More Minis! Part 1: The Funville Sparkle Girlz

I had so much fun reviewing the new Moxie Girlz Friends dolls and the Battat Our Generation minis, that I've stayed focused on smaller dolls for the last week or so--hunting around locally and online to see what else is out there in the 5-10 inch size range.  Locally, I visited Target, Walmart, Toys R Us and the Dollar Store to see what mini dolls are readily available here in my part of the world.  Online, I hunted down some older Battat mini dolls that I learned about while researching the new dolls.  In a two-part mini series, I'll show you my favorite dolls from this search: the Collector's Lane Kids 6-inch dolls by Battat (that'll be Part 2...), and today, the inexpensive line of 4-inch dolls from Walmart called Funville Sparkle Girlz.

There are a few different sizes of Sparkle Girlz.  There are 20-inch play dolls, 12-inch fashion dolls, and 4-inch toddlers.  I was interested in the toddlers for this review, but these smallest Sparkle Girlz are actually quite hard to find around here.  There are four Walmart stores in my immediate area, and I've visited all of them within the last five days.  All of these stores had plenty of the larger dolls, but most had only one kind of mini...or just empty cardboard display cases.  Since these dolls cost $2.47, it's no surprise that they are hard to keep in stock.  At the very last Walmart I visited, I finally found a representative variety of little Sparkle Girlz.

In this post I will show you four different dolls from this series and contrast them to the comparably-priced Moxie Girlz Friends dolls.

Funville Sparkle Girlz "Little Ballerina" mini doll.

Before I started taking photographs for the Sparkle Girlz review, I gathered together all of the mini dolls in my house that still have their packaging.  I wanted to show you the mix of styles and sizes:

Left to right: Barbie "Darrin," Moxie Girlz "Neve," Collector's Lane "Rachel," Li'l Ones "Preppy Paige," Our Generation "Mini Sienna," Sparkle Girlz "Little Fairy" and American Girl "Mini Kit."

Here are the boxed dolls arranged from largest to smallest box size (which doesn't always correspond to doll size):

Left to right: Collector's Lane "Rachel," Our Generation "Mini Sienna,"
American Girl "Mini Kit," Barbie "Darrin," Li'l Ones "Preppy Paige."

The doll in the largest box is one of the Collector's Lane Kids mini dolls that I will review next.

Here's another picture because I forgot about my boxed Maki-chan doll (sister to Miki-chan) and wanted to add her in:

Left to right: Our Generation "Mini Sienna," American Girl "Mini Kit,"
Barbie "Darrin," Li'l Ones "Preppy Paige," and Takara's Maki-Chan.

The only two dolls that don't come in boxes are the Moxie Girlz Friends and the Sparkle Girlz toddlers. These both come in simple, open-faced cardboard displays:

Moxie Girlz "Neve," and Sparkle Girlz "Little Fairy."

What's interesting to me here is that spelling of "Girlz" and the similarity in the packaging makes it seem like the Sparkle Girlz copied the the more popular Moxies, but these small Moxie Girlz dolls came out after the Sparkle Girlz, so it's not that simple.

I found three different styles of Sparkle Girlz toddler: Little Fairies, Little Princesses and Little Ballerinas.  Within these groups, there are several skin, eye and hair color combinations.  I think the variety in these dolls is one of the best things about them.

The first Sparkle Girlz toddler I found was this Little Fairy girl:

The dolls are attached to their packaging with one plastic cable tie.  That's it.  One.  Snip that tie, and the doll is free:

Could hardly be easier.

This little doll doesn't stand up very well on her own, but that has a lot to do with her extremely long hair pulling her backwards:

"Little Fairy" Sparkle Girlz doll.

At four inches tall, the Sparkle Girlz toddlers are slightly smaller than Barbie Chelsea and the Moxie Girlz, and about the same height as Barbie Kelly, Maki-chan and the Ty Li'l One dolls.  Here's a picture of several of my smaller dolls so that you can see what I mean: 

Left to right in back: Barbie "Kelly," Sofia the First, Sparkle Girlz "Little Fairy," Barbie "Chelsea," Ty Li'l Ones, Moxie Girlz "Amorie," and Maki-chan.  Moxie Girlz "Neve" is seated in front.

The four dolls below are the most comparable in price around here...with Chelsea a bit of an outlier at almost $7:

$6.97, $2.47, $3.99 and $2.99.

I wish the Sparkle Girlz dolls came with names.  I don't always keep a doll's original name, but it's a nice way to identify them, and also imparts some instant personality.  I think I'll call this Little Fairy "Claudia" for now.  She looks like a Claudia to me.

Claudia has long black hair and the darkest of the three skin tones that I have seen.  Her hair comes pulled back into a ponytail, but I think this is just to control the hair in the package.

