Passport Friends UPDATE

I posted this on Insta and forgot to do it here.

I found a second Manhattan on Poshmark and grabbed her because she had the vest and shoes. So this is my original Manhattan with her new accessories.  

And here are my three girls together. 

This is the extra Manhattan. I'd love to get her to a new home. 

I put her on Insta, but no one has made any offers on her, despite how popular my posts on this line seem to be. 

I mean, I have no trouble keeping two of them, but this line is THAT rare that I thought someone else would want one. 

 

Her face is adorable. 

Top and jeans in great condition. These are the ones she came with, not the ones I already had. 

Her hair is the biggest issue, because yeah, it is definitely dry and frizzy at the ends. These dolls have cheap hair. The only way you're going to get a really good quality one is to get one boxed, and we know how rare those are. 

I still think she looks great, even though her hair has issues. She's been conditioned and brushed/combed through by me, but someone with more hair skill could likely make her shine. 

If interested, just let me know! I'll likely have some more sales posts going up soonish, too. Waiting to hear back from someone and then anything she doesn't want will end up posted here. 

Then I need to go through my Hairdorables. That's a scary big task. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

REVIEW: 2005 Passport Friends PARIS

 

BEHOLD THE RARITY.

I have never seen a boxed Passport Friends for sale before. So when this one turned up on ebay, I really wanted her, but whoooooooooooo, was the price ever way too high. I can't even remember how much it was originally, but I've had her on watch for many months now. The price slowly, slowly dropped. Finally, it got low enough that I was willing to chance making an offer that I could justify. 

Back of the box. 

Closer look at the art. 

I find it funny that I've gotten the girls in order from the left. Manhattan was my first, then Beijing, and now Paris. Sydney, are you next? 

The art is cute. 

I debated what to do about deboxing. These dolls are so damn rare that while that should have been a tipping point toward keeping her boxed, it just made me want to free her from her 20-year box prison so she could join her friends. 

Her hair is lovely with a bunch of nice curls and a blend of brown and blonde. It's horribly dry, but it looks nice. 

Debated leaving the hat attached, but I like her better without it, giant forehead and all. 

Her outfit is cute, though a little too long-sleeved. 

LOVE these. These are possibly the cutest shoes I've seen for any of the doll lines in this size that we out at the time. 

Her purse is a brush on the back, which is a unique style, but also looks pretty silly. 

I'm very happy to finally see one of the stampers in person. Isn't she adorable? 

Eventually, I'll do a follow up with all three girls together. They have differing faces. Well, obviously, Beijing is different, but Paris and Manhattan have slight eye variations instead of being the same in different colors. 

So happy she's here! She was well worth waiting for. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine. 

New Passport Friends!

I could not believe when this girl turned up in my ebay alerts. I imported her from Australia and she arrived a couple days ago. 

So this is the Asian Passport Friends character. The seller called her Beijing, so I'm going with that, too. It was pretty clear she was from China and being that the other girls are named for locations, Beijing makes sense. 

Like Manhattan, my only other doll from this line, she came without shoes, so she's got a pair of old Evergirl shoes on. 

Her outfit and one ribbon are stock. The seller redid her other bun, but it has no ribbon. I may add one, I may not. 

The hair on this line seems pretty rough, but it's not awful. 

Manhattan is thrilled to have a friend join her. (She does have two shoes, I swear.)

Passport Friends is one of the hardest to find lines that I own. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have two, including one of my two favorites (Beijing and Rome). I think they're very cute and wish I'd known about them when they came out. I would have bought them all. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

Passport Friends

2004 brought us a few doll lines in a style featuring younger characters. I've never been quite sure how old these girls are supposed to be but I'm thinking tweenish. Mattel had Wee 3 Friends, featuring Stacie, Lila (Midge's sister) and Janet (apparently no relation to Christie, Nikki or any other black Barbie character). The dolls were sold in themed sets of three. MGAE's version was 4Ever Best Friends, sometimes sold in pairs or even in packs of four. 

Funrise got in on this game and produced a small line called Passport Friends in 2005. These dolls had the obvious world locations theme. 

Unfortunately, Passport Friends are incredibly hard to find. Thankfully, information on Passport Friends proved slightly less hard to find, though it's definitely still pretty scanty. 

After many years of searching, I finally came across one of the dolls for sale. This one is named Manhattan. The same seller had her top and jeans, though everything was in separate auctions. I believe the doll was originally dressed and the seller chose to separate the pieces, because the clothes are in no way marked and couldn't be IDed easily unless they came on the doll. 

Manhattan's hair is a little rough. No way of telling if this is from play or just because it's a cheaper fiber. 

Her face is really cute though. I always love a brown-eyed blonde. 

The body is simple. These were the days before a ton of articulation. She's articulated at the basic points of neck, shoulders and hips, although she does have the bonus of click knees. 

