Monday, March 18, 2024

REVIEW: Decora Girlz small dolls

I have not been impressed with the releases for Decora Girlz so far. I honestly think they've botched every single one of them. FAO was overpriced and not budget-friendly in other ways. Walmart wasn't in stock at the right time and missing products. They're still only spottily in stock. Amazon is a preorder that was never indicated to be a preorder ahead of time, and the only way to buy things is in sets (small dolls in sets of 3, big dolls in pairs). And they charge right away despite not shipping, which is highly unusual for Amazon. 

BUT I did manage to catch the small dolls in stock on Walmart when their price was $9.97 each. They've jumped it to $11.33 a few times. 

There are 9 dolls total and I think the case might be 9. I ordered 12 in hopes of getting the full set. (This failed. SIGH.)  

THERE ARE NO CODES.

However, the lid is only held shut by a round clear sticker that's very easy to peel back. Slide the white liner out, peek inside, determine doll. If it's a double, you can slide it back in and return it without touching the doll at all. I do not recommend trying that in a store though. The little bags like to fall out of the back. 

So inside is the doll in the white liner and seven little accessory pouches.





HEATHER!



They're not held down in any form. Yay. Easy deboxing. 

The seven pouches contain:

1) Stand and 1 sheet of stickers

2) Second sheet of stickers

3) Third sheet of stickers

4) Outfit

5) Footwear

6) Purse

7) Comb

I'm not going to lay out the outfit for the others, but I will have separate photos to show all their stickers. 

She is SO CUTE. Heather was one of my top 4 and she doesn't disappoint. 

Hair is nice quality. Soft. (Celestia is the only one where I wasn't impressed with her hair quality. We'll get to her, but I figured I'd mention it here, since this will be my only other mention of quality.)

The arms are pretty rubbery so it's easier than you'd think to get them into the clothing. 



I can see where kids are going to love playing with the stickers on these. I'm just not sure there's going to be much sustainability to them. I had trouble sticking some of the puffy ones onto the doll's hair. Others no trouble. The puffy ones are so thick that they really don't work on uneven surfaces. But eventually, the stickiness is going to wear off. 



The puffy stickers work nicely as purse decorations though. 


Love Heather's design, especially her hair and lipstick. 


I'm not a huge fan of the stands, as they're a bit tight, but they do help some of the dresses stay in place. 




Buzzy!


I love that there's a bee girl. She's one of my top four. 




Mine has a little flyaway that amuses me. She kinda looks like she's in motion. 


Some of them have backpacks that aren't going to work with the stands, so I moved the stand clip down to go around her leg, which works. 



For her, I did a sticker beside each eye and then the bee on the backpack strap. 



The backpacks are so cute, but they're just a hollow curve on the opposite side. It's an odd choice. At least make it look like a solid piece. 


Luna is my fourth fave. My top three are London, Heather and Buzzy. I did not get London and I'm still sad about it. Now I'm going to have to buy a bunch more to hunt her down or wait until Amazon gets the 3-packs in and buy her there, but I also need Cat and they're in two different 3-packs. Ugh. 

Anyway, Luna is super cute, though I prefer her big doll. I do not really get their aesthetic for her. I wish they'd use a little more black. Like some black boots with color laces would have been better here and I would have made either the top or skirt black. The larger doll has a better outfit with more black. If they're going to keep calling her glam goth, she can't just have a few skulls. She needs to wear black. 



She still has my fave sticker of the entire lot. That skull moth is fab. 


You can see the printed side of the purse in the accessory pic below. 





Luna is the only one whose outfit worked with the puffy stickers. It's got just enough flat space. 




Best stickers. 


Oh, Celestia. 

I picked her next because I thought she was going to be a fave, but she's honestly not. I need to work on her hair, but I don't think it's going to respond well. I don't want to loosen the curl, but I want it more out of her face. When I opened the liner, it was completely covering her face, so we've made some progress since then. It's a drier quality than the straight hair, which is disappointing, because nice curly hair exists. It makes me worry for the big doll. 


I do love it though. Don't get me wrong. I love the colors and curls, but I do want to see her face. 

One good thing is that it holds the stickers very well. 





I'm not sure this is the dress I would have picked for her. I like the big doll's style better.




Other side of the purse and you can see more of her hair colors here. 



I might put more stickers in her hair. She can have a whole galaxy. 



Decora seems like the next best to go to. She's also one I expected to like a bit more, as I like her big doll more than I expected to. 

She's still cute, but she's probably my least favorite of the line. 



I tried to do full rainbow stars (3 on the other side), but it was too much, so I just left these two in place. 



She's got some of the better stickers. 



From my disappointments to my surprises. I thought I wouldn't like Blossom much, but I do. 

I think she has one of the best put together overall looks. 



Really super cute. 

Her hair was held in two pigtails, but I took them out. They were uneven and looked more like just something they'd have on in the box than an actual style. 



Adorable backpack. 

She also has cuter stickers. 


Now this is my biggest surprise! I was not a Sweetie fan. I'm rarely into the candy or food character, because there gets to be a sameness about them. Maybe it's some 80s snobbery, because I grew up with the ultimate food doll: Strawberry Shortcake. 

But when I opened the liner and saw Sweetie, I fell in love. She's sooooooo cute! 

Absolutely my favorite outfit of the bunch. So much so that I didn't want to cover it with the backpack straps, and I put it around the stand pole instead. 



She's the only one I used the biggest puffy sticker on. Hers were my faves. 

Gah, I really love this outfit. I actually prefer it to the big doll's and wish they'd given her something like this instead. But I am glad I ordered the big doll when I was going to skip her. 




Super cuuuuuuuuuute. 

