Ever After High "Apple White" by Mattel

I don't like to be too repetitive, but ever since AJ's wonderful guest review of Madeline Hatter, I have been even more excited to get a look at my favorite of the first four Ever After High dolls, Apple White.  

While I was in Boston visiting the American Girl store, I took a few minutes to pop into the Natick Mall to see if they had a Justice store.  Sure enough, there was a Justice (and just about every other store on the planet) and several of the Ever After girls were in stock.  There's something funny going on with the prices of these dolls, though, because they're marked $36 (which can't possibly be the normal retail price...) but everything in Justice is 40% right now, so the price ends up being around $21, which is perfectly reasonable.  I assume and hope that when these dolls appear in other stores, they will cost $20.

Ever After High doll, "Apple White."

I really like Apple White's name.  When Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple, she got a lot of criticism from the public.  I think this is a cute name, and perfect for a fairy tale themed doll.  It's a little strange, though, that Snow would name her daughter after the food that put her into a magic-induced coma, right?  That would be like Frodo Baggins naming his son Sauron.  Oh well--too each their own.

Apple's box is just like Madeline's, except for the fact that Apple has a different color scheme, and she is a Royal, not a Rebel:

The symbol for Ever After High seems to be a heart-shaped padlock attached to a key with a woman's face on it.  The teeth of the key are the letters "e" and "a."

I like the book-shaped box, but the elaborate shape means that the packaging is not quite as simple or easy to manage as a Monster High box.  There's more plastic on this box, too. 

Here's a picture of the top of the box so that you can see the curved cardboard backdrop that is decorated with lines to look like book pages:

The side of the box also has a page design and "Ever After High" drawn in a print that actually looks like it was written in pencil across a closed book's pages:

The back of the box gives some information specific to Apple White:

Are you a Royal or a Rebel?

It's a bit cliche. 

Raven, Madeline and Briar were also in stock at the Justice in Natick.  Of these three, I like Briar the best, although I love Maddie's hair and dress.  I guess I am a Royal...but I pretty much knew that already, given my fondness for Cinderella.  

The plastic front of the box is attached to the cardboard with plastic tabs.  You can cut the tabs off or try to tear them off along some perforated lines.  I just cut them.

You can see some of the packaging details better with the plastic removed:

The cardboard bookmark hides a folded story that you can see popping out a little in the picture above. The bookmark has tabs on either end that slide out of the cardboard backdrop. You can cut the tabs off to make a nice rectangular bookmark-shaped booklet:

The book is more like a pamphlet, but the bookmark design is clever.

The booklet is a journal written by Apple, with chapter headings.  It's nice because it explains some of the backstory--every teenager at Ever After High is destined to become their parent's fairy tale character, and they have a predestined "Happily Ever After" that they all know about.  The Raven Queen is threatening this blissfully secure future. 

The writing is casual and chatty and the pictures are very simple.  I think it's funny how Apple says, "whatever after."

The stand is concealed in the spine of the book.  Apple's stand is gold:

The stand design is very similar to the traditional Monster High stands, but it has a fancier, wider base in the shape of the Ever After High lock and key:

Here's the stand alone and next to a Monster High stand:

The doll and brush can be removed from the cardboard backdrop by snipping a few clear rubber bands and some plastic holders:

The design of the backdrop is interesting.  It's covered with partially obscured text as though it is one of the pages from an old, worn book:

If you look at the text closely, though, you'll see that it's not all in English:

It looked like French to me, so I tried to read a few of the sentences and figure out what they mean (thank you, Google Translator).  Here are some examples:

Ever After High pas votre ecole ordinaire que enseigne l'histoire mathematiques (and then something in parentheses that I can't read).  This translates roughly to: "Ever After High is not your ordinary school that teaches the history of mathematics (_______!)"

Another sentence starts in German: Marchen ended mit Glas-Hausschuhe, but then finishes in Spanish: libro de cuentos.  This means: "Fairy tale ended with glass slippers... storybook."  Huh.

