Barbie Basics 04 Red-haired Doll Review

It's nice to see Mattel bring back basic dolls of nicer quality than the Fashionistas. I also am happy to see these dolls with the Made to Move bodies, even if some old time collectors aren't. At the same time, I don't really need too many new Barbies, so I decided to get only one, the petite doll with red hair. I'm not too sure how I feel about her face, though, now that she is live in the vinyl. This is how I see this doll, as a hostess at an vintage cocktail party. She looks almost sly to me. I can picture something... interesting, happening that evening. Spilled secrets? Poisoned glass? A knife in the back?

So glad you could join us, my dear.

This is our petite lady standing next to an older Barbie head on a Made to Move Barbie body. Quite a difference, I think. Petite's dress is fairly nice quality. It's a stretch swimsuit type material.

On Facebook, I found the interesting tidbit that newer shoes with the B initial on the bottom will work with regular and petite bodies, while shoes with the Barbie ponytail silhouette will fit curvy and tall dolls. I tried this with a newer pair of shoes with the B on the bottom. Sorry that the camera focused on the wrong part of the shoe. Regular on the left, petite on the right.

This is what the Barbie silhouette looks like. The only curvy shoe I could get my hands on without going on a massive search was black on black, but I hope you can make it out.

 

Looking at how small and slender Petite Barbie is, I was hoping that she could fit into some clothes made for other dolls. What I did not realize looking at that sleek black dress, is that our girl is relatively hippy. Here she is wearing a vintage Teen Skipper outfit. The top fits perfectly, but the capris can barely fasten in the back. Next is a dress that I normally have a doll with the old school hands to side Barbie body wearing. Besides being a bit too long, although she is barefoot in this picture, it looks okay. It is a bit loose, but that's not terribly noticeable. However, the pink and white shorts made for the modern Barbie figure are definitely too big. There is a major gap in the back, and room at the sides too. Lastly, Petite Barbie tries on the outfit that her regular counterpart was wearing. The skirt fits, but it flares out so far that it almost look like she's wearing a cupcake. The top is alright, but paired with the skirt, it gets pushed up above Petite's shoulders. By itself it's acceptable. I guess the moral of the story here is that if you have any spare tops or stretchy dresses lying around, they might work.

Shoes made for other size Barbie family dolls did not work. The green Teen Skipper slides look okay-ish, but they're rather loose in person. Modern Teen Skipper shoes are too long. High School Musical shoes, which work on my J-Dolls, don't look right on her. The only shoes that could pass muster were some pink pumps with a kitten heel, made for Momoko dolls. They also were a bit loose, but it's not obvious. I also have one of my J-Dolls wearing these, normally. The difference between Petite and my J-dolls is that the J-Dolls' feet get wider as they move towards the toe, while Petite Barbie's feet are the same width for the whole of the foot.

 

This is one of the negative things about Petite Barbie, that she will be difficult to find clothes for. Mattel, surprising no one, reaped the positive press from the new bodies, made a few outfit packs for the different size bodies, then contented itself with offering stretchy clothes that will fit multiple bodies. This is why I personally hate the different body types trend, because doll companies hate making clothing packs to begin with, never mind multiple clothing packs for multiple body types. And while you can pass stretchy clothes between dolls, I'm afraid a larger doll wearing something will stretch it and make it too baggy for Miss Petite to wear it again. Plus, why should Petite not have clothes to wear that aren't made with spandex? At least she can share flats with regular Barbie. I forgot to check and see how her feet would fit in shoes made for arched feet, but I'm guessing they wouldn't look great.

I do like Petite in the brown top. When I was picturing in my mind what she would look better (to me) in than that black dress, I saw a country girl type of look. Her hair isn't giving off country girl, though, and the parted sides are pulled together in the back and cut rather short. Maybe I could take them apart and reattach in the back of her head. Sixties might work if I cut off most of her curls, but I don't want to do that, and I don't know that I want to dress her in sixties things anyway, even if I'm realizing that the kitten heeled pumps would also fit that vibe. Urgh.

Although I said above that I like Made to Move bodies, I wish Mattel could have proportioned the petite body's joints a bit better, especially in the knees. Of course, I do find the knees the ugliest joint in all the Made to Move sizes.

