REVIEW: Hello Kitty and Friends MY MELODY

Got my hands on My Melody at last. I love that she was in stock on Amazon, but they weren't shipping my order because it wasn't near the estimated date yet. Cancelled that and made a new order!

Cute!

I like the color palette. 

There's never much to say about these girls aside from that they're cute. And I hope the line continues with male characters. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

REVIEW: Hello Kitty and Friends HELLO KITTY

 

I loved Kuromi so much that I had to get Kitty, too.

While I don't love her nearly as much, she is very cute and I like her colors a lot. I always appreciate red. 

Love her eyes!

My Melody is ordered but it says she won't be out til December. Bah. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

A Quick Note

I just wanted to say that I've recently learned of all the issues with Roblox, and I'm no longer supporting the Royale High line. 

I have removed all my Royale High reviews both here and on Insta. 

I will no longer be buying their products or discussing them at all.

I do still love what I own of the line, but I don't want to be any part of potentially encouraging people to buy their products and give these people money. 

REVIEW: Hello Kitty and Friends KUROMI

 

I could not resist trying one of these out. 

At $25.99, they're a bit expensive. 

But boy, is she cute!

I pretty much fell in love as soon as I started posing her. 

Love the eyes. I almost got Hello Kitty right away because her eyes look really pretty, but I opted to wait and make sure I liked the style first. (I do. I'll be ordering her on Tuesday, alongside some new book releases.)

I'd like to show the body, but I also didn't want to fuss with taking everything off. Maybe I will with Kitty. 

She's nicely articulated. Very sturdy. 

The top and skirt are one piece, but they're kinda layered so they give the impression of being separates. 

She can sit. A little top-heavy but it's possible. 

Her tail.

I figured a G1 MH would be well-known enough to stand her next to so everyone can get an idea of her scale. 

I am not huge into Hello Kitty, but I absolutely love this doll. I'll definitely be getting Kitty and My Melody (whenever she shows up).

A little overpriced? Yeah. But still adorable. And what isn't overpriced these days? Not much. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Sugar Surprise

I remember seeing Sugar Surprise in all the new Target listings we got a few weeks ago. I forgot about them until they turned up on IG and I thought the opening process looked kinda fun. 

So off to Target after work and I brought home two. 

These run $14.99 each, so they're pretty expensive, but I do think they're worth it for kids. I'll explain why as we go. 

So the plastic wrapper comes off and then you remove the clear plastic lid. 

The swirl part at the top is separate (and can actually act as a wild skirt for the dolls, as I saw them suggesting in the instructions). 

The bottom part of the cup is a drawer. 

The swirl contains three pouches and the instructions. 

Inside the pouches are a skirt, a pet mold, and a digging tool. 

The digging tool has a spiked end that was separate and you have to attach it yourself. I'm assuming it's for digging the sandy stuff out of crevices or doing artwork on it. 

The drawer contains a single pouch, which has all this stuff in it. 

Inside are a comb, a sheet of stickers, shoes, a cupcake purse, a swirl mold, and a headband. 

So then you pop the flat lid off and start digging. I dug until I revealed the doll's hair color, then swung open the cup and the doll on her stand slipped out of the plastic tube that's buried in the sandy stuff. 

I had fun doing the digging and separating the three colors of sand. I put some of the pink into the pet mold. I did try molding a little pet and it came out nicely. 

The sandy stuff feels really cool. I'm not familiar with the recent slime trends, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I like the fluffy stuff the Itty Bitty Prettys came with and I like this stuff, too. Not sticky or messy at all. Some small bits came off, but were easily picked up. 

Sadly, there is one really big missed opportunity here. 

There is absolutely no information on the characters. No checklist. Not even a little sticker with a name on it or something.

I do know that this girl is Pixie and she loves to bake. They've posted three of the six girls to their IG so far. 

 

The blue one is a beachy theme. 

Same shaped accessories except for the skirt and shoes. 

This time I left the sand in its layers, because I like the colors. I do scoop some yellow out to put in the pet mold. 

I have no idea what this girl's name is, but she is SASSY. I didn't realize it until after I'd taken the pics, but she has sass finger and attitude. I really love her. 

So are these worth $14.99? I say yes, especially if it's going to a kid or just someone who really likes to play with molding stuff like this. There are lots of different ways to incorporate the sand into play. I would have adored these if I was little again. You have the "experience" of the reveal, as Moose would say, but in this case, you can keep on playing with the experience over and over again, whereas theirs is one and done. 

One of the two big cons for me is the lack of care put into the characters. Give us a checklist so we know their names! It's so unusual that they didn't. The second con is the totally blind aspect. I hoped for codes. They have numbers on the bottom, but they're all the same. I looked at five of them and there were no differences that I could find. So nothing is known. My guess is that each doll is always in the same color, so 2 for pink, 2 for blue, 2 for green. Assuming you can get all six in one case, that would be your best bet if you want them all. Like if I wanted the other doll in the pink cup, I'd be in trouble because that one was sold. So I'd have to wait for a new case and risk opening a second Pixie. I'm tempted to go back for the other three cups, but I can't afford to drop another $45 on these right now. At least I'll be safe getting the green ones down the line, as I didn't buy that color. I'm pretty sure the redhead, Pepper, is in a green cup, though the video I watched was deceptive and showed her incorrectly in pink, which is why I picked that! 