I couldn't decipher very many of the sentences, but my favorites are:

Comme si elle etait vraiment a peu profonde! ("As if she was really a little shallow!")

Ever After a un etudiant peut etre une pomme ("Ever After has a student might be an apple")

I love how this sentence suggests that they're not sure if the student is an apple or not.  Hard to tell.

So maybe that apple is one of the students?  Hm.

It will be interesting to see if the backdrops on other doll's boxes have different sentences or different languages.

Here's the brush--it is made out of the same gold plastic as the stand, and it is in the shape of the Ever After High logo key.

Finally, here is Apple White herself:

Slightly baggy stockings.

Apple's stand works fine, but I was hoping that 13 Wishes Clawdeen's saddle stand would also work.  It turns out that Clawdeen's stand does not fit Apple very well. The saddle is too tight for Apple's body, and her legs are a little short.

Apple has a lot of jewelry accessories, and they are all made out of the same gold plastic as the stand and the brush. She has a ring in the shape of a bow:

Actually, I have the ring on the wrong finger in this picture (that explains why it kept falling off...):

Apple's right hand has two of the middle fingers positioned together, and this is where the ring is supposed to go (it still falls off quite a lot when it's wedged onto these two fingers).

The ring is tiny and I'll probably loose it, or one of my dogs will eat it.  

I like how the gold plastic has some glittery shine to it.

Apple is also carrying a purse that is shaped like an apple:

It has a really fun molded beading pattern:

The purse opens, which is wonderful:

The purse is great for storing all of the tiny jewelry pieces.  Maybe I won't loose that ring after all!

Apple is wearing a single gold plastic bracelet.  You have to remove her hand to get this piece of jewelry off:

The Addams Family theme song plays in my head when I see this picture.

Apple's outfit theme seems to be beads (bubbles?) and bows.  The bracelet has lots of molded spheres and a teeny tiny bow accent at the top:

Apple is also wearing bow-shaped gold plastic earrings:

And a headband with a red bow and a gold plastic crown:

There's some molded detail on the red band:

This reminds me of another headband crown...

This crown has some wonderful molded and painted details:

Liv did it better.

Her outfit consists of a strapless dress and a high-collared shrug:

The little shrug jacket is made out of a stiff material with a gold checkered print.  The sleeves are trimmed with gold stitching.  Hidden in the large collar is a gold plastic necklace:

The collar seems designed to be worn standing up, but this makes the rough hemmed edge show in back:

Underneath the jacket, the dress has a red fitted corset-style bodice with black tulle trim:

The underskirt is very stiff and can hold its shape.  It is covered by a pink floral print overskirt with a black tulle trim:

Notice the little apple silhouettes in the shiny gold scroll pattern of the skirt:

I really like the red part of the skirt, but that pink split overskirt with the black trim makes the dress a bit too Moulin Rouge or cheesy French maid for my taste.

It looks like she could use those flaps like wings and fly away:

Ladybug, ladybug...

Apple is wearing black fishnet stockings and red high-heeled shoes:

Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da...

The red shoes have molded bows and beads on them, and also a cool spiral heel design:

There's also a molded leaf on the outside edge of each shoe, which is nice because it helps me tell the left shoe from the right:

The Ever After High face is very different from the Monster High faces.  Apple seems to have the same face as Maddie.  It is a round, flat-profile face with large, wide-set eyes:

When I smoothed the hair away from my Apple's face, I noticed that she has crooked eyebrows:

She looks a little irritated...at least on the right side of her face.  I just tell myself she's raising one eyebrow sardonically--a skill I wish I had myself.  

Oh--you remember that Photo Booth symmetry trick I did with my Arizona Doll and Toy museum baby?  Here's the same trick with Apple.  The pictures are terrible, but you can see she has a nice side...

Aw.

