J-Dolls Maroseica Street

This is probably the first time I have been majorly disappointed in a doll. I recently bought J-Doll Maroseica Street, although I hadn't played with her much. At last, I'm able to review her, renamed as Mari.

So, I read a review of Mari at the Doll Grotto. From that I expected that her shoes might be an issue, even though Heather said shoe problems were unusual. But sure enough, Mari's shoes were falling apart before I took them out of the bag.

This does not bode well.

 And the shoes fell to even more bits after I took them out of the bag. They're useless.

From Heather's review, I also learned that Mari's black underwear might stain. It did, but this is the best picture that I could get of the stained part. Basically it's right along the seam between Mari's bum and her hip joint. Not bad, but just another problem.

Mari herself is beautiful, and the reason I bought her was because her red hair and green eyes are unusual, maybe even unique, in the J-Doll line.

Mari's body came wrapped in plastic, and the foam pieces holding her arms up from the box were stained, so I did have warning that her outfit might stain. She hasn't worn it since I took her out of the box; I dressed her for this review. She has a black net petticoat trimmed with silver lace, but it doesn't do anything for the dress, and I never got around to taking pictures, for reasons you'll see soon.

The dress itself is unusual but not unattractive. It's made out of a green suede-type material, with sewn on lace, beads, small metallic looking decorations and narrow chains.

Heather's review warned that the trim around her doll's sleeve frayed, and mine did as well. The other sleeve didn't have a problem only because that hand popped off easily, so the sleeve fit right over the arm. I had thought that the left hand didn't pop off, or at least not easily.

Another problem was that this dress kept wanting to fall right off of Mari. And the Velcro closure in back did not fasten for the entire piece when I tried to shift this so it was covering her chest more. Like they hadn't measured in her chest when they put the Velcro on. If it wasn't for the fact that the otherwise detached sleeves are sewn by a small seam to the side of the bodice, the dress might very well just slide off.

At this point, I was going to put on Mari's headpiece and take some pictures of her in the dress and headpiece. But then I discovered that after wearing the dress for about only ten minutes, the dress was already staining the doll, so I pulled it off quickly.

Below is the damage done to the arm; when I took Mari into the bathroom to try to get the stains off with a Magic Eraser, I discovered that her left hand was also slightly stained as well. But when I went to scrub that, I discovered that it did indeed pop off, and it went right down the drain! :O I'm hoping Mr. BTEG can rescue it out of the trap when he gets home.

Here's Mari wearing the headpiece. I didn't get any more pictures because the headpiece fell off when I tried to rearrange her for another picture, and I was pretty tired of the whole thing at this point.

Heather tied the headpiece's ribbon in front, under the doll's chin. That might be more stable, but since this doll was named after a Russian street, I thought perhaps they were going more for a look like these headpieces worn by Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana Nicholaievena. As you can see, there is a veil in the back and you can also make out a ribbon bow. Without the matching dress, Mari's headpiece is not very exciting however you arrange it.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olga_%C3%A9s_Tatj%C3%A1na_in_court_gown_1913.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Olga_%C3%A9s_Tatj%C3%A1na_in_court_gown_1913.jpg

Heather said her J-Doll had three looped-up braids; mine has four, two on the sides and two in the back. I might redo this style if I get inspired with another idea, but it's fine the way it is.

So this is the first doll I am going to have to give a overall bad review for. Mari's shoes disintegrated, her underwear stained, and her dress stained. What can she wear that headpiece with, besides the dress it came with? Her stockings, like other J-Doll stockings, don't have any memory stretch to them, so they'll very likely start sagging after a few times of being taken on and off. So what you get is a doll, and a pretty uninspiring black net petticoat which I had to use a seam ripper to get off because the petticoat doesn't come with any fastenings. So basically, you get a doll. Even after knowing ahead of time that there might be issues, my doll ended up with more problems than Heather's did, since mine can't even wear her dress for pictures. I'm glad I paid less than Heather paid for hers, and if you're interested in one because you like Mari's face, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for one.

Update: Mr. BTEG succeeded in retrieving Mari's hand.