REVIEW: Monster High Toralei

Toralei has been one of my favorites since her first appearance. I was excited she was getting a doll so early and even more excited that they'd kept her shorter hair for the animation. 

Then the doll came out. You've possibly read my rant about how they changed her hair and I'm still of the same opinion. They did quite well at matching a lot of the other characters to their animated selves. Toralei is the only one who got such a drastic change. If Mattel thinks kids aren't going to notice the doll and the character from the animation that they want a doll of have completely different hair, they're mistaken. 

I'm curious to see how this singer thing plays out, especially because her voice in the show is rather strident. (And she's English now.)

Here are a couple quick body shots where she still has her hair. 

Sadly, she got WAY better hair than Clawdeen. It's actually very nice long hair. I was a tiny bit sad to cut it off, but I want a doll that looks like the show character, not a doll that's pandering to societal bull. 

I love her facial expression, but I do miss her darker orange patch. 

I love the molded fur details, but wish she had more stripes. 

I'll go through her hair journey first. I wanted her to have her wavy, choppy show hair, so I had to braid her entire head. Then I poured boiling water over the braids and let them dry. 

I cut off a good portion of hair when she was still braided, then undid everything and let them dry a bit longer. Then I just took the scissors to her. After cutting, I wet her hair and gave her a conditioning treatment, then touched up the cut some more. 

This is her after that part. 

And this is the dry end result. 

I'm very happy with it. I am not great at cutting doll hair (nor should I have to), so her choppy waves worked well for me because I didn't have to worry about making sure everything was even. It's not supposed to be even. I did give her the one shorter lock in front, though it's not quite in the right spot. But that front lock was blocking her eye too much so I trimmed it. 

I've seen some excellent cuts on IG where the owner left her hair smooth and it looks fantastic, but I wanted something that both looked like the show and was something I could pull off. 

This was a lot of work though, so I don't think I'll be doing another Toralei cut in the future. I may just not buy her dolls or if I do, I'll keep the hair long, as long as it's similar quality to this. 

Hair cut aside, let's get back to the actual review. 

I love Sweet Fangs. 

So adorable. 

Her boots do have fangs in front like in the show, but they're not painted. They also have paw prints on the soles that I didn't try to photograph. 

Yarn on the back. These need to be watched. One fell off in the box. None fell off during my review so maybe they're stable but maybe they're not. 

Necklace and belt. 

Her main outfit. 

I miss the original, but I do like that jacket. 

I love her two shirts. 

Are the Hissfits her band or is she just a huge fan? I'm guessing it's her band. 

She has one of my favorite phones. 

So cute!

For snack time. 

I love the look of this, but I'm mad at the one strap. We'll get to that later. 

Microphone. That's an awesome yet creepy stand.

The skirt has regular velcro on one side, but the other side has it split in two pieces to make space for her tail. 

Her tail seems far more stable than other Toraleis.

Cute. 

I love this shirt, but I don't like how it fits with the skirt. 

It needs some low-riding pants, I think. 

Back in the stock outfit. 

Paws for a snack. 

There we go. The two things I wanted her to hold that she can't hold well. She's the only one where I have a lot of trouble getting her to hold the phone. It keeps tipping forward. And the one strap bag doesn't like to stay sitting on her shoulder. 

Let's try singing for a bit. I really want to know more about this!

Yeah, the bag annoys me. 

I love the phone enough that she is still holding it, but the bag is set off to her side in my display. 

And final shot. 

I'll always love Toralei, so I do love her, but she was way more work than she should have been. A simple wavy bob would not kill this franchise. And I wish her bag was designed to be more displayable. Great face though and I love a lot of her pieces. The skirt is the one I'm not entirely sold on and it's mostly the cut. 

Hopefully, I'll have some Creepover luck and have more reviews soon! I don't think I want any of the budget dolls. I love Clawdeen's outfit pieces, but I really don't need another so similar to the sig and I'd rather save space for future lines.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.