And a naughty side:

Yikes!

I don't think the doll is supposed to be raising one eyebrow, although that would be pretty great.  Here's a picture of another Apple White doll at Justice.  Her eyebrows might not be perfectly straight, but I think they look more level than my doll's eyebrows:

Apple's eye paint has a lot of detail.  She has two-toned blue irises with thickly painted black eyelashes.  She has three shades of eyeliner: metallic silver, dark brown and a lighter, thinner brown all around the outside.  What's interesting is that she has a band of bright purple in the whites of her eyes:

Purple eye isn't contagious.

All of the Ever After dolls have white dots on their lips.  I think these are meant to make the lips look shiny or sparkly:

Apple's blonde ringlet curls are a mess:

The disorder is not helped by the fact that she has a strange, lopsided hairdo.  Small sections of hair from either side of her face are pulled back and tied together underneath the hair from the top of her head.  Like this:

You can see that the rooting is fine.  It's not super-thick, but it's not thin like a La Dee Da doll or my EuroGirl.  Thank goodness.

The Ever After High body has 11 points of articulation.  

Apple has a sway back, but it's not as pronounced as the trademark Monster High arch:

As AJ pointed out, the torso has a slightly thicker (more natural) build than the ultra-skinny Monster High body.

Here's a side-by-side comparison with 13 Wishes Clawdeen:

As I started to play around with Apple, the first thing I noticed is that while she can do things like this:

Her hip joint has restricted movement.  The shape of her upper leg interferes with smooth rotation of the joint.  

Note: some of these pictures seem crude, and I apologize, but I couldn't find a way to show you the nitty gritty of the hip joint in a more delicate way.

Clawdeen has some of the same movement restrictions as Apple (like not being able to do full sideways splits...):

...but Clawdeen does several things better than Apple.  For example, Clawdeen can cross her legs a bit more:

Clawdeen can do a high side kick without showing big gaps in her hip joint:

Both dolls rotate at the knee (which is great!) but Apple's thicker lower legs make the rotated position look strange:

Here's a comparison of the two dolls' lower leg thicknesses:

I also noticed that if you rotate Apple's arms straight up in the air, she can't spread them out from side-to-side much at all:

Yay!

Clawdeen's arms can rotate straight up and then bend all of the way out until they're at a 90 degree angle with her head:

YAY!

Apple can still do some great posing:

She can sit nicely...

...except that her legs are too long for this Monster High couch, so she has to tuck them off to one side or sit knock-kneed.  

AJ discussed how well Maddie and Howleen share clothes in her review (the dress fits Howleen but the shoes do not...), so in this review I'll look at how well Clawdeen and Apple can share their wardrobes.

While Clawdeen's dress looks amazing on Apple, the fit is too tight and the dress will not close completely in back.

D'oh.

However, Clawdeen's shoes fit almost perfectly:

Apple's dress looks ridiculous on Clawdeen.  Also, the fit is too lose, so the strapless bodice keeps falling down.

Not surprisingly, the shoes are a good fit:

Mattel missed a real opportunity here.  Why, oh why, would they not make these two cross-over lines able to share clothes?  Clothes sharing with Howleen and Twyla doesn't count.  There are only two of those smaller-bodied dolls and dozens of the taller girls.  Clothes sharing should be with the regular-sized dolls.  The completely different body doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 

Here are some more pictures of Apple wishing she could wear Clawdeen's dress:

Imagine the mix-and match possibilities that were lost.  Sigh.

I rounded up a few dolls for a comparison picture:

Disney Store Rapunzel, 13 Wishes Clawdeen, Apple White, Fashionista Barbie, Magic Night Out Meygana

Apple is the most similar to Clawdeen, but she also looks fairly close in size to Magic Night Out Meygana:

I think Apple's dress actually suits Meygana, but it's way too small and can't close at all in the back.