Two sections of hair from either side of Claudia's head are pulled back into a smaller ponytail:

These sections of hair are loosely twisted, which creates a subtle but slightly fancy effect:

Claudia has light brown decal eyes highlighted by grey eyeshadow.  Her eyebrows are very thin and look slightly raised:

This doll's eyes have a nice shape that reflects the happiness in her face, but the decals are not as vibrant or smooth as the Moxie Girlz eyes.  This is probably due in part to the difference in vinyl between these two dolls.  

Here are Moxie Girlz Tally's eyes for comparison:

Here's a close-up of Claudia's eye.  Notice how the texture of the applied eye isn't completely smooth--there are cross-hatch marks along the edges, especially in the eyeshadow area:

Claudia has a smiling mouth with pastel pink lips that have a slight shimmer.  The lip color seems too fancy and bright for such a young-looking doll. 

Maybe it's ok since she's a fairy, though.

I much prefer the natural color of Moxie Girlz Amorie's lips:

 Claudia is wearing a fairy costume outfit, complete with attached plastic wings:

It's like a fairy version of the Wonder Woman outfit.

The outfit is composed of several different fabrics and appears to be made well for such an inexpensive toy.  There are cute little details like the satin ribbon straps and the pale blue flower ornament on the bodice.  

Most of the garment's edges are finished, with the exception of the very short, jagged-cut skirt.  This skirt is made out of a stiff metallic weave and has a tulle overlay.  The skirt's hemline has the tendency to curl under, making it look even shorter than it is.

The dress opens all of the way down the back with velcro, so it's easy to get on and off.  There's a loop of ribbon at the bottom of the dress to keep it from riding up, and this is the only tricky part of putting the outfit on the doll--her left leg has to go through the loop or the ribbon causes a bulge in the side of the skirt.

It a dress harness.

All of the velcro strips are sewn with at least two rows of pink stitching.  The stitching looks messy in places, but feels secure.  The plastic wings are stitched into the seam on the left side of the dress in back.

I changed this outfit many times throughout the review, and it shows no signs of stress or wear.

Claudia's shoes are painted onto her feet:

The paint is thin in places, but this isn't very obvious in person.

I freed Claudia's larger ponytail, and this helped with her balance a little bit--probably by distributing the hair's weight a little better.  Her hair is very long and thick...too long if you ask me.  It is smooth and shiny at the top of her head, but gets coarser and messier towards the ends. She could really use a haircut.  Her hair brushes out very easily, but it's hard to keep all of the scraggly ends looking neat.

The rooting is very nice on this doll.  The hair is placed in even, narrow rows and the scalp is painted to mask any gaps:

I piled Claudia's hair on top of her head so that I could see her body.  She has a hard plastic torso with a vinyl head and vinyl limbs.  Her arms and legs are quite firm, but they can bend a little.  

Her head has a matte finish, but the rest of her body is quite shiny.  She has a stocky frame that walks a thin line between muscular body-builder and chubby toddler.

She has five points of simple rotating articulation (neck, shoulders and hips):

She can sit on the ground or in a chair (with a tendency to tip over backwards...):

And can do front-to-back splits (again, with moderate balance issues):

Her arms rotate all of the way around, but her large head blocks the movement of her hands past her face.

Here's Claudia with a few of my other small dolls.  Her body shape is relatively short--more similar to Barbie Kelly than to the taller, longer-limbed girls:  

Barbie "Kelly," Sparkle Girlz "Little Fairy," Moxie Girlz "Tally," Barbie "Tamika."

Claudia and Kelly can share clothes pretty well.  I think the fairy outfit looks especially adorable on Kelly:

Not surprisingly, the fairy costume is a bit short on Tally...

And very short on Tamika (my Tamika can't stand by herself, hence the finger).

Claudia can wear Barbie Chelsea-sized clothes, but they're a little loose, and some styles look too long.

It was at this point that I remembered my Takara dolls, and wondered if those toddlers might be comparable to the Sparkle Girlz.  I actually can't find the Miki-chan doll I reviewed, but I have Maki-chan (her twin sister) so she stepped in to model this time.

It turns out that Claudia and Maki are even more similar in size than Claudia and Kelly:

Maki has a more natural shape to her body (especially in the hips and shoulders), but the proportions of these two dolls are very similar.

They share clothes well:

I adore this doll.  She steals the spotlight.

They can even share Maki's yellow hat...or try:

I originally thought that this would be the end of my review, since Claudia was the only small Sparkle Girlz doll I could find after visiting three Walmart stores.  My first impressions were that these dolls are cuter than I thought they would be, are made out of slightly odd vinyl, and have fantasy outfits that aren't very versatile--but seem well-made for their price.  

