Isabella hairplay doll quick review 

 

I manage to squeeze in at least one post a year, don't I? As usual, very late but here is my review of the Isabela doll from the movie Encanto, just as promised (almost a year ago).

I wasn't a big fan of the movie but I liked Isabella's design so into my shopping cart  she went.

Here she is in her boxed glory. I didn't unbox her completely for  this review since  I needed to transport her so I thought it's a better idea to  leave her in her box. She is still trapped in her box rirht now. (As are Megara, Esmeralda Alce and Wendy. I'm horrible to my freedom loving dolls)

The box itself is colorful, with a picture of Mirabel from the movie and another photo of the doll's face.

Her accessories are just as colorful as the box, lots of hair decorations as this is supposed to be a hairplay doll.

The back of the box has the movie logo, some flower decoration and a photo of the doll with all her accessories. Also lots of warnings and a price tag.

Left side of a box - you get to see the doll.

Right side of the box - a glimpse at the family house.

Top of the box - the movie logo and the doll from the top. the bottom of the boyx is just all blue.

Now let's get started with the partial unboxing.

My enthusiastic little helper Dolly is here, ready to cut up the box.

Don't worry, it won't hurt.

Ugh, that was hard, need to rest before continuing.

Now we can see her face without the plastic cover and her collection of hariflowers. Also notice she has her earrings which is fairly rare.

Let's  compare her to her movie counterpart. I think they captured her well although the dress colors does not match perfectly.

The hair lenght is aso about movie accurate but this is supposed to be a hairplay doll and hairplay dolls usually have floorlength hair as long as Rapunzel's. But she has those lovely shoes peeking out from under her dress.

Her skirt is kind of layered as in the movie. It is made of the usual material used for princess dresses with a bit of sheer materiel used for the sleeves. Also besides the regular flowers she has an accessory that looks like a lock of Rapunzel's shiny hair was tied to it.

It was caught up in the plastic cover so it was quite hard to remove.

A good look at the accessories she brings.

Now the interesting part. Enter Moana. Isabela has obviously thicker limbs and has a sturdier build than the regular princesses. I wondered if she used Moana's body and limbs.

 

It's not the same, Moana has thicker arms...

...and bigger feet, too. It would be like the stepsisters trying on Cinderella's glass slipper if Moana tried to put on Isabela's shoes. Notice the moulded details at the bottom of the shoe. It is a lovly details and one of those that usually disappear when ther is a new release of the doll.

And that's it about Isabella for now. As I already mentioned, she is still in her box as I had to store her away and move her around so it was a better option to not completely remove her from the box. I'm happy I added her to my collection as she is a unique new doll :)

If you have any questions related to the doll, let me know in the comments.

Aurora 2021 classic doll review

 "Fény és tiszta ünnep árad minden lélekből"

literally: Light and pure fesivity emerges from all souls

 from a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol

 

It's been a while I guess... And I could say that I was busy. I was. But I didn't feel like making time for preparing a blogpost. I'll try and we shall see how it goes.

I wanted this new Aurora doll because I just love her new facemold. She looks calm, elegant, regal - just like princess Aurora. Since I have an earlier edition of Aurora as well, I'll compare the two dolls. But if you'd like to see more details of my older Aurora doll, you can check out my review of her.

The dolls come in completely new boxes this year - no plastic in the packaging. This also means no annoying  plastic tags in the head or the dress, yay! Since there is no plastic, there is no see through part of the box, so you can't take a look at the doll before buying it if you get the doll at a shop but I can only order online so it' not an issue for me. 

 The front of the box has the stock photo of the princess. 

The sides have artwork of the princess and the movie, top and bottom both has Disney Princess on it, the bottom has Aurora and Classic Doll next to that, the later in a few different languages.

The backside has a scene from the movie - Philip and Briar Rose - and additional artwork that looks like their shadows. It's a new and quite nice decoration idea in my opinion. All the usual warnings and the pricetag can be found as well. There is a Plastic free package sign as well.

When the box is opened, the princess appears and she looks like she is standing at a window of her castle. Aurora looks perfect this way. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos when I first deboxed her so these are all from after opening her but I hope you still get an idea what it was like and how it works.

The lower part that covers up her skirt can be opened up, it's some paper hooks. Interesting and smart solution and easy to open.

This also means you can put her back in the box easily for transportation or whatever reason. After opening that up, Aurora was ready to be taken out of the box. 

She wass only held in place at the feet with a paper hook so she was really easy to debox, ideal for kids.

Her hair and that elastics didn't like each other and from the back it needs some adjusting. But from the front, I think she looks perfect.

Here she is in he full glory. 

She comes with her crown and necklace, both securely tied to her with thread and elastics.

 
The top part of her dress changes very little over the years but more on that in the comparing section.

