helmet, while looking great, is not as easy to figure out as Operetta's helmet was. This helmet does not have a clear front and back, nor does it have any slits to accomodate the hairstyle. It does, however, have a strap that detaches, so that's a start.  Actually, Opereta's helmet has a detachable strap, too, I didn't notice it the other day because I didn't need to detach it to get it on.

After trying to accomodate the poofy hair loops, I gave up and just crammed the helmet on:

It looks like a sea monster is trying to eat her head.

I think this is the right way to put it on, but it doesn't look great:

It's lopsided because the big hair underneath is pushing it all over the place, desperate to break free:

Here's the helmet both ways--on the left with the small part of the fin in the front and the whole fin leaning towards the back of the helmet, and on the right the larger part of the fin is in front and it tapers in the back.  I have no idea which is correct.

I searched the box for clues about this helmet, but all I learned was that she should have some hair sticking out in front:

Well, and maybe the tall part of the fin goes in front? Argh!

 Is this better?

Ah...no.

 Furthermore, the helmet leaves her hair looking like this:

We've gone from teddy bear ears to Labrador ears.

It's not very good hair anyway.  All Lagoonas are prone to frizziness, and this Lagoona is no exception.  Her hair is a coarse mess.  It feels like it badly wants to become a rat's nest.

I took out the ponytails...and it got even worse.

(She's still pretty, though):

Several of you have taught me about boiling the hair when it is unmanageable and frizzy...so I finally tried it.  It's fun!  She looks awesome with wet hair--very beach glam and fishy:

The hair dried pretty nicely:

All the curl is gone, but it is smooth and soft.

And now the helmet fits without looking like it's trying to escape.  In the end, I think the helmet is great and fits well, it was just the hair that was the problem.

Here are the two roller girls:

Here's the new Lagoona in comparison to wave 2 Lagoona (who also has the hang ten hand):

I love the golden blonde of the new girl and I think she has a slightly softer appearance overall.  The green and blue highlights stand out even better in the straightened hair:

It's another winner for Monster High.  These roller girls are certainly simpler than the usual Monster High release, but if their retail price is good (I still don't know what it is...) I can recommend them as  great basic dolls--perhaps even a better choice than something like the Dead Tired dolls because of the fun roller skating accessories.

Ghoulia is gone!  Thank you for the emails!!