Monster High "Catrine DeMew"

There are a lot of new Monster High dolls on the shelves in Maine.  So far, I've seen all of the Scaris dolls, some of the Picture Day line and two of the Power Ghouls. Many of them look great, but Catastrophe Toralei Stripe and the lovely Catrine DeMew made the top of my wish list.  These two stand out to me--maybe because they're both cats.  Toralei has not made her debut here yet, but Catrine was at my Walmart last week so I thought I would do a quick review of her:

Scaris "Catrine DeMew" Monster High doll.

The Merida Talking Doll from The Disney Store

I have already reviewed the original 12" Merida doll from the Disney store (love her) and took an in-box look at the first 17" collector's edition Merida doll, but I couldn't resist ordering a third Merida--the 17" talking play doll version ($29.50).  Having never owned a singing Disney doll before, I wondered if these princesses might offer a nice middle ground between the small inexpensive play dolls and the larger limited editions.

Even before I got her out of the box, I could tell that this doll has struck another important balance.  She is not quite as serious as the limited edition doll, and not quite as goofy as the play doll.  She has her own look:

Merida talking doll from the Disney Store.

Integrity Toys Doll Comparison Review

I have wanted to write this review for a long time.  It is probably too ambitious, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyway.  Last year, during the Jason Wu Integrity Toys pre-ordering frenzy (which I have no skill at whatsoever) I had a vision of doing a comparative review between Integrity dolls across different price points.  In particular, I have always been curious about the differences between a Fashion Royalty doll and a Dynamite Girl.  I wanted the dolls I compared to look similar and I wanted to like all of them enough that I would buy them even without this crazy review scheme.  The problem is, the Integrity pre-order situation is hard enough without throwing in so many other constraints.  Still, I did pretty well.  I ordered "Back to Brooklyn" Gavin, a Dynamite Girl ($65.00), and Fashion Royalty "World on a String" Eugenia Perrin ($110.00).  I also ordered the discontinued ITBE doll, Confident ($19.99).  They are all redheads.  The dolls arrived at various times over the past year.  Eugenia trailed the pack and didn't make her appearance until the end of December.  Having just gone through the Integrity pre-order for 2013, I thought that this would be a good time to de-box my 2012 girls and see what Integrity has to offer at three very different prices.

Left to right: Dynamite Girl ($65), Fashion Royalty ($110), ITBE ($20).

Welcome Home, Sophie

I am up to my ears writing my next (really long--sorry) review, but I had to share this piece of news with all of you instantly.  You know I love Liv dolls, and maybe you remember that I have this strange desire to own all of the Liv Sophie dolls.  This obsession started when Spin Master released their second wave of Liv dolls, and I didn't think I should buy all of the characters again so soon.  I mean, the dolls look pretty similar from one wave to the next and they aren't free.  So, I decided to buy just Sophie from every wave, and then maybe other dolls now and again if there was one that really appealed to me.  That sounds almost reasonable, right?  Except that for some reason I decided that all of my Sophies should stay in their boxes.  This is edging towards the loony side of things, I realize, but once I embark on something, I find it difficult to stop.  So, I bought a Sophie from every wave and am keeping my Sophie army carefully stored in their boxes.  

Spin Master has made a lot of Sophie dolls.  Seventeen, to be precise (including the huge Sophie styling head).  I'll admit to feeling a little tiny bit relieved when the Liv line was discontinued, simply because there's not much room left in my house for more Sophies.

Some Sophies were harder for me to find than others, but really, none of the dolls posed much of a challenge except for one.  Girls Getaway Sophie evaded my searches and haunted my mind for over a year:

"Girls Getaway" Sophie with Sophie as Alice.

Bratzillaz "Magic Night Out" Meygana

I reviewed Midnight Beach Meygana Broomstix very recently, so you might think that I'd take a break from the Bratzillaz line for a while.  The thing is, at the end of the Midnight Beach review I said, "If MGA produces another wave of dolls with normal skin and nice hair, I'd be very interested." Well.  It's almost like MGA read my mind.  I am very interested in this new doll:

New "Magic Night Out" Meygana (boxed) with original Meygana (left)
and Midnight Beach Meygana (right).