 

So here are Calista from 4Ever Best Friends, Manhattan, and Lila from Wee 3 Friends. 

All three have the same basic points of articulation. 4Ever Best Friends have an additional point at the wrists. Passport Friends is the only line with bendable knees and the hip joint also has way more range than the other two lines. So it's actually the line from the smallest company that made the best body. Unless you really, really value wrist articulation over knees, I guess. 

That's all I've got on the dolls themselves, but I have compiled some promo pictures from Google searches. 

Sadly, these aren't very big so you can't see much detail. They all came from a Polish website that seems to be dead now. 

Here's Manhattan in her box. 

And a shot of all the pieces. You can see that the outfit I have is definitely hers. 

I love the animal passport stamps. 

Here's a fashion pack for her. 

Here's Sydney. She's the one we previously had the most info on, because for a while, she was the only boxed pic I had. 

I couldn't find the more detailed promo pic for her, but I do have a fashion pack. 

This one is named Paris. 

She's got curly hair. I think she may have green eyes? I'm sure she's different from Manhattan somehow, considering they have a rather similar hair color. Paris's hair might be a little more brown than Manhattan's. 

Paris fashion pack.

Here's Rome. 

I love her. I like that she's all brown and gold. It's a nice change from the constant pastels that we see more than ever these days. 

There's actually a commercial for these on Youtube. You can see there's a fifth doll in a collection. She's East Asian and has a panda, so she's likely representing China, but I have no idea what her name is. 

Here's Manhattan.

Paris. Green or blue eyes for sure. 

Rome.

Rome and Sydney. I totally love Rome. 

Rome, Sydney and Paris. 

Sydney and the Chinese girl. She's definitely very Bratz Jade. The hairstyle. The pink streaks. The black and pink in general. She and Rome are the two I'd love to find the most, but honestly give me any of them at this point. I'm so happy to have Manhattan. I love modern lines, but little obscure lines like these are like a fun treasure hunt for me. A treasure hunt that takes a very long time!

PHOTO CREDITS: 

-Actual doll images are mine. 

-Promos photos are from a Polish website: merlin.pl

-Commercial stills were taken from here:

https://youtu.be/3hy3uDxUNm4

REVIEW: Bright Fairy Friends Mermaids

I finally got some Bright Fairy Friends Mermaids today. Amazon had them for $8.19 each. 

Same idea as the fairies with the light-up containers.

Each doll comes with a stand, brush, sticker sheet, checklist, a sponge (I think meant to activate the color change on the wings), and a cute message in a bottle.

This doll is Misty. 

Really thrilled I opened this one! Her name is Star. She was my most wanted. I love the yellow with the dark orange. 

Checklist side 1.

And side 2. 

I was hoping these would turn up in Target, but not yet. If they go under $10 on Amazon, I'll probably grab some more. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

CHEAT CODES: 

LANA:

BROOKE:

SANDY:

ISLA: 

KAIA:

MEENA: 

MISTY: 20477

CORAL:

SHELLY: 20515

STAR: 20490

AQUA: 20491

MARINA: 20480 

NEWS: Bright Fairy Friends Mermaids

 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B097DW33M8/

The new mermaid line of Bright Fairy Friends is now available for pre-order with a release date of July 12th. 

They seem a little over typical retail, as right now they're $11.04 each and BFFs are usually $9.99, but I ordered 3 anyway. Because of course I did.

NEWS: Bright Fairy Friends & Mermaids

 

I found an image with all three series of Bright Fairy Friends in a Walmart list. I cropped this picture of Series 3 from it. 

Looks like the bottle will be white this time and there will only be 6 dolls. 

Amazon also added a listing for the Mermaid series. There were lots of pictures, so I'll be posting them here. 

According to Amazon, there will be 12 dolls in Series 1. Amazon had pictures of 9 different ones. 

I have no names yet. 

So they come with a light-up case like the fairies, a brush and bottle with a message inside, adorable stickers, and a sponge. They have some sort of color change feature. I think the wings. 

I'm not sure which of these two pictures is the more finalized version, though my guess is the one with the bottle and this is more the prototype. 

I love the colors on this one. I need her.

I like her a lot, too. 

I want to like her, but I don't think the pink skin was the right choice.

This one is cute and I like the colors, but she's not a great need.

Second pic of her.

This one looks really washed out. 

Better here but not my fave.

I love everything except the orange makeup. Not a good choice and it puts me off the entire doll.

A little better here, but definitely an odd choice.

I love this one and all her brightness, though she would have been better with brighter lips. 

Like that. 

And this is the last one. 

Okay, but not one I'd want.

I'll keep an eye on the website and maybe we'll get some names and pics of the others. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Walmart for the first image. Amazon for the others.