Thursday, April 25, 2024

REVIEW: VIP Hair Academy Series 1

I finally got my hands on VIP Hair Academy! I hate that the newer IMC Toys dolls never made it here but importing these and the Series 3 Cry Babies BFF wasn't that much more expensive. I'm thrilled we're getting VIP in the form of the Hair Makeover line. I hope they continue. 

Anyway, recently, I discovered Giselle and Hailey for sale on Tradeinn/Kidinn. I ordered them both, even though they were my 3rd and 4th favorites. I was just happy to have some of the line. When I'd first looked into them, Amazon DE wasn't sending them to the US. I looked again on a whim, after placing the Tradeinn order, and there they were, now available for shipping. 

Hailey and Giselle were $30.99 each on Tradeinn.

The dolls are varying prices on Amazon DE. Chloe is 12 Euros and change, but Mia is 42 (the main reason I didn't get her). Hailey is 17, Lexie is almost 27. I can't find Giselle, but she's probably there somewhere. 



My Tradeinn order arrived yesterday and the Amazon one came today, so I'm able to do these all together. 

I don't have boxed pics of Giselle or Hailey, because Tradeinn slaps these big stickers on the boxes and of course, they were right over the dolls and didn't peel off neatly. 





So here are Chloe and Lexie in box.



The dolls each come with a barrette clamped around some hair bands, a brush/comb of some kind, and various hair accessories. 

They each have a pamphlet which shows their pictures, their dog's picture, and some ways to do their hair. I didn't take pics of those. 

So this is Chloe's stuff. I guess you're supposed to put water in the pink/purple thing and it does hair color stencils. 







Chloe is my favorite of all the VIP dolls. My not so inner 80s child loves neon forever. 




Charlie, the designer of Charlie Bears, likes to refer to her bear's eyes as "who, me?" eyes. Well, the VIP line definitely have "who, me?" eyes. Some people may not like them. I find them endearing. 


Her earrings are a yellow X and a purple O.
 




The back sections of her hair are not done in the Jasmine style of the front pieces. (I'm not sure what the actual name for this hairstyle is. Maybe bubble braids? I just call it Jasmine hair.)

The rooting here is not looking so good!  




Okay, better.

I'm opting to leave it like this and not do the Jasmine hair myself. I like this neon watermelon thing she's got going.



So that is Chloe. 


This is the boot mold Quinn uses.





Here are Giselle's pieces. I think that ice cream thing is a hair twister? 

The little barrettes are cute. 




I don't get why they'd give her a bow hairstyle only to block it with this giant plastic bow. 






Better. 




She's my fourth fave, but she's super pretty. Her hair colors are nice. She's got that creamy light pink I'm a fan of. 

Her earrings are bows. 

They each have little hair accessories, but they're attached to the pouches or pockets they're in and I'm not undoing them. 



Rather plain shoes compared to the others, but still cute. 




Hailey's hair activity is glitter. That little star at the top is filled with superfine glitter that I may have sprayed on myself while opening everything. I'm not a glitter person, but this is honestly, more pretty than I'm used to glitter being. The pink section has sticky stuff that holds the glitter in place and those are little stickers on the bottom. 





Hailey's my third fave. 

I think she has the worst outfit though. I like that it's white and silver, but the VIP ribbon is too much for me. 




She's still really pretty.

Megan has this earring mold. 





From the back. 




Best footwear in the line. 






Lexie has a hair marker. 




My second fave after Chloe. 



I'm picky about red and pink together, but I love how all her colors go together. 


Her earrings are rainbows. 




I wish some of these colors were in the front. 





Nope. 



So here is everyone except Mia (too expensive) and Evelyn (THEY BETTER MAKE HER). 

I love these girls. They're adorable, have mostly nice hair, mostly cute outfits, and cute shoes. I don't care that they can't bend their knees. 

I hope Megan and Quinn (and hopefully Evelyn) do well enough that we get more on our shelves here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

Monday, April 22, 2024

REVIEW: Be Fashion Academy


Okay, so these girls came out last year, I think? I completely forgot about them until recently. 

I think what makes them stand out is that the art was clearly done by the same artist that tackled Hairdorables. It's gorgeous! The full length art seen on the website almost makes you cry when you see what the dolls turned out to be. 

Not being the company, I can't really speculate much on what happened here. Why did they have such nice art when the dolls are so different? Cassie's glasses disappeared. Cassie, Balam and Kelia are all significantly lighter than their art. The shoes were so detailed. Augh. It's like they spent all their budget on the art. 




The boxes are huge, with a blurb about the line as a whole and then about the character. A large artwork of the character is on the right, while you can see the other four around a little sketch that punches out of the box so a budding fashion designer could try it out. 



I was drawn to Bryce because she reminds me of Vega from Star Darlings. So I ordered her from Amazon to give the line a whirl. 




