Here is the third doll in my Rainbow/Shadow High collection. She's Nicole Steel, and she's cute as a button. Her eyes are the most luminous of any Rainbow High doll that I've seen, and her curls are super adorable.
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This is Nicole's jacket from her first outfit. Since the Rainbow High students are Sparkle, the Shadow High students are Anti Sparkle. Fortunately, they seem to be moving past that theme with newer dolls. It was getting pretty boring. She has a motif on the left sleeve of her jacket. The cat is related to a band that is made of up three other Shadow High students. It looks very 1930s, and like it could have been on the nose of a WWII plane, at least to me.
This is Nicole's base outfit, minus the jacket. She's a basketball player, and her interest is in street clothes and sports wear. It's nice that the dolls have different fashion styles that they're interested in, but I think this outfit is pretty basic compared to the other dolls that I have.
The fact that these shoes have ties is a little annoying. Of course they come untied, and then they're difficult to re-tie. The backs of the shoes have a sort of lift, to accommodate the fact that these dolls' feet are made to wear heels.
When I took off her shoes to take pictures of her in her second outfit, I got an unpleasant surprise. There are holes on the bottom of her socks.
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| Nicole needs to learn how to darn. |
Here's a picture of one of her earrings. They tend to fall out easily, and I have a short funny anecdote I will tell about them at the end of this post.
When I went to change her into her second outfit, I noticed there are two notches in what I guess is supposed to be a dress, that looks like a sports jersey. It's possible that I made those snips myself, when I was clipping out all the tiny plastic ties attaching the dress to the cardboard. It was still a bit disappointing to see.
Her second pair of "shoes" is really stretchy knit fabric on top of a plastic shoe base. I did find it a nice touch that the shoes had toe caps to slip the dolls feet into. They serve to keep Nicole's toes from showing through the fabric. They might help hold the shoes on better as well, but I haven't moved the doll around enough in these shoes to know.
Her jacket is the most impressive piece of her second outfit. It is a beautiful reflective silver on the outside, and features a faux zipper. The jacket actually closes at the back.
I guess the circles and triangles are supposed to mean something. They look like laundry instruction marks to me. :) When the jacket is closed, the pattern at the back becomes clear. The jacket technically has working pockets, but they are very small and tight, so not useful for much.
The jacket has a beautiful lining. I'm torn between admiring it, and feeling sorry that there wasn't more effort put into the stuff that can be seen. The jacket isn't reversible, and since it closes in the back, Nicole can't even wear it open to show off the lining.
I wish Nicole would have come with a basketball, to make up for the fact that her outfit is lacking compared to some of the other dolls. MGA chose to make a black and silver "purse" shaped like a basketball, that was put into one of the blind boxes that they made. Considering there were 27 different purses in all, buying blind boxes trying to find Nicole's would be rather a waste. Also, it's a purse, so she can't really "play" with it. I think this Barbie basketball is a bit small to look realistic. Just a bit? Other than the basketball, this is her entire second outfit. Good thing I didn't buy her for her clothes.
Also, I forgot to point out in my other posts about these dolls, that they have a "joint" in their upper thigh, so that their legs can be twisted around.
So, this the second Nicole Steel that I purchased. I took the first one out of her box quickly, to enjoy looking at her. It wasn't until later that I noticed a flaw in her face makeup.
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| Oopsie |
Since she came from Amazon, I just sent her back and ordered a second one. When I started to pack the first one up, I realized that one of her earrings was missing. I looked for it for several minutes, then sent her back without it. It was just as well, because the second doll came without one earring! I finally found the missing one, so she ended up with two earrings after all. The left one, where there was no earring originally, tends to fall out easily. It gets caught in her curls a lot, which is good, because it doesn't get lost, but bad because it takes a bit of work to work the earring out without messing up her hair too much. The right earring also fell out during this photography shoot.
As a review, this one doesn't have a lot of high points. If you're a big fan of sports/play them yourself, you might find her clothes at least a bit more interesting than I do. Except for the jackets, they still aren't as detailed as other dolls, even the rest of Shadow High Series 1. Luna Madison's prime outfit is a bit... interesting, but I like her overall looks better than Nicole's. I bought Nicole because she is just such an endearing doll, not for her clothes. It's actually why I got her third off my list of dolls I'm interested in, just so she has other stuff to wear. I am working with a dress pattern that I have for her, too.
Next up is going to be the doll that I received for Mother's Day. Since it may take me a while to get the doll and all of her clothes out of the box, I'll let you know ahead of time that is Emi Vanda, who is about as different from Nicole as can be. :)
Total dolls: 85