The top layer of her skirt is decorated with glitter patterns

They still do the tull overlayer (covered in glitter) thin underlayer type of skirt. I'm not particularly fond of that construction but I plan to redress her anyway. She has simple pink slippers matching her dress and she has flat feet. They are too small to balance her to stand on her own. So far Moana is the only doll capable of standing on her own, but I have high hopes for Isabela, the eldest sister from the new movie Encanto.

Just love her new face, so pretty and elegant.

The articulation is the usual, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips and the hated click knees. Yep, I still hate them with a passion. But I heard the articulation in the arm was refined so she can move in a wider range. Yay for that!

The princesses come with a brush this year, here is Aurora's:

It is also held in place with just paper that's part of the box. It is decorated with a castle at the back. The mold is the same for all princesses (based on stock photos, Aurora's the only princess I got this year) but the colors vary. Many girls have a shade of yellow or gold (Snow White, Pocahontas, Merida, Anna, Moana), different shades of blue are also popular (Cinderella, Jamine, Mulan, Elsa).

Now let's compare her to my other Aurora classic doll, Aurenna.

Both the facemold and the facepaint changed a lot. The left Aurora was ordered in 2017 October from the UK online store, the right one came this year not so long ago.

The older doll, named Aurenna (that's her personal name I gave her)  has a sideglance, bright pink lips and matt gold crown and necklace. I prefer these to the shiny ones the new girl brought. But I was foolish enough to cur the elastic that held the necklace in place, now it dangles around as it pleases. I won't make the same mistake this time. The new doll (she still needs a name) has a forward glance, maybe that's why she looks so calm while the other girl looks livelier. The older doll's open mouth smile may add to that effect. The new Aurora comes with shiny jewelry and darker, more natural colored lips. No it's not a natural color but it fits nicely, better then the brighter color but that's my personal preference. She smiles with a closed mouth. Both have nice violet eyes.of abou the same shade.

The camera doesn't pick it up but her skintone changed, too. New girl has a faint orange tint to her skin, Aurenna is a bit more yellowish, I think. The difference is very small, both work well for Aurora.

The old doll's face reminds me of this screenshot:

While the new face reminds me of how she looked at the end:

 

Aurenna looks like she has more hair since she came with her hair in two bigger chunks while the new doll had her heir in one chunk. Aurora's signature curl in the bangs used to be lower, now it's high up on her forhead.

The bodice part of the  dress doesn't look that much different. except the older one has it covered in glitter. This made the fabric very stiff and I assume hard to work with. The glitterfree bodice follows the shape of Aurora better and so looks more elegant and it fits her more - doesn't look like a hand down from a (non-existent) older sister. The new dress definitely looks better in the bodice part. I'm not completely sure but the fabric of the sleeves feels a bit different. Oh and a pleasant surprise. Aurenna was very easy to redress, although long tigh sleeves are usually a nighmare. 

The sash around the waist is definitely a different fabric, for the old dress, the same fabric was used as for the sleeves, the new dress has a sash from rougher, stiffer material. Probably holds up with children playing with it better but I'm not sure.

The skirt is very different, the dolls I got in 2018 had a very similar skirt structure (Cinderella, Tiana) to the new doll's skirt. Itt hasn't changed much over the past few years, a see-through layer with glitter decoration and a thin second layer. I prefer the older skirt that is made up of lighter and darker pink panels - not completely movie accurate but very nice and still closer than that poofy new skirt.

The shoes are very similar, simple slippers all the princesses wear. The color is exactly the same. Left is old, right is new.

The shape is a bit more refined for the new doll, the sole is a bit flatter but the differences are very slight and only noticable when you have both of them right in front of you.

Overall she is a really nice doll especially if you like Aurora and Sleeping Beauty but I wouldn't have gotten her if it weren't for the new facemold. Aurora usually doesn't get  that many changes so it was great to see something new for her. I only wish she came in the blue version of her dress, blue is my favourite color and I already own a pink version of the dress. I'm still very happy she joined my little(?) doll family. As soon as she gets a name, she'll go up in the My Classic Dolls section as well.

I know I always say this and then never get the other reviews done (I still owe you Snow White, Anna comparison post and more) but please look forward to my Isabla review. I plan to compare her body to Moana, since I have not yet seen such a comparison.

 

Disney Store 2017 Classic Merida doll review

"My land's only borders lie around my heart"

from Chess by Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson, song: Anthem

Yes I'm really behind with my reviews, since the new dolls are already out in the USA and I'm doing a review of the Merida doll from last year. But she is the last doll of the bunch and I bought her for my sister as a Christmas present. I'll possibly purchase another Merida for myself for Christmas. My sister plans to turn her into a prim and proper regency lady, curled hair, high waisted dress and everything.
Let's get a closer look at the box first.