Lastly, these new Barbie Basics dolls come with a plastic circle underneath the earrings. Is that to prevent green ear, or any damage to Barbie's ears? I find them unsightly and green ear or not, I think they're going to have to go. 

 

I'd like to know if anybody sees my Petite Barbie differently than I do. Actually, I'm almost certain some of you will, beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that. I'm not going to get rid of her anytime soon, I don't think. I'll give her time to grow on me, and maybe try to make her some outfits of her own. It's a shame that she's hard to dress, or I might enjoy having her in my collection more already.

Total dolls: 92

Something Simple

There has not been much going on here lately. I haven't had the energy to do much beyond the basics in the past month. I spent an afternoon putting together 8.5"x11" sized pattern pieces for a sewing pattern to make scrubs pants for my daughter. I cut out the pieces for a doll sofa from one of those kits where the pieces come pre-cut; you just have to finish cutting them free, and then glue them together. Hopefully I will have that set up soon. It shouldn't be too hard, now that all the pieces are loose. But just so you know that I'm still here, I'm putting up a very basic picture that I took to mark having 100 followers on my Instagram account. I decided to group together just about every different type of doll that I own into the photo, and I'm glad that I did. I discovered at least one new Instagrammer who collects Madeline dolls for example. I'll probably find more people outside of the Barbie/Monster High/Ever After High groove that I've been in. Some of these dolls you have seen. Some haven't been on my blog at all before today, but you'll see them eventually!

My Collection Part Four: J-Dolls, Part Two

Here are the other half of the J-Dolls in my collection. From left to right, we have Mari, Melanie, Adelheid, Steffi and Holly.

None of these dolls are in their original clothes. Mari wears an outfit I bought from Etsy. Melanie wears a Mattel top and shorts. Adelheid wears an Only Hearts Club top, and a Shibajuku Girls skirt. Steffi's clothes are all Shibajuku Girls. And Holly wears a Barbie dress. And the shoes are, from left to right, Mattel High School Musical, Re-Ment, Momoko, and the last two are both Mattel High School Musical.

Mari

Melanie

 

 

Adelheid

 

 

 

 Steffi

 

 

 

Holly

 

 

 

 

 

Total dolls: 20

Holly's face seems to resemble some Korean models that I have seen online.

My Collection Part Three: J-Dolls

Well, here we are again, finally! J-Dolls are discontinued now, but they were made by the same company that makes Pullip dolls. They have the same bodies as the Pullip #3 and #4 types. J-Dolls are 27cm tall, and I find them to resemble Momoko dolls the most in the doll world. These are only four out of my collection; the rest will get photographed at a later date. They're all wearing their original dresses, except for Lindsay, who I bought nude. Lindsay also has a new wig, because hers was pretty dry. Lindsay and Anni's shoes are both from Momoko's line.

Lindsay

Anni

Sophie

Rachel

I printed out the new walls and floor with the new color printer that Mr. BTEG bought me as a birthday present. Do your loved ones find you hard to buy gifts for? Mr. BTEG and my daughters feel that way about me.

Total dolls: 15

#SNAPSTAR vs Liv

When the #SNAPSTAR dolls first launched, so many people compared them to Liv dolls, myself included. And since I wasn't interested in the #SNAPSTAR dolls themselves, I really just cared about seeing them with Liv dolls. I was interested in their similarities and differences more than the dolls themselves. When I found a #SNAPSTAR doll for a good price, this was my chance, and if you were interested in comparing these two dolls in more detail, I hope you'll enjoy this.

Meet Daniela Liv and Dawn #SNAPSTAR. In this picture, they don't seem to have much in common, other than inset eyes, and oversized heads.

However, there is one thing that makes them stand out from most other doll lines, and resemble each other. This:

Yep, both of these lines have removable wigs, and both lines also have/had separate wigs available for purchase to change your doll's look. (I say have/had because the Liv line is long gone, although of course you can still purchase Liv items second hand, including those spare wigs.)

Not only do the dolls wear wigs, they both have holes in their noggins for a wig post.