And, the Sparkle Girlz are nowhere near as cute as Maki-chan, but she's hard to find in this country and I have no idea what her normal price should be.

So...Claudia was getting settled in, making friends with Kelly and Maki under the watchful eye of Kit...

...when I decided to try one last Walmart store that's about twenty minutes away.  I am really glad I did.  This store had a wonderful selection of Sparkle Girlz that gave me a much better idea of the available variety.

The first thing I noticed is that there are some different themes in the mix.  Rather than being a fairy, this next girl is called a "Little Princess:"

This doll's dress is very different from Claudia's short, whimsical costume.  She comes wearing a floor-length gown with a sequined neckline:

"Little Princess" Sparkle Girlz doll.

The other thing I noticed right away is that this doll has a more golden-brown skin tone than Claudia.  She also has straight hair with no wave in it.  This type of hair is easier to keep looking nice.  

The two dolls share the same face mold, though:

I am going to call this doll "Nara:"

Nara's face is very similar to Claudia's.  She has the same shape and color to her eyes, and the same grey eyeshadow.

Nara has a defect in the paint on her lower lip, though, and a smudge across her chin:

Nara's hair comes in a large ponytail for packaging, and then she has the hair on either side of her face pulled down and fastened at the back of her neck:

Nara's princess dress has a stretchy pink bodice with an off-the-shoulder neckline adorned with sequins.  There's a small pink fabric flower decoration at her left shoulder.  She has a long satiny blue skirt with a sparkling tulle overlay.  This dress opens in back, but not all of the way down.  

This dress looks better on my taller mini dolls than Claudia's fairy dress did.  It falls past Tally's knees and would make a great party dress for her:

The fit through the chest is great, with the exception of a slightly larger-than-needed gap at the arm hole:

The dress also looks nice on Tamika:

And works perfectly on little Maki: 

Nara stands well on her own.

I actually bought two of the "Little Princess" dolls since there was some variety in the design of the dresses, and some different options with the coloring of the dolls.  

This Little Princess doll has light skin with blonde hair and blue eyes:

She has a merry little elfin face and so I decided to call her "Daisy."  It seems like such a happy name to me.

Daisy is wearing a floor-length dress, but it has different colors and a different neckline than Nara's dress. 

"Little Princess" Sparkle Girlz doll.

She has her long hair in a ponytail, with small sections of hair from either side of her face pulled up to the top of her head:

There are no twists in this hair like there were with Claudia:

Daisy's face mold is different.  She has a smaller nose than Claudia and Nara, her upper lip is narrower, and she has a little more fullness in her cheeks:

Daisy has bright blue eyes and a non-sparkly peachy-pink color on her lips: 

This doll has the same smiling eyes as Claudia and Nara, but the application of the eyes is very crooked--they're shifted off to her left:

This wonky eye placement actually looks pretty cute in person.  Almost like she's glancing to the side.

Her gown has a red stretch bodice (just like Nara's) but it has a lilac skirt and a ribbon halter top.  I don't like having to tie bows on doll clothes like this, and the bow looks way too big, but otherwise I like this dress a lot.

I took Daisy's large ponytail down.  Like the other dolls, this hair fiber is smooth at the top and coarser at the ends.  It could use a little trim.  There's also a kink in the hair from where the ponytail holder used to be.

A quick boil will probably fix that, though.

The third themed group that I found among the Sparkle Girlz is called "Little Ballerinas."  These dolls all come wearing ballet outfits and have their hair up in a bun.  The doll I chose is a blue-eyed brunette with a pink and purple tutu.  I call her Mallory:

Mallory can stand on her own pretty well.

"Little Ballerina" Sparkle Girlz doll.

Mallory has the same face mold as Daisy, and the two dolls have the same skin tone:

Mallory has a bit more paint on her upper lip, and her eyes are nicely positioned. 

I like the color of her hair, and the twisted bun style.  The bun didn't suffer from being exposed to little hands at the store, and the up-do eliminates the messy-looking coarser ends that this hair fiber seems to have.

The pink tulle head band is elasticized and removable, but it's nice because it hides all signs of the rubber bands that are holding the bun in place:

Mallory's ballet outfit is cute, but it's very short, and the see-through tutu doesn't hide the ribbon that goes between the doll's legs:

A leotard bottom would have been better.

The outfit has a stretchy purple leotard top with a sash-like ribbon decoration and a pink fabric flower:

This outfit is really short on both Tally and Tamika...to the point that they really can't get away with wearing it:

But fits Maki perfectly:

Mallory's tidy hairstyle allows me to demonstrate the posing options on these dolls a little more clearly.  She can sit up pretty well...