Cabbage Patch Kid Babyland Mini Dolls by Jakks Pacific

I found the most wonderful little toy at Toys R Us the other day!  It's a tiny little Cabbage Patch doll.   To me, this is the perfect miniature doll.  It has so many elements that I find irresistibly fun, it's almost like it was made for me.  

First of all, this doll costs under $5.00 ($3.99 at the moment), which is practically unheard of these days.  Most of the mini dolls on the market (Lalaloopsy, Cutie Pops, LPS Blythe) cost closer to $10.  Second of all, the gender of the doll is a secret.  I love surprises!  To me, waiting to learn the gender of a real child is one of life's greatest and most exciting secrets.  Any doll that can re-create even a tiny fraction of that anticipation is instantly appealing to me.  Third, this doll has a hidden name.  As a little girl, I named everything in sight, including all of my dolls and a massive collection of Breyer model horses.  I still love naming things and thinking about names and I am always excited to learn what friends and relatives (and even celebrities) name their babies.  

Full size Cabbage Patch Kids all come with a unique name (a first and a middle name), and I used to lurk in the toy aisles, trying to get a peek at what the names of all the Kids were without giving away what I was doing.  I still do that, actually.  Having a secret name for a doll is a brilliant marketing strategy, because I have to buy the doll in order to learn the name.  Luckily, for $3.99, this isn't a huge burden.  So...here's my cute baby who could be a boy OR a girl and who has a secret mystery name!  Eeee!  Are you excited?

Cabbage Patch mini doll: blonde hair, blue eyes.

Lottie Dolls "Autumn Leaves" and "Lottieville Festival" by Arklu

Update: For anyone interested, I have a newer Lottie review from 2021 (here's a link).

At the end of my last review, I was bemoaning the similarities in the first new play dolls of 2013.  There are a lot of glitzy, fashion-savvy, large-headed, scantily-clad dolls out there right now.  I like many of these dolls, to be sure, but it is nice to stumble upon something novel every once and a while.  I have a charming little doll named Lottie to introduce today, and I knew she was unique after it took me several hours to try and characterize her.  She has the innocent whimsy and high quality construction of the Only Hearts Club dolls, but her face is not very realistic and she is made out of vinyl.  She has a wide-eyed anime-style face almost like a Kurhn doll, and (like Kurhn) is roughly 1:12 scale, but she has the body proportions of a young child.  Her age-appropriate wardrobe and sweet backstories have the wholesome appeal of play dolls like Carpatina and American Girl...but she is only 7 inches tall.  Any connections I can make are tenuous because Lottie isn't really in a category with any of the other play dolls that I own.  Here she is:

Lottie "Autumn Leaves."

Cutie Pops "Swirly Brights" and Cutie Pops "Petites"

I was inspecting the toy aisles at Target the other day, and it was pretty clear that 2013 is in full swing...at least in the play doll world.  I saw two new Bratzillaz lines (Magic Night Out and a group of basic dolls), the Ghouls Alive Monster High dolls (the ones with sound, lights or action), some tempting Garden Party La Dee Da dolls, the Orbit Beach Novi Stars, adorable Lala Oopsie horses and three new Cutie Pops lines.  Phew!  I was especially excited to see the new Cutie Pops.  There is a new character (Carmel), old characters in new outfits, more new characters in a collection called called "Swirly Brights," and a group of four mini dolls or "Petites."  I am a pretty big fan of Cutie Pops, so I like to think that the release of all these new items indicates that Jada Toys is enjoying some well-deserved success with their colorful, creative dolls.

Cutie Pops Swirly Brights "Magenta" and Cutie Pops Petite "Dixie."