So of course, I had to know if the dolls could swap wigs. One thing I noticed during the wig sharing was that Dawn's wig cap is much harder, kind of like a hat. Liv wigs, at least in my experience, need to be almost peeled on or off. This is not easy either, as the wig cap, while not as hard as a plastic hat, is fairly stiff.

Here's Daniela wearing Dawn's wig. It really does change her look quite a bit, and although you can see some of her painted on hair in the front, it's not a bad look for her.

I could see her wearing one of the #SNAPSTAR wigs that had bangs or something, very easily.

While Daniela's wig did not fit Dawn quite as well, it doesn't appear completely out of place, and it changes her look too.

This wig is loose on Dawn, and the wig cap doesn't touch all of her head. It wouldn't be good for play, as it would fall off all of the time. But it doesn't look bad here, and I like being able to see more of Dawn's face than her wig shows.

Wigs aside, one look at Dawn and Daniela will tell you they can't share clothes or shoes. Liv can wear some Barbie clothes; I do know that. For this post, I wanted to look at the newer doll on the block. Naked doll with clothing and shoe images under the fold.

J-Doll Petit Champlain

It's been a difficult winter for me. I have low Vitamin D year-round, as well as issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder. My therapy light helps, but it's so big that I struggle finding a place to use it. It's cumbersome, and falls over easily.

For a while, I was shirking my regular use of it, and then I tried using a smaller light that my husband got, that looks more like a regular desk lamp. That didn't help me, and I spiraled into insomnia and joint pain. I may have found a workable place for my light, I hope, and I've been more disciplined in using it. I'm actually falling asleep before 5 AM nowadays, but I'm still working on getting things done like I used to. It's taken me days to write this post, even, because I can't seem to concentrate.

None of that is an excuse for why I haven't put up a post about this particular J-Doll yet. I bought her back in June of 2018! I just had other things to blog about, and somehow she got put at the back of the list. But talking about her now makes for a relatively easy post, so her time has come. I've blogged about J-Dolls before, as I own several. They were produced by Jun Planning, and then by Groove. They were made by the same company that makes Pullip dolls, and the bodies are similar to two of the body types that Pullip dolls have had, the Type 3 and the Type 4. If you want to see a comparison of the two bodies, go here. Otherwise, let's talk about Petit Champlain. J-Dolls were named after famous streets in different areas of the world. In this case, Petit Champlain can be found in Quebec City, Canada. She is the second "Canadian" doll to join my collection; the first was Stephen Avenue Walk, who hailed from Calgary. The outfits the dolls wear marginally reference their namesake areas. Petit Champlain's dress is definitely styled after a French can-can costume, so there you go, I guess. Since this new doll has a French background, I'm going to call her Sophie.

Here she is in her box. I picked her up at a Tuesday Morning store for a great price. The price sticker describes her as a "large Pullip." I did find a mini Pullip at Tuesday Morning on another trip, but I'd still not describe Sophie as a large Pullip. Maybe medium-sized.

Her hair was tied back with a small piece of thread, that was slipping down, and was eventually just going to fall off, so I took it off after taking a picture. I should have taken a picture of her from the front with her hair pulled back too, but her hair looked messy in the front from the tie coming loose, which is why I undid it in the first place.

Her outfit is definitely one of my favorites among the dolls that I've bought. She doesn't have a too-small jacket, her outfit hasn't stained her body, her shoes aren't going to fall apart, and the blouse is separate from the corset/skirt combo, so she could wear it with something else, although the pintuck stitching on the front of the blouse is crooked, so she'd probably still have to wear it with something like a high-waisted skirt, or a jumper. I am impressed that the blouse has princess seams, though. Sophie has plastic around her legs to prevent the black lace stockings from staining them. I should redress her at some point, I suppose, but I like her the way she is, too.

Since not all of you are familiar with J-Dolls, here for comparison is Sophie with Rachel, another one of my J-Dolls. Rachel hails from Abbott Street in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

Once I started doing this review, I realized that I'm not sure where I put the pink hairbow that Sophie came with! I hope I didn't accidentally throw it out, even though it's something easily replaceable. Overall, she's one of my best J-Doll buys, and I'm glad that she's in my collection.