Anyway, yes, I like these. I think they'd be really fun for kids, though for adults, they're a little more frustrating because it's not going to be easy to find them all.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Glam Crush

I've got something new to share tonight. I've heard of these before, but this was my first time seeing them at Target. They're $9.99. You have a good idea which one you're getting thanks to the visible hair. I was able to find the one I wanted right away. 

There they all are, so that's very helpful if you're in the store and looking for a certain one. The hair sticking out the top is your clue. 

I wanted Penelope, the only one with darker hair, so she was easy to find. 

Checklist front. 

And back. 

So you push up on the bottom of the makeup brush thingy and the doll comes out. Her hair is stuck up in a barrette and you're instructed to wet it. 

Then there's a compact where the accessory is and a chisel/brush to help you with other gimmicks. 

The compact is filled with tightly-packed powder. You're supposed to dig into it with the chisel and find your doll's accessory. 

This was messy. As it looks like it would be. 

So her accessory is that tiny pink plastic doodad. It's supposed to be a contouring sponge. Sigh. How dull. It ended up in the trash with the rest of the packaging. 

Her hair did lie down easily with water though. No complaints there.

However, big complaint about the makeup effect. 

You're supposed to wet the sponge she came with under cold water and rub it across her face to reveal her makeup. Yeah, did not work. 

This pic on the right I took after a solid five minutes in the freezer. 

They're cute little dolls. Kind of remind me of the old Trollz line meets Sugar Planet. And the hair is really cool. But they're definitely not worth $10, especially because the cool makeup only appears if she's freezing cold. Otherwise, you're left with a bare-faced doll in a line about makeup. Sigh. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

REVIEW: Hotel Transylvania Mavis Bats Out

More goth dolls? Yes, please!

I have to be honest, I don't like Hotel Transylvania. I might have enjoyed the movie, but pretty much my most hated trope ever is putting an attractive goth girl with a complete and utter ugly doofus. It happens A LOT. So I refused to see the sequel and won't see the third one.

I will, however, buy Mavis dolls and pretend she is an adorable vamp girl that is STILL TOTALLY SINGLE.

Bats Out Mavis is one of three fashion dolls currently out. This one and the bride Mavis from Hotel Transylvania 2 are $17.99, while the resort outfit (AKA: dark purple minidress) Mavis from HT3 is $12.99. All are on Amazon, along with a ton of other not-doll figures.

Bats Out was the obvious choice for me, since I love her simple outfit from the first movie. She's wearing that plus a bat ear headband and bat wings that are held on by two elastic loops per arm.

I honestly don't get the bat outfit idea. I would have preferred her in this outfit minus the bat stuff and with a figure of herself as a bat instead. Mavis doesn't need a bat outfit. She turns into a bat!

She's so cute though! They did an excellent job. I don't think she could look any more like the character. She's spot on.

Her hair is very gelled, which I hate, but on the plus side, when it's this gelled, if you wash most of it out, it still usually holds the proper shape without being stiff.

Let's get rid of that unnecessary bat stuff.

Mavis wears a simple black dress with fishnet sleeves. Those are attached directly to the dress. Each sleeve has a tiny thumb loop.

So how many of you think she's wearing tights?

NOPE. Those are two individual striped stockings. I'm not sure I've seen the likes of these since Lollipop Girls. They make for way better lines under the dress and allow her to have decent joint movement.

Her legs don't go straight out, but she sits pretty well anyway. (This photo was taken after I rinsed her gel out. Looks good so far!)

Mavis is articulated at the neck, shoulders, hips, knees and elbows. Not the wrists.

Gah, sorry, Mavis.

She DOES stain.

My doll came with plastic wrapped around each upper arm, but the black went through it and stained her arms anyway. Unfortunately, it didn't photograph well, but I think you can see the shadow of it, particularly on her right arm.

I'm not fully undressing her because those sleeves look like a pain to get back on right. And that was a wise decision, because I unhooked the thumbhole on her left hand to get that stray thread out of the sleeve and it was really hard to find the hole again. Just leave her sleeves in place! If you want a Mavis to redress, I recommend the HT3 resort dress doll.

A little size comparison. Mavis is 10.5" according to the Amazon listing. She's a teense taller than Twyla. Without shoes, they might be about the same.

Despite not loving what they did with the character, I adore this doll. Goth dolls are always welcome in my home and she is an absolutely darling one! And for a fair price, too. I may invest in both the others eventually. The resort one would be fun to redress and the bride minus her veil and bouquet just looks ready for a night out.

Well done, Jazwares.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.