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

Rainbow High Priscilla Perez

There isn't a lot to say about Priscilla, because she didn't come with a lot, compared to other Rainbow High dolls. She's still a beautiful doll. I especially love her eyes, and the way her hair glows almost neon in some lights. Her dress is pretty typical of what teens wear to special events these days, but the boa and the gauntlets are an interesting choice to pair with them. I think some jewelry would have been nice, but the fabric accessories probably appear to be better value for the cost, so that's one possible reason for the choice. Anyway, you've seen Priscilla in pajamas, now you can see her all dolled up in her original outfit.

I love her, and I'm interested to see how she looks in other outfits. We're moving out of the heat of summer and into prime sewing and knitting times for me. As usual, I probably have more plans than I can carry out, but I'll do my best.

I forgot that I didn't add a picture of her in box, and realized that I'd forgotten all of the little accessories that she came with, which I guess is an indicator of how much I was impressed by them. Still, I'll get a photo or two of them up before I post any more dolls. 

Total dolls: 89

And Then There Were Two

Yes, I picked up another Rainbow High doll. Well, technically this doll is part of the Shadow High line. Shadow High is Rainbow High's rival school, and the first dolls in this series varied in skin tones and clothing from mostly all white to mostly all black, with shades of gray in between. Shanelle Onyx is the doll who is mostly all black, except for a white streak in her hair, and she's the doll we're looking at today.

This is the way she came, fresh out of the box. I like her outfit for the most part. Her lace socks and strappy heels with black fur looked cool in the YouTube show, but they look a little odd in real life.

Fortunately, she comes with a change of clothes and shoes. I like her second outfit too. There is no slit or clasp on either of her pairs of shoes, so they have to be worked on and off. I don't like that her clothes mostly fit *very* tightly, meaning you have to really pull the sides together so the Velcro can meet. With the black belt that comes with Shanelle's dress, I feel like I'm not getting it closed all the way; I can't get all the Velcro covered by the other end of the belt. At least her hands can come off, similar to the way Monster High/Ever After High dolls' hands could. It makes it a lot easier to put on things like the jacket with ruffled sleeves in the second picture below.

I like her makeup. Her hair is silky soft, with only a little crunch on the end of some of her hair at the bottom of her ponytail.

Her body has some marks and scratches, but those don't bother me for some reason. Also, these dolls have an "unrealistic" knee hinge, which again, doesn't bother me, but I thought I'd show those of you who don't have one of these dolls. 

These dolls have their own names, with personalities and story lines you get to see in the show on YouTube, but the dolls seem mainly designed to display the clothes. As with Mila's dress, for example, Shanelle can't sit down in the black and silver houndstooth skirt. Of course, lots of kids just hold their dolls in the air and make them "talk." This also reminds me that the dolls do come with color-coordinated stands, and a comb. I talked with Dana about whether these clothes would fit curvy Barbies, and the answer is: no. I have a picture of a curvy Barbie/Shadow High doll under the fold.

I Have Gone to the Dark Side

My first new doll for 2023 is from ...Rainbow High. I've been looking at these dolls a lot; they are everywhere. It's only been the latest series, though, that have induced me to actually buy one. The fact that this doll was on sale for $15.00 absolutely did not hurt, either. Meet Mila Berrymore.

I'm not going to do a proper review with this doll. For one thing, there are pictures all over the Internet of these dolls. For another, in the outfit that she is wearing, she can't sit down, and can barely lift her arms. However, I wanted to see in her second outfit, the one she is wearing now, so much, that I took her first outfit off right out of the box, and put her in this one. Yes, with most of the Rainbow High doll series, the dolls come with a complete second outfit, including shoes. It looks like the newest Rainbow High line that will be released soon, will only have one outfit, but lots of accessories.

Her boots are gorgeous, but they are *work* to put on. There's no slit, zipper, nothing. You just have to slowly work the boots up her legs.

Her hair is mostly soft, except for the ends, which are crunchy. It has some lovely shades in it. And dang, her eyelashes are long!

Her head doesn't have a lot of range of movement. Also, it seems to be tilted back a little too far, and it doesn't go forward.

Here's her second outfit. RH are the same height as Barbie, but with their larger heads, and bigger proportioned, curvy bodies, Rainbow High dolls can use heavier fabrics, and include a lot more details.

To me, the dress that she is wearing, looks like something that would work in a Riverdance production. I don't like her name very much, so I want to change it to something Irish, but I haven't found anything that really seems right to me yet.

I do have my eye on some other dolls from the line, but at the moment the next dolls that I would like to get are from Shadow High. It's a rival high school to Rainbow High, and the dolls are mostly in blacks, whites and grays, including skin tone. It may sound weird, but they look cute to me. I will share any new ones that I buy, of course. 

Since this doll is new, I'm also adding her to my collection tally. I haven't done a My Collection post in almost a year!

Total dolls: 83

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.