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.

 

Elsa Disney store 11 inch dolls comparison

"Tükröm, tükröm, te mondd meg,
látszik-e vajon, hogy öreg lett?"

from the musical Elisabeth by Lévay and Kunze, the part is called Restless years. Literally: Mirror, mirror  tell me, can it be seen that she got old.
It's based on the lines the Evil Queen says to her mirror in the fairytale Snow White and the seven dwarfs.

They are all mirrors of each other thus the quote with the mirror. First I only wanted to compare the change of Elsa's face over the years but then I thought that the length of their braid, the different takes on the same hairstyle (although this is more interesting for Anna’s updo – I’ll do a comparison post for her as well). Not only the facepaints aka faceups are different, but the headmolds as well.

I will refer to them either by numbers (first second and third face) or their names. Elsa with the first face is Victoria, Kiki for short, Elsa with the second face is Sissel (the sister to all my sisterless Annas) and Elsa with the third face is Shizuka (for now) or singing Elsa since she’s not a classic doll but a singing doll. I show them in chronological order in the pictures - oldest is on the left, newest is on the right.

I did review some of them, you can find them here:

Singing Elsa from Frozen 2 with newest/third face

Christmas Elsa (who has the same headmold as middleface Elsa)

The headmolds of Christmas Elsa and Second face classic Elsa are the same and the faceups likely similar but I don’t have the Christmas doll anymore so I can’t compare. But I’m sure the skintone is different, Christmas Elsa was pretty much white as snow while the middle face classic Elsa has a little color.

Our three ladies in their original clothes - this photo has them in  a mixed up order, third Elsa aka singing Elsa is in the middle and second Elsa is on the right.

I redressed Singing Elsa into a beautiful blue sparkly Barbie dress that I think suits her wonderfully.

Now let’s take a look at all three ladies in chronological order.

She’s a first release classic doll, I got her from Germany, thanks to a very generous helper and talented artist named Verirrtes Irrlicht (Take a look at her Instagram account and her gorgeous repaints: https://www.instagram.com/verirrtes_irrlicht/ )

Since she is a first release and from Germany, she has the hinge knees and ankle joints and much messier, wilder bangs than the others, she has more sections. Later versions with the same face had flatter, less messy bangs, shorter braids, smaller trains/capes and at some point even the articulation was changed to click knees. Her shoes changed from simple blue flats to ice heels, later the heels were changed to fit the flat feet better. Those changes are visible on the other two dolls as well. Their bodies are basically the same, but there are lots of small differences. The first one has as already mentioned hinge knees, the other two have internal joints in the legs, so called click knees that I hate and don’t consider as proper articulation. I’m waiting for suitable Made to move Barbies that will serve as body donors for better articulation. Some other differences are there because one of them, the third one, is a singing doll. Turning one of her hands activates the singing, the arm that hand is attached to has no articulation at the elbow and her wrist articulation is limited,

Classic doll with the middle face, full body picture:

There are other changes to the dress, we will look at them in more detail later. The eyes are much smaller.

The third version of her face.

The eyes are a bit bigger again and it looks closer to the first face than the second.

People have very different opinions on the faces but from what I’ve seen, the middle one got the most criticism. I think all three are lovely. Let’s compare their facemolds, first let’s look at them from the side. Each doll has its head as high as it goes. Yes, the first doll has much smaller range of motion vertically than the other two:

You can see how odd Elsa’s signature hairstyle turned out on the second doll, as if part of her head was missing on the back, but it’s just the odd placing of the bangs.

For this picture, I tried to have the “bottom line” of their heads to be one straight horizontal line:

The first Elsa almost looks scary

Here we can observe the obvious changes to the faceups.

Middle Elsa still has her head as high as it goes so she looks a bit odd.

The first one has the lightest blue eyes, the second one has smaller eyes with differently painted details and a bit darker blue eyes. The third one has less details and even darker blue eyes with just a hint of green.

The eyebrows changed as well, the second one has longer and thinner ones than the first, the third one has more details in her eyebrows and it’s getting more brownish than grey with each new doll. The eyeshadow is different as well and only the first two represent the same look so naturally the third one has very different makeup. The first doll has even her eyelids molded and shiny purple eyeshadow. The second and third dolls only have that line painted. The second doll has purple eyeshadow as well but it’s not shiny and it’s slightly darker. The third doll has bright pink eyeshadow that’s painted under her eyes as well. The outlines of the eye are finer on this doll so it’s fine, the first doll has thick outlines, she almost looks like she’s very tired. (I guess Elsa actually was tired of everything plus organizing a coronation even with tons of help is really stressful for her)

The lips got thinner, the first two have a very similar color, the second doll’s is perhaps a tad more red, the third one’s are bright pink, matching her pink eyeshadow. Normally I would think it too much, I don’t like bright pink but she somehow pulls it off.