She follows the 2017 pattern, simple box, simple letters.

The movietitle and the characters name is at the front, and there are pictures on the sides and on the back of the box.

To be precise, one side shows her with a serious face, the backside shows her with a happy face (the doll can actually kind of do this trick, I'll show later, how it works).

The back of the box as all kinds of warnings as well, the price, the movietitle and Meridas name once more.

The other side shows her brothers in bear form, an obvious choice, since she comes with a bearcub figure. (This years, 2018 Merida comes with a ring, like all the girls this year) Merida also has her bow and arrows on both pictures, I think it's a great choice to represent her with her signature accesoires.

It would be great if the doll came with these accessoires, too. (Like the first edition did) I'm happy they didn't try to use 2D images of her for the box. While I think the 2D handdrawn pictures work quite well for Rapunzel, I don't think they work for Merida. She doesn't look like herself. But that's just my opinion.

Her background, misty woods, matches her colors and her story. Sorry no deboxing pictures this time but it was quite easy. The only ties that were almost forgotten and almost caused damage were the tiny ones at the bottom of her skirt.

She has a pretty, quite movie accurate face in my opinion. She has sideglancing, blue eyes with a touch of green. I think it's the result of some details painted with a yellowish color. She also has some freckles and rosy cheeks. Now the serious-happy trick: she has a loopsided smile so looking at her from the sides result in two very different pictures.

A happy one and a more serious one.

I love that. Little Kingdom Merida and Mini Merida can do this as well but pretty much all dolls with a loopsided smile are capable of this. It is great for storytelling with dolls. 

She has long, red, mane-like hair. Fresh out of the box, it's quite obvious that her hair has two different parts. At the front, you can see these bigger curls. She has them at the backside, too and these sections have a lot of hairproduct and are quite hard. The other parts are fluffy, messy and are mainly hidden under bigger curls. A boil-wash and recurling should help, but be careful, Disneystore hair doesn't like hot water that much, it'll possibly be damaged ot look dry. I recommend to do more research on the topic, if you decide to recurl your Meridas hair. There are many really good and helpful videos on youtube, they are a more reliable source - I've never done this myself so far, only read about it and watched videos on youtube.

So where was I? Oh yes, her hair is a mess.
That's okay for me, since her hair is quite messy in the movie as well.
Her dress is quite simple, no belt, no pattern running around the bottom part of the skirt. (the 2018 Merida does have it)

But there are some yellow details around the neckline and in her sleeves.
She wears plain brown flats, which are held in place with elastics. I leave them on so the shoes won't get lost.

She has flat feet and klick knees like all 2017 dolls I have.
I do not know what other collectors experience but my 2017 dolls tend to sit in a not so princessy way, as it was called when the issue first appeared with her hard plastic-hinge knee legged dolls back in 2012. Pocahontas sits propperly, holiday Anna is okay, too but Aurora, Belle and Merida... maybe it's Annas bad influence. All three of them sit now next to an Anna doll. :) Certainly not all the dolls have this problem and not all of them have it to the same degree. I don't really mind but I know a lot of people don't like it so I thought I'd mention it.

Now just look, how Merida sits. She has the usual princess articulation, head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips and the already mentioned klick knees. I mention in every single dollreview that I do not like those klick knees and responsible for that is this post by The Toybox Philosopher.
That post shows in detail, what is going on in the klick-knee legs.
The little bear she comes with is very top-heavy and can't stand on its own.

 

He has a mischevious little face.

There are some moulded details, too amd look at those... hands?

He also has a little tail.

He prefers to lay down, lazy little boy.

But he also likes to sit in Anna Margarets lap.
All in all, Merida is a lovely doll. My sister named her Mireben.
I also have mini Merida called Chris so I took a comparsion photo as well:

The picture doesn't really show it very well but there is a difference between the haircolors, Classic Meridas is a bit more red-red (like Ariels hair)  Mini Meridas hair is a bit more orange-rusty red color. There are lots of little differences between these two but they are both clearly representations of Merida. And good ones in my opinion.
And this last picture shows the reason why her arms were in the same position through the whole review:

She is doing a dancing pose (a different one) with this figure  and I have to put her back there, just as she was. It's much easier and is quite a nice pose, too:)

Right now I don't really have anything to review - all that's left are the Frozen mini wardrobe set and some bits from the big Tangled series set I got for my birthday. Sadly Rapunzel from that set has some issues I noticed too late to return it so I'm not really happy with it. The small bits are nice so I'll probably do a post about them. But for now, I'll just post about Dollys story, the ball and all that and hopefully get back to the Minis, too and let Elisabeth and Rosemary tell their tale and so straighten out a not so great start with Nicky and Becky. (If you have no idea who those are, but would like to know, go check the Introducing my minis tab at the top:) )