REVIEW: VIP Pets Glam Gems

I still have three of the original VIP Pets, but never got much into the new series. I picked up a few of the minis and one of the non-blind-packed ones from Dollar General, but I saw the Glam Gems series on Amazon the other day and really liked the lineup. They're all pretty awesome. I ordered one to see if I liked them and yeah, I do. (I may have ordered more already to try to get the ones I really want.)

So if you go to Target, you've probably seen the VIP Pets in their big bottles. I can't remember if I've ever seen them at Walmart, but definitely at Target. They cost almost $15, but are they worth that? Let's find out. 

The Glam Gems series has a transparent window in the bottle. You're supposed to put your hand over it and then after, you can see into the bottle. I tried this and nothing happened, so I tried again more aggressively and got a bit of the pink to fade into a normal more whiteish plastic color. It's still really hard to see inside, but I think this feature combined with one other may be enough to identify which dog is inside, especially if you have the checklist on hand. 

The directions are taped to the side of the unwrapped bottle. There are pieces of tape along the side and one on the bottom that need to be removed before the bottle will open. 

Being that this is my first experience with this line, I have no idea how rare the rare character actually is, but that is the one I got. 

So inside the bottle are the dog on her stand, which has a suction cup under it, plus a pouch, a pamphlet, and a pair of sunglasses. 

I absolutely love this suction cup idea. These dogs are so incredibly top heavy thanks to their hair that keeping them on a stand (via a peg inserted into a hole in the bottom of the dog) and then having that stand stabilized by a suction cup is sheer brilliance. 

The hair on these is fabulous. Aurora reminds me of DeeDee from Hairdorables. She's got two shades of pink plus a darker green and then a few streaks of blonde. 

These are amusing. 

The pouch contains a strip of rhinestone stickers, a gem-shaped brush, a tiara, a hairclip, two barrettes, and 6 clear rubberbands. 

The front of the bottle comes off and can be used as a back for the stand. 

However, it barely shows behind her head and it makes her less stable on the stand, so I took it off again. 

There's a small plastic gem taped to the inside of the bottle. Take off the tape and pull and it comes down attached to a cord. 

In her pamphlet, this is shown hanging down from the side of her head, but I prefer it looped. 

Then inside the clear glittery top of the bottle, which is attached by plastic that you have to remove, there's her gemstone. 

This is what I think can be used to ID the characters, combined with peeking inside at the face. If you look at the checklist, you can see that the gems are different colors and shapes. That plus looking at the dogs' individual faces should be enough to ID them. I'll experiment with this when I get my order in. 

Aurora's diamond snaps into her tiara. 

Each of the dogs may have a unique pamphlet. 

You can see hairstyle instructions, a picture showing all her accessories, and an art version of the character. 

Here's a closer look at the checklist. This isn't a birthstone series so much as just gems. 

I really like how I can display them at the ends of my bookshelves and their hair can hang down but won't obscure much of the dolls on the shelves below. And they're stable thanks to the suction cups. The hair is nice and they do come with a lot, so I see the $15 value here when you compare them to other blind-packed toys. As long as I can ID them and not have to risk opening doubles, I'm in. I've at least got to find my favorites!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Dream Ella Extra Iconic Minis Yasmin

 

Mini Yasmin has arrived!

Cute art.

Okay, she is adorable, but what the hell were they thinking with that ugly purse color? The purse is lumpy and poorly-molded. It looks like a dollar store doll accessory. It went straight into the garbage after this. 

SO MUCH BETTER. 

Her "bangs" aren't bangs at all, but two long curls, each fastened down farther on her hairline. They give a good impression of bangs though. 

I'm not sold on the earring color but I don't totally hate it. 

The outfit is really cute. I didn't take it off because it's straight-forward. The sleeves are attached to the top so it's just a top and pants. 

I'm a fan of these girls. I wish the third one didn't have those stupid cheek hearts. I won't be buying her. But I hope both of the Ella Extra lines do well enough to get more dolls produced. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Enchantimals Sarely Swan

This set has been sitting in my Amazon saved section for months. I finally added it to my most recent order. 

Sometimes these names are really a stretch. Sarely? Have we really exhausted all the S names? 

She comes with a mirror and a barre, a spare tiara, a purple bag, and a bouquet. 

She's really very cute even though my main draw for this set was...

Pointe. 

There is something about this swan's expression that I just love. 

Without her tiara. 

I like this one much better. 

I pretty much always just buy the playsets for the dolls and animals, but the barre looked pretty neat. There's a little clip to help attach her so kids can move her around in various dance poses. It's a neat set. 

My only complaint isn't about her but about how their packaging warped her left shoe so that it doesn't stay on her ankle. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

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.