Erin by Carpatina

My review inspiration comes from unexpected places.   For example, we were sitting around chatting about stuff in Panama, and my brother-in-law mentioned a play doll catalogue that had recently arrived in the mail at his house.  He couldn’t remember the name of the line, but it had clearly made an impression on him.  He described the girl dolls as being cute and wearing nice-looking historical costumes, but he described the boy dolls as being (and I quote) “grotesque.”  That got my attention.  Grotesque?  Really?  Definitely worth investigating.  He elaborated to explain that while the male dolls have child-like bodies, they’re burdened with large heads and angular man-features.  The problem was, I had absolutely no idea what dolls he was talking about.  I thought maybe he meant Ellowyne Wilde?  But Rufus isn’t grotesque, really, just comical.  I literally had no idea where to start my search for these mystery dolls.  Googling "grotesque male doll" didn't get me anywhere I wanted to be.  Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue.  She used her Google superpowers and tracked down the Carpatina line in under twenty minutes.

Carpatina LLC is a privately owned New Hampshire-based company that has been making play dolls since 2002.  The company name could be derived from the Latin word carpatinus which means "made of hide."  The Carpatina company got its start in 1998 selling medieval Romanian clothing for people.  Their cloaks are amazing and can be bought directly from the Carpatina website or on Amazon.  The company also makes several lines of doll clothing with an emphasis on medieval and fantasy pieces.  The Carpatina website is really fun to browse.  After a few days of deliberation, I settled on the following purchase:

Erin doll wearing the Guinevere fashion.

Kurhn Dolls, Part Two: Kurhn 6077 Glamorous Kurhn

This post is a follow-up to my original Kurhn post, below. In other words, my original post was way, way too long and I had to divide it into two parts.

In this review, I will look at a slightly more expensive Kurhn doll, the "Glamorous Kurhn," 6077.  I purchased her on eBay from flyinannalee for $29.10 plus shipping:

Kurhn 6077

Kurhn Dolls Part One: 3029 "Green Restaurant" Playset

Kurhn dolls are 10.6 inch articulated plastic fashion play dolls made by Kurhn Toys Co., Ltd. in Foshan City, China.  They are essentially the Chinese version of a Barbie doll and I'm told that they're even made in the same factory that Mattel uses to manufacture Barbie dolls.

Moni introduced me to Kurhn dolls back in September when I reviewed my first Tangkou doll, Loli.   It's not so easy to find information about these dolls online.  The Kurhn website, for example, seems to be out of date.  I've found three big online sources for purchasing Kurhn dolls.  The first is an eBay seller (flyingannalee) with a huge selection of dolls.  The second store is called ChinaSprout and is a New York based store and an educational resource for Chinese culture.  The third option is an eBay-style marketplace called Aliexpress where I've heard you have to be careful about which vendor you choose.  I bought my items from flyingannalee and was very happy with the prices and service.

There is a huge diversity of available Kurhn dolls.  You can see a great database of these dolls on this blog.  After a lot of deliberation, I chose two Kurhn items: a kitchen play set (I love kitchen playsets...) that includes a very basic doll and also a more elaborate "Glamorous Kurhn" doll with strawberry bonde hair and a fancy party dress.  I will review the kitchen set in this post and the Glamorous Kurhn in the next post.

Kurhn 3029, $38.80 with kitchen set

Live Blogging from Panama

My family and I are spending the Christmas break in Panama.  This is the farthest south I have ever been, and probably the most exotic and interesting trip I have ever taken.  Of course, while enjoying howler monkeys, parrots, pelicans and even crocodiles, I have tried to take some time to examine the doll scene.  Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to check out a mainstream store (something like Target or Toys R Us), but I did find a Barbie imitator at dinner one night:

Panamanian doll.

Bratzillaz Update: Midnight Beach "Meygana Broomstix"

After my Yasmina Clairvoya review,  I figured that I would never buy another Bratzillaz.  There were just too many disappointments with that doll.  However, when I was at Walmart the other day, I noticed a new line of Bratzillaz called the "Midnight Beach" collection, and my curiosity got the best of me.  First and foremost, I wanted to know if they had fixed the hair with the new Meygana.  Remember how terrible the first Meygana's hair was?  This Meygana's hair is different:

Midnight Beach Meygana, $19.99.