I think I'd tie her with Luna. Not quite Heather/Buzzy/London level, but she's right up there. 


More cute stickers. 

Okay, so those are my seven girls. I hope to have the other two as soon as I can. 

I think these are worth the $10-$11. There are lots of play options for the target market and they're adorable characters. I'm looking forward to seeing more from the Fashion doll line though. I think that's going to be their bigger seller. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

REVIEW: TLS Toy Strawberry Shortcake 5.5" Doll





I was berry surprised to see TLS Toy's SSC doll actually show up in stock on Walmart.com. (One pun. Only the one. I promise.) For $12.97, I grabbed her, even though I initially was only going to get my fave SSC characters and Strawberry herself has never been one of them. 



Same format as the Rainbow Brite doll. You're supposed to punch open the spaces on the back and pull out the surprises inside, kinda like Hairdorables. 

Once again, I didn't do this. 

I do want to have a quick word on the surprises. I honestly didn't watch any reviews or really pay attention to the more recent pictures, because I wanted my first impressions of these to be of my own dolls. So it was only recently that I noticed that there are several DIFFERENT surprises. 

For Rainbow Brite, her lunchbox can be yellow, red or blue. The headband I got is only one of three options. The other two are a fabric skirt or a pair of fabric legwarmers and a pair of sandals. Now I definitely do not think it's fair that the choices are one plastic piece, one fabric piece, or two plastic pieces AND two fabric pieces. Those are not items of the same value, let's say. However, I honestly don't think any of them look good on the doll. I'll never use that headband. The legwarmers and sandals looked really silly with Rainbow's dress. The skirt was the best one, in my opinion, because it resembled the vintage dress-up Rainbow outfit, but I still doubt I would have put it on her ever. But still. Point is that the surprises are not of equal value and that kinda sucks. 

Now for SSC, it's much harder to see all the options. Try looking at the SSC tag on Instagram. It's a lot wider scope than Rainbow Brite. From what I can tell, they all come with the little berry comb and Custard the cat. They better all come with the pet. Seriously. That would not be the thing to swap out. I got this little berry purse. Other people got lunchboxes. (I would rather have had the lunchbox.) I got a plate of strawberry shortcake, which is cute, but others got a basket of strawberries. Again, would rather have had that. 

So yeah, I really don't care for this blind surprise aspect of the line. It's so unnecessary. It's one thing for it to be the color of a lunchbox, but I think all the dolls should come with basically the same accessories. What, now I have to wonder if my Lala Orange will have the short skirt or the boa? Or if all the Color Kids will get their sprite purses? Because I saw other purse options. Lala has an orange purse (fruit, not color), Patty has a frog, Stormy has a cloud. I think I saw Tickled Pink with a headband on in some older pics. 

Anyway, okay, rant over. Moving on.

She's very cute. 

Time for Rant #2. 

Yeah, I can't just be happy these exist and not be critical. Sorry. It's not me. 

Across all of SSC's different reincarnations, what's the one thing that's stayed constant aside from the baking/food theme? 

THEY'RE SCENTED. 

The smell is so nostalgic for a lot of people. However, no matter what the front of the box says, this doll is NOT strawberry scented. Both my mom and I gave her several sniffs. There's a slight sweet smell on her hair that's...sort of cakey? I'm guessing they tried to make a strawberry shortcake smell instead of just going for strawberry and it backfired. It also backfired in that these dolls were never very subtle. Put on your neon 80s big kid pants, TLS Toy, and just go for it with the scents. Do not be shy. This is not the place for it. 




I grabbed one of my Altaya dolls instead of vintage for the comparisons. They're a little easier to redress. 




Very poseable. (Let the Robot Chicken flashbacks commence.)



TLS's is a little taller with bigger feet.  



Rainbow is by far the sturdier of the two. 

And here she is. I would have done a pet comparison, but my Custard is in my storage closet. I'm also not taking that hat off, so I left it tacked on. 

Overall, she's cute. I prefer my vintage ones and Altayas though. I'm disappointed in the smell and not getting the accessories I would have preferred. If I can get them all for this price, I'd consider collecting the whole line. Otherwise, I may be picky. 

I'm definitely more a fan of the Rainbow Brite line. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Monster High "Day Out" Cleo




Thank you, Ross, for having one Cleo left for me!





Perfect. 








She loves her purse. I love her purse. 




Great shoes. Recolor of the Ghoul Spirit mold, but it's an improvement, so who cares? 



Obligatory food. 





I wasn't 100% I was getting this Cleo. I wasn't going out of my way to overpay or even pay for shipping, so this worked out perfectly. I'm really glad she made her way to me. She's fantastic. 


PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Mermaze Mermaidz Slumber Party Casea




Oh, man, this hair. 

I didn't do her review with the others, because she had horrible gel bangs. Post-salon, they're only better in that there's no longer gel in them. 





She's gorgeous and I love her hair colors, but I swear, bangs should not be this difficult for doll companies. 



Great jewelry. Great color scheme. Great top. 

I just need to think about how to fix her hair best. 



PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

REVIEW: Cry Babies BFF Talents Elodie & Daphne


Agh, I thought I was done! I almost forgot about these girls!


Since the Mermaze were getting ready to make the trip overseas, I figured I'd get Elodie and Daphne over here at last.


This is Elodie.



Adorable. 





Nope. Although they're way better than Jade's. 





Love the pose. 





Daphne the ice skater. By far the darkest-skinned BFF. I'm really sad this line didn't make it to the US so kids could get her. 




So cute.





Her hair is excellent. 





Her skate blades come off, too. 




Love all her colors. 




So glad they're finally home. I should have gotten them ages ago when I got Shannon, but I kept hoping they'd be released here, especially when Lady was.



PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.