REVIEW: Cave Club Basic Dolls

After an annoying delay, my Cave Club dolls finally arrived from Walmart!

I ordered two of Roaralai to make sure I got a good one. She's my favorite.

So of course you know what happened.

No, they weren't both bad. Though that does seem like the obvious answer to that question.

They were both good and then I couldn't pick.

So I kept both!

Inevitable.

One of them is going to live on the coffee table (right now, Tella and Emberly are with her) and the other will live on their (temporary) display shelf.

I preferred the expression on the left doll. She looks more fierce to me. But she has a tiny dark line through her top lip and a couple paint flaws on her white markings. The doll on the right was pretty much perfect, hence my keeping both. 

She comes with a sabretooth purse, part of which is detachable and turns into a headband.

Yeah, I don't like it. It looks a little silly.

Roaralai's hair is pretty nice. The long part is straight and sleek. All of them have nylon hair and straight nylon is always best. The crimped part isn't awful though. It's dry-feeling, but it's short, crimped hair, so that's to be expected.

Her outfit is a tube top under a one-sleeved striped dress, and all of that is one piece. Then the fur piece is separate. The tube top likes to fall down a bit on one, but not on the other. I use the fur piece to stabilize it.

They're definitely working with the pun names, a la MH and EAH. So Roaralai's pet sabretooth is Ferrell (feral).

I do wonder though, as she was raised by sabretooths, is this a pet or a sibling? Hmm.

Oh, yeah, then there's the basically useless bone comb. Kids might like these. They could use them as hair ornaments for themselves or the dolls.

 

I opened Fernessa second and I really wanted to love her. The graphic novel pushed her up to second fave after Roaralai.

I hate to say it, but the doll is the most disappointing one.

Her hair is a wild mess. It's hard to brush, as you have to be careful to avoid the two pigtails, lest you yank the little bun part out. So you have to hold them out of the way while brushing the rest of her mess. The green streak looks a bit out of place, because it's just one long loose lock in front of a pigtailed section, so it can't even blend with the rest of the long hair quite right.

She is currently in the salon. I'm hoping conditioner will help tame this.

I refuse to take her headband off. It will never stay on otherwise!

Love the cheek detail.

Here's the dress without the leafy bit.

I'm not a big fan of how they did the teeth on her, but I think I'll get used to it.

Her pet's name is Ptilly. Adorable.

I love her purse!

It can be held closed.

Or partway blooming.

Or all the way open! Very cute.

I think I'm going to order the babysitting set to have a Fernessa with better hair.

Emberly was my surprise of this line. I fully expected to like her least of the girls, but I adore her.

I am definitely a fan of crimped hair and she's so neon.

I love how they did her ankle bits, too.

The eye corner detail is interesting. I don't hate it though.

I love her looking up.

Her hair is so cool. It's actually my favorite hair of the line. I love the way the bangs are cut around the face and how the top bit fans out. And the colors. And it's actually nice quality, too. It feels better than Roaralai's little crimped part.

Plus, Emberly comes with blungeoning objects.

I love her little Tink hammer.

But even more, I love her club!

Which is a torch! Since she invented fire and all.

So cool.

Okay, I like it best as a club. It's funny.

Her pet is Flaire.

Not sure what kind of dino this is. Too many fingers for a T-Rex, but probably something similar. Or a raptor of sorts.

He's my fave of the pets.

Tella saw her turn coming.

She's super gorgeous. Excellent hair. Nylon but nice. I might salon her at some point to get the packaging crinkles out of her hair.

Love the details!

With her telescope.

Her pet direwolf, Hunch. Probably my second fave pet. They're all cute though.

And finally, Slate.

Slate is Tella's twin.

He's adorable. Mattel seems to like male artists.

Closer on the face. Very cute.

Sorry this came out blurry, but you can see that his head is part rooted, part molded/painted.

He has a paintbrush bandolier.

He looks cute like this, but I ended up leaving the bandolier off.

His necklace needs to be strapped down, too. I undressed him for the body photo coming up and then redressed him, and the necklace is completely unstable unless you strap it down.

His pet is named Taggy.

I'm honestly not sure what Taggy is. He's not quite as cute as the other pets, but still cute.

And finally, I used the twins for a body picture.

They're about 8 inches tall. The Walmart listings say 10 inches, but no. I measure Tella to the top her head, not her hair.

They share the same legs, but the rest is different. The torsos are far more adult than I imagined they'd be. One thing irks me though and that is Slate getting a molded hand that can hold things better, while the girls suffer with their MH-esque hands. Roaralai could have had a Howleen-type hand, and Tella and Emberly could have had a holding hand.

So I love these. They're incredibly fun and a great value for the lower price.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.