...but still has a tendency to fall backwards.

She also struggles a bit with balance on her splits...

But if her legs are pushed out as far as they can possibly go, she can manage a very nice-looking split:

She can also lean back on her hands, but her arms are so short that she leans back quite a lot!

And she can balance like this...which looks fun:

It's not clear in these pictures, but Mallory's torso and limb coloring don't match perfectly.  Her vinyl arms and legs are lighter and have less orange in them than her torso.  Both her torso and her limbs are also much darker than her head.  This same thing is true with Daisy.

Here are all of my little Sparkle Girlz together:

Daisy and Nara are my two favorite dolls in this group.  I like their longer dresses and contrasting features.  

There's quite a pack of these little imps in the house now, so I decided to get out some of my larger dolls and see who might be a good babysitter.

Liv Hayden fits in pretty well with the Sparkle Girlz thanks to her large head.  If anything, Hayden's head is too big to be in proportion with these smaller dolls.

Licca-chan is a nice older sister for these rascals, which makes sense given how similarly-proportioned the Sparkle Girlz are to Miki and Maki.

A Barbie doll like Midge can also handle a few of these Sparkle Girlz toddlers...which makes sense because of Kelly's similar size.

I also think that Daisy, with her long blonde hair and purple dress, makes a great infant Rapunzel:

It was a little awkward when the Sparkle Girlz met the Moxie Girlz.  These dolls are very comparable in price, and so they could be each others' worst competition on the market:

I looked at my two favorite Moxie Girlz (Neve and Amorie) alongside my two favorite Sparkle Girlz (Daisy and Nara) to see how these two brands compare.

First, here are Neve and Daisy:

Neve has an older appearance and more modern, practical clothing.  Daisy has the cute charm of an infant, combined with a fantasy-themed gown.  I like both doll's faces and both outfits...for different reasons.  Neve's outfit is more my personal style, but Daisy's outfit is better-made.  

Many of the dolls' flaws seem to cancel each other out.  For example, Neve's dress might come unraveled at the neck, but Daisy's dress straps are a pain to tie.  Both girls have face paint defects that I actually find endearing.  

One notable difference between these two dolls is the quality of their vinyl.  Neve's vinyl seems nicer--her body color is more uniform, less orange, less shiny and overall more natural-looking than Daisy's.  This, combined with a slight preference for Neve's face, tip the balance and make Neve my favorite of these two dolls.

Now, here are Nara and Amorie:

This comparison is much easier for me.  I'm pretty smitten with Amorie.  The only thing I like better about Nara is her dress...and I do like it quite a bit more.  It's better-constructed and fits many of my other dolls really well.  However, the dress isn't enough to sway me...Amorie is my clear favorite between these two.

Bottom line?  I dismissed the Sparkle Girlz toddler dolls a while ago based on a knee-jerk assumption that they were very low quality.  I have to say, though, that after giving them a closer look, I've found several things that make these little dolls easily worth their $2.50 price.

First of all, the faces are sweeter than I remembered.  I like that there are at least two different face molds and a fun mix of skin, eye, and hair colors.  Also, the hair isn't bad at all.  Most of my Sparkle Girlz could use a trim and a boil, and even then it'll be hard to escape the coarse ends (which are more pronounced on the wavy-haired dolls), but the majority of the hair feels soft and smooth.  I wonder how this hair will hold up over time, but right now it's good.

Second, I remembered the bodies of these dolls as having greasy-looking, poor-quality vinyl...which is not the case.  They are not made out of the best vinyl I have seen (the torsos don't match the limbs or the heads perfectly, and the limbs are pretty shiny), but there's decent articulation and the bendable limbs add to the dolls' expressiveness.

Last, I am impressed by the quality and variety of the tiny clothes on these dolls.  I especially like the princess gowns because they are long enough to be worn by many of my other small dolls.  Each outfit has a cute design, velcro closure, finished edges, and several neat little details.  I tend to prefer every-day modern outfits to shiny, fantasy-themed clothing, so I wish that there was a group of Sparkle Girlz wearing regular toddler clothes, but maybe that's something for the future.  I think the clothes alone justify the price of these little dolls.

The choice between the Moxie Girlz and the Sparkle Girlz depends a lot on what you're after.  The Moxies represent older children with a little attitude.  They have bright, modern clothes--some of which aren't as durable as they could be.  They have nice coloring and crisp facial features.  The Sparkle Girlz are more babyish, and have glittery fantasy-themed clothing that is surprisingly well-made for the price.  Their vinyl and facial screening is not as good, though.  Personally, I prefer the Moxie Girlz to the Sparkle Girlz, but it's a much closer race than I ever would have guessed.