Picture Day Frankie Stein and Scaris Abbey Bominable--A Guest Review!

This has been a crazy week and so I am beyond delighted to have a guest reviewer who was willing to step in and do some of my work for me!  I would like to introduce my well-named young friend, Emily, who will get you up-to-speed with two of the newer Monster High girls!

Hi guys! I’m Emily and I’ll be doing a guest review on Picture Day Frankie and Scaris Abbey.  A quick explanation about this review: ­I decided to do a comparison with these dolls, just to mix it up.  So, without further ado, here’s the review!

Picture Day Frankie Stein (L) and Scaris Abbey Bominable (R).

About the boxes: Frankie’s box is very similar to Picture Day Cleo's box, which was covered previously in this review.  As you can see, it uses Frankie’s signature blue, which is echoed throughout her outfit.

Abbey’s box is much simpler, which is understandable. It has a picture of all the basic travel dolls, and an explanation of the Scaris line. Her box is also barely personalized, in contrast to the many different color schemes of the Picture Day dolls. (As you can see, Abbey is out of her box at this point. I don’t like taking pictures in the box, because the glare bugs me.)

Once out of the box, Frankie has a folder, a purse, jacket, brush, stand, and yearbook with stickers, in addition to her dress & belt. The brush, stand, and yearbook aren’t pictured in this review because, a. the stand and brush are the same as almost every other one, and b. the yearbook is kind of pointless is my opinion.

Abbey has a purse, and her dress with a plastic belt. I was slightly disappointed that she didn’t come with a stand, but she’s a $12 doll.

On to the comparison:

I was immediately impressed with the quality of Frankie’s jacket. It is very well made, with yellow and black stripes on the edges of the sleeves. 

To make things a bit fairer, I gave Abbey a fur jacket that I made, but it’s nowhere near as nice:

1. Dresses: Both dolls have relatively simple dresses. Abbey’s is one­-shouldered with a cool geometric pattern and fur trim on the hem. Her belt is icy blue plastic with an icicle-­type shape. I think the belt is not as great as it could be, and I prefer the dress without it. 

Frankie’s dress has a striped base, with one of the ruffles in that fabric, and the other ruffle has a grey and blue diamond pattern. The top has a yellow lightning bolt decal and a yellow collar. I think the quality and design of the dresses is quite evenly matched.

2. Accessories: Both dolls come with a purse, earrings, and another jewelry piece (bracelets for Frankie, a necklace for Abbey). Frankie's purse has a cute stitched-­together feel, and a safety pin handle. Abbey's purse is icy­-blue plastic that looks as though it is made of bricks of ice. The black closure has molded snowflakes. Although Frankie's purse opens and Abbey's doesn't, I like Abbey's better because it seems to be better quality. Frankie's closure flops around too much.

3. Faces and Hair: Both dolls have nice faces, and one of the reasons I love Abbey is because I think she has the coolest face mold ever. Neither one has any defects I've noticed. The only thing I might say is that they are very similar to other versions of their character. Both dolls have ponytails, but there are differences. Frankie has bangs, which I immediately brushed out because the were too stiff for my liking. She has her usual salt­-and­-pepper hair, just pulled into a high pony. 

Abbey's hair is really nicely designed. She has all the usual components, (sparkles, colorful streaks) but they are layered so it's new and not too much.

4. Hands and Skin: I know this isn't usually covered, but I just want to gush about the detail Abbey has. For one, her skin sparkles!!! This is hard to see, but it is one of my favorite things. Her hands are also quite special, even for Monster High hands. They're quite a bit bigger than Frankie's normal­-sized hands.

5. Shoes. I think Frankie's shoes are actually kinda boring in terms of Monster High shoes. They are slightly mismatched with black open heels and bolt decals. 

Abbey's shoes are amazing, though, with molded icicles on the wedge and ice crystals on the toe and ankle straps.

I like both of these dolls a lot, and think they both are excellent examples of Monster High's creativity, even with basic ideas. They're definitely both worth their price. Here are some more shots of them:

Thank you, Emily!  This is Emily. :)  I love your careful comparisons--and I adore the jacket you made for Abbey!  

I have Scaris Abbey, too, because I still haven't de-boxed my first edition Abbey (she was so hard to find!), and I wanted a less expensive but similar version of the character to play with. 

My Abbey has her hair down, so I thought I would add a few pictures of that for everyone to see:

I love rainbow hair, so Abbey is a good pick for me.  This hair isn't as good as Rainbow Dash's hair, but it's pretty fun.  

I totally agree with Emily about the dress--simple, but nice (I don't like the belt, either).  The fur hem is a great detail.  I also agree that the blue sparkly vinyl is wonderful.

Abbey's purple eyes are so much better than certain other purple eyes....

Here's a head comparison with the first Abbey, since I mentioned her:

Here are the dresses side-by-side, too:

Unfortunately, Scaris Abbey has very thinly rooted hair:

Zoiks!

The purse is cute, but it frustrates me because the top lifts up, but you can't fit anything inside!  

There's no real opening:

I agree that the shoes are great.  The icicle pattern looks like a flower in the front:

I'd like to extend a big thank you to Emily for investigating these two dolls and reporting back with such a fun comparison!