Because of Apple's slimmer build, she can wear Bratzillaz clothes...they're just a bit loose.  I thought that the basic Meygana's dress might look nice with Apple's eyes:

And the Switch-A-Witch black and white dress, because it is tight-fitting, is a pretty good match:

The Cutie Pop dolls have about the same size chest as Apple, so some of those dresses can be shared, too.

It's not a perfect fit, but it could work.

I decided that Apple's hair was so messy and uneven, I might as well take out the little rubber band and see how the curls do when they are brushed.

Hmm.  Emily--are you sure that's a good idea?

Ok, here are a few more shots of the factory hair in case I mess things up horribly:

Well, first of all, I like the hair with the little ponytail taken out.  It looks much more even and full:

And...with the hair brushed, there's a certain amount of frizziness, but I don't think it's awful.  Phew!

The cut is (intentionally?) uneven--angling down from her right to her left:

Here are a few final pictures of this interesting new doll:

Bottom line?  Since this is a Monster High spin-off line, it's difficult for me to evaluate the doll without comparing her to a Monster High doll.  In fact, I think it's necessary for me to compare her to a Monster High doll.  

What struck me when the Monster High line first came out is that every doll was so unique.  I couldn't believe that Clawdeen's head mold had wolf ears and Lagoona's head mold had scalloped piscine ears.  Many of the Monster High dolls have differently shaped faces, too.  Not only that, each doll has a unique fashion style.  Frankie's clothes are often schoolgirl prim, while Clawdeen's get-ups are edgier, and Lagoona looks like she just came from the beach.  The Ever After High dolls do not have this same diversity.  All of the faces look the same to me.  Spin Master made this mistake with the Liv dolls.  If all of the characters have the same face, there's little incentive to buy multiple dolls.  I mean, will Cinderella's daughter just be Apple in a different dress?  I hope not.  Furthermore, the Ever After faces are very round and plain, with nowhere near the character of, say, Clawdeen's fierce pout, Lagoona's wide-eyed innocence, or Ghoulia's slightly confused pucker.  My Apple's eyebrow-error gives her more character than she was meant to have.  Don't get me wrong, I think the face is fine.  It's a recognizable face, and maybe the mild expression will leave room for kids' imaginations to fill in a neat personality. 

The Ever After High dolls clearly need to have head molds that are different from Monster High heads (otherwise they would just be new Monster High dolls), but half of me wishes that Mattel had re-used the Monster High body.  This would have made sense given the spin-off nature of the line, and clothes sharing would be easy.  The other half of me is glad to see a new body shape.  Even so, I wish Mattel had maintained the same level of articulation quality that we enjoy in the Monster High dolls.  Apple White's joints don't have the range or fluidity of motion that Monster High joints have.

I think that the idea behind the Ever After High dolls is brilliant.  It is a perfect spin-off concept.  While Monster High dolls cater to the spooky, darker side of collectors' imaginations, these new dolls will satisfy the happily-ever-after sweetness that many people crave.  There seems to be no shortage of new monsters whose teenaged spawn can join the Monster High lineup.  Similarly, fairy tales provide a rich pool of characters from which new dolls could be made.  Mattel isn't likely to end either of these lines for lack of new material.  In addition, the fairy tale theme provides some good fodder for amazing outfits and accessories.  I am picturing Cinderella's daughter, Ashlynn, with a steampunk-style clock outfit (for the clock striking midnight) or a semi-transparent gossamer outfit that suggests glass (for the glass slippers).  Or maybe even an outlandish bubble gown that hints at a pumpkin?  Apple's wonderful beaded fruit purse is a good start, but I wish she had some funky apple ornaments on her shoes (apple cores as heels?) or a dress that was a zany, modern interpretation of Snow White's signature gown.  

I like things about this doll, and I am eager to see the new characters as they come out, but I'm left feeling like with material this rich, the design team isn't having enough fun.  Liven it up, Mattel--this could be gold.