Monster High Update: "Jinafire Long" from the Scaris Collection

I am a huge fan of Monster High dolls, but I haven't been tempted to purchase any new ones recently. Even when I saw that the Scaris line has two new characters (Jinafire and Skelita), and also includes a great version of Rochelle (who I think is great), I still didn't feel any need to go on a hunt for one of these dolls.  Then, the other day, I saw the whole Scaris line at Walmart and they looked wonderful in person.  Jinafire, in particular, struck me as something new and different (and shiny) so I picked her up:

Scaris Monster High "Jinafire Long."

City Girls Update: "Taxi!" Billy and the "Gray Haze" Fashion

My City Girls review was very recent, so this is a bit repetitive, but I have had some requests to look at other items in this line, and honestly, I was pretty excited to de-box more of these bright-eyed newcomers.

To recap my initial impressions, I was mildly disappointed with Astor because of some articulation issues and mismatched vinyl, and also because of her slightly vacant expression.  I was a bit more impressed with Houston's overall look, although she shares all of the above mentioned flaws.  Overall, though, I felt pretty satisfied with the high quality clothes, the high level of articulation and the high potential in this line.

After the last review, I still had "Golden Swirl" Astor, "Taxi!" Billy and basic Brook-Lynn in their boxes. Of these three, I felt like Billy had the best chance of being my favorite, so I opened her and the "Gray Haze" fashion pack for this update:

"Taxi!" Billy City Girl doll by Tonner Toys.

Tangkou Update: "The Chinese Girl"

At the end of some of my reviews, I find myself wondering how my opinion might have been different if I had chosen to review a different doll from the same line.  Over the next week, I plan to do a series of quick "update" reviews.  In these posts, I'll look at dolls that are very similar to ones I have already reviewed, just to see if my initial impressions hold.  It's a good time for requests, by the way, so feel free to make suggestions in the comments if there's a doll you'd like to see up close.  I already have a few requests to look at Billy and Brook-Lynn from Tonner's City Girl line, so I'll be sure to do that.

I am going to start by looking at another Tangkou doll.  If you remember my review of Loli, I ended up feeling that she wasn't quite worth her price ($75) and I was left wishing that I'd purchased one of the less expensive dolls.  I love the idea of an affordable Pullip-style doll, and wanted to give Tangkou another chance to deliver.  I chose The Chinese girl, who cost me $34.99 on eBay (plus $19 shipping).

"The Chinese Girl" by Tangkou.

The City Girls by Tonner Toys

Of all the beautiful dolls being released this season, I have been most excited to see the new Tonner Toys City Girl line.  Ever since their unveiling at the 2012 Toy Fair, I have been checking the Tonner blog like an addict, waiting for the release day.  To give you a little background, Tonner Toys is Robert Tonner's play doll label and Robert Tonner (for those just tuning in) is the designer of my favorite doll of all time.  So far, Tonner Toys has produced the cartoonish Little MissMatched dolls with their contagiously happy faces and colorful mix-and-match outfits.  The City Girls are a line of more realistic-looking ~16" fashion dolls designed and priced for "beginner" collectors.  So, basically they're the younger, more durable cousins of my Cinderella dolls...selling for about half the price.  That's more than enough to get my attention.

I think there's a hole in the play doll market that is begging for a release like this.  We have a wide variety of $20 fashion dolls to choose from (Barbie, Monster High, Bratz, Disney Store princesses), and you can find plenty of collectable fashion dolls for $100 and over (Tonner, Pullip, Integrity, Sybarite, Momoko, etc), but the intermediate market is sparse.  As the holidays approach, what do you get for that careful young doll collector who is ready for something special?  Or what do you get for yourself when the budget is tight and a regular Tonner doll is out of reach?  Maybe these dolls are the answer.

On November 9th, the long-awaited email hit my inbox, telling me that not only were the dolls in stock, it was a Free Shipping Friday!  Twist my arm, Mr. Tonner.

City Girls "Houston" and "Astor" by Tonner Toys.