Kelia reminds me a bit of Hairdorables Noah. Hera is your standard Barbie-ish blonde. A little bit of Stella from Winx in there, but that's my Winx nostalgia. Cassie doesn't have her glasses here. They must have scrapped them before designing the boxes. She does wear them in the art on the website though. 



Each doll comes with an activity and a dress form with a dress.

Bryce's unique accessories are a guitar (that has peg for a strap but no strap...sigh) and stencils. 



The character side of the activity sheet is the same for all five girls. 



But each has a different fashion "lesson." 

Bryce's goes along with her stencils. 



She's actually really cute. 



Her face reminds me a little of those Littlest Pet Shop Blythe dolls. 

The body I instantly recognized. It was part of the draw of this line for me. I'll get to that picture when we do Kelia next. 



Bryce has the worst shoes of the five. They don't even fit her. An open toe sandal where the toes don't peep out. 



She has these odd two long locks of hair. These don't appear in the art at all. It's like they had some sort of focus group that was against the short hair, glasses and skintone variety, so they made all the changes.



Without the jacket. The jacket is actually really nicely made. The top is very cheap. The shorts with sheer pant legs are in between. They're weird. I love them. 



Ah, Vega. 



I dunno why I like her so much, but I do. It isn't just the Vega resemblance. 



I used Kelia to model some of the second outfits. Bryce's is...yeah. Wow. The fabric is neat though. Is it so wide because kids are supposed to stencil it? I have no idea.



The belt helps, but this is easily the worst of the dresses.




Since she's shown herself above, let's move on to Kelia. 

She's the one who gave Quinn her orange dress. 




I wish she looked like that. Gorgeous. 



She's still cute. She's got the little barrettes. 

I do wish they'd tried harder to keep the coral/darker peach jacket though. 




Love her makeup. 




Kelia has some stickers to decorate her dress, plus sunglasses and a skateboard.




Her lesson is the stickers. 



Her outfit quality is mid-level. 



I had already realized I was right about the body and then here she is with shoes from the same old doll line. 




She has little fabric panties that are a nice touch. 




In her own dress. 



That's better, but I think Quinn wears it better. 


So what is this body I keep mentioning?

KURHN!

I had so many Kurhns back in my NYU days. Like 2007-2009. I have very happy memories from that time and these dolls remind me of that, which is likely part of why I was so attracted to Be Fashion, despite their obvious flaws. 






Moving on, here is Balam. I researched her name, wondering its origins, and everything I came up with was a masculine name. I think they were going for the Mayan version, because it means "jaguar." 




She might have my favorite art. 






Her accessories are a pair of sunglasses and the shoulder cat. 


Her lesson involves that mesh piece of fabric and different ways to use it. 





She bumped Bryce off as favorite the second I opened her. 



She's a badass. 






I'm not even a cat person, but I love all of this. 



She even looks good in the sunglasses! (Same ones as Kelia.)





Cassie is modelling her dress, because that light pink wasn't going to be flattering on Balam. 





It's okay. Not as bad as Bryce's, but the other three are better. 





I ordered Cassie from Walmart, because she'd sold out on Amazon. 






Ugh, she's SO CUTE. She would have been so awesome if they'd kept this skintone. I prefer the darker pink hair on the doll though. 




She has some beads and embroidery silks. Or whatever you call those. She also has a fabric purse that's cute, but ultimately pretty simple. 



Things to do with the dress elastic. 







Her hair is great! I love her makeup, eyes, dress, and boots, too. 






Adorable choker. 






And the crystal headband!



Her dress...is not a dress. 






I'm sure others could come up with something prettier, but this was my best result after messing around. I'm disappointing they didn't use this lovely fabric to make an actual dress, and have the elastic just be a separate piece. Bah. I still adore this color though. 







She and Bryce are tied for my second favorite after Balam. 




Finally, we have Hera. 





Still getting those Stella vibes. 




Her purse is super cheap. It's the worst accessory they made. 






Her lesson is her scarf. 



Now the purse may have been cheap, but the rest is not. Hera is the only one with pierced ears and she has huge rhinestones dangling from her earrings. She has a plastic necklace and belt. And the skirt on her dress is beautiful! 


I feel like she's a little more luxe than the others. 




She even has some tinsel. None of the others do. Maybe it's to make her stand out, considering she's just a blonde in a line with blue, green and pink hair. 




Her second dress is neat, but it looked better on the dress form than it does on Cassie. I tried it on VIP Hair Megan, but it was a no go. 




The dress forms are pretty neat. Three separate pieces that go together easily and remain stable. 


I have mixed feelings on this line. 

They're vastly overpriced at $34.99. I remember Kurhns not always being cheap, so sometimes these more obscure things are costly. But I chuckle a bit thinking of the people calling LUV overpriced. 

The art is gorgeous and eclipses the dolls. The changes from art to doll are certainly problematic. 

But they remind me of things that make me happy. Kurhns. Star Darlings. Hairdorables. Winx. They're fun and a nice addition to my eclectic collection. So they work for me. I don't think they're a particularly good doll line in any way, but they work for me. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.