Momoko "Love DHEXl" 10th Anniversary Doll by Sekiguchi

When I started to be interested in Pullip and Blythe dolls a few years ago, I noticed the name "Momoko" popping up in the chat forums and blogs I was frequenting.  I have admired pictures of Momoko dolls ever since this first introduction, but have always stopped just shy of buying one because of their high prices.  During my recent Tangkou review, Momoko's name cropped up again, and this time I decided that it was time to learn more.

Momoko is a line of highly articulated 10.5 inch plastic fashion dolls made in Japan.  The dolls have childlike anime-style faces and wear very detailed outfits in a wide range of styles.  There have been Momoko dolls dressed in wedding gowns, gothic robes, office wear and even a cheerleader uniform.
Momoko dolls were first produced in 2001 by the small software company, PetWORKS.  The first dolls to be made were called DHEXs and DHEXl.  The cryptic acronyms come from "Doll Head EXhibition," the event that hosted the debut of this line.  The "s" and "l" after the acronym stand for "short" and "long" haired versions of this first doll.  I am grateful to the barbigirl website for providing this information and for having lots of wonderful reference pictures.

In 2004, the production of Momoko dolls was passed to the Sekiguchi doll making company, which is where the dolls are made today. Sekiguchi also makes the Monchhichi monkey dolls that first appeared back in the 70s (licensed by Mattel in the US).  Do you remember those Monchhichi commercials?  They're still stuck in my head thirtysomething years later.

I chose the 10th anniversary "Love DHEXl" doll because although she is made by Sekiguchi, she honors Momoko's PetWORKS roots:

Sekiguchi Momoko, "Love DHEXl"

Tonner's "Zombie Boy" and Mezco's "Frozen Charlotte"...on Halloween

The power is on back here in Maine, but my thoughts are with those who are still struggling in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.  That was a beast of a storm.

Because of the storm, it will be a dark, damp, mild evening here in the Northeast--perfect weather for Halloween.  It seems like a good opportunity to show you two of my creepy dolls.  I can't do a full review of either of these dolls: Tonner's Zombie Boy can't be moved around very much and my Frozen Charlotte arrived in a badly damaged box.  Nevertheless, these two are here to help get you in the mood for a spooky night of ghosts and zombies:

"Zombie Boy" by Tonner Doll.

The Monster High "Coffin Bean" vs. The Bratzillaz "Cafe Zap" Playset

As the holiday season approaches, there are a lot of choices to be made in the play doll market.  The shelves here in Maine are well-stocked with plenty of temptations.  You could buy a Robecca Steam Monster High doll, or bring home any of the five Bratzillaz witches.  You could have some mix and match fun with a creative Cutie Pops doll or stick with the more fashion-forward La Dee Da line.  Perhaps an articulated Winx Club fairy is perfect for your house, or maybe you'd rather just grab some clearance Liv dolls while they're still around.  Even after you settle on the right doll, the accessories present a whole new array of choices.  While some accessories, like the new La Dee Da outfits, will only work for the dolls they are designed to fit, other accessory lines are interchangeable.  Perhaps the Novi Stars' cosmic companions like to hang out with your Mystixx vampires?  Just because you have a Monster High posse doesn't mean that you can't buy them a Barbie car.  A Disney Store Rapunzel can hang out in Hayden's house just as easily as she can lurk the halls of Monster High.

Both Mattel and MGA have released coffee shop playsets for 12" dolls in the past few months.  Mattel introduced the "Coffin Bean" set for Monster High dolls in April, and MGA's "Cafe Zap" for Bratzillaz hit the shelves about a month ago.  I have been searching for the perfect chair to display my 12" dolls, but I haven't had a lot of success.  I tried a Barbie chair (from an overpriced kitchen set) but it was way too flimsy and slippery.  I was delighted to see that the two new cafe sets each have nice looking seating options and figured I'd offer up a comparison review while continuing my quest for a nice, sturdy chair.

Monster High "Coffin Bean" and Bratzillaz "Cafe Zap."