I can only repeat that the bangs are pressed more and more against her head and have less sections. I must say, to me, the first version of the bangs looks best. Notice that the shape of the hairline changed as well, the middle one almost has a widow’s peek. At the same time, it manages to make her face look like a square. I guess this is partly the odd bang sectioning’s fault. The lock that falls into Elsa’s face is also the longest and thickest on the first doll, becoming shorter and thinner with each new doll.

The first one has a significantly longer braid, the second and the third doll's braid is about the same lenght and except for the first one, the end of it is very hard due to the amount of hairproduct in it. First Elsa’s braid has a nice and soft end. They were really generous with this first doll, but the braid length of the later dolls is more movie accurate. The haircolor of the first two Elsas is very similar, it was also the most repeated complain I heard, that the dolls have too yellow hair compared to Elsa in the movie. The third doll has a much lighter and more silvery haircolor that is more like Elsas haircolor in the movies.

Last but not least, their skin. Yep, first Elsa is very purplish, almost as if she was frozen or based on her early concept art, when she was still evil and had blue skin. Christmas Elsa, that’s not shown in this review, had white skin or at least almost no color to her skin, the other Elsa with the same face as Christmas Elsa has a bit more color and the third one has a very similar skincolor. It’s a tad yellowish, in the movies it’s a bit more pinkish in my opinion. I have the set with the girl’s final looks from Frozen 2 and that Elsa’s skin and especially face seems even more yellow. 

She has the same facemold as the singing doll but has her hair loose.

Now let’s move on to the two representations of the famous ice dress.

The fabrics used are pretty much the same, the dress part is exactly the same blue, the difference is the printed white details the newer version has. The older dress is a better construction, it has the sweetheart neckline and a proper waistline, unlike the second dress. On top of that I was quite unlucky to get a sloppily made dress for my poor second Elsa doll, the waistline is crooked and it even folds the fabric in a way I can’t straighten. (I’ll get her a new outfit. She was supposed to get that blue Barbie dress but it looked better on the third Elsa so she’ll get the Frozen 2 travelling outfit. Someday. Or not.) It was obviously made with much less care and love than the first version.

The see through part of the dress is a bit brighter on the newer dress, the older dress has a bit lighter, and a tiny bit more purplish blue sleeves.

The first dress has a bit longer and wider skirt.

Sorry, this picture turned out a bit dark.

On the back, they look pretty much the same, it’s the same structure.

But it’s clear who has the bigger train. Or cape or whatever it is called. I used cape in my earlier reviews but now train seems a better term. Whatever, I mean this big thing on the backside of Elsa's dress.

The edges of first Elsa’s train overlap in front of her, she is practically wrapped into her train. The two parts were also tied together with one (or more, I can’t remember) of those annoying plastic tags. The second dress also had some but the train was tied to the dress (leaving nice and loveable holes in the dress. Still better than the holes they leave in the heads of the dolls, they are absolutely unnecessary for securing the dolls to the packaging in my humble opinion.)

Let’s see how big those trains actually are:

Notice that the glittery snowflake decoration put on the outside of the cape looks blue on the inside on the first dress but white on the newer dress.

 

Finally, the shoes (you can also have a peek at the difference in their articulation):

Simple, solid blue flats and slightly see through… heels? They are almost flats with a tiny heel, a very odd design but the ice details are pretty.

The new shoes are clearly superior in looks but the old ones fit better on the doll’s feet. But I think that’s an issue with those flat feet.

It’s the usual thing happening, as the years go by, the outfit loses details and quality. Not that the second one is a bad dress (aside from my sloppy version), it’s good enough but next to the first dress, all the little shortcomings show.

I like all three dolls a lot but if I’m forced to choose just one, I think I’d go with the first one, she has definitely the better dress and even with her thick eyeliner and purple skin, she is my favorite. (Also my very first Disney doll)

Some more pictures as a closing of this comparison post:

First Elsa aka Victoria

 

Second Elsa aka Sissel

Third Elsa aka singing Elsa or Shizuka

I got the new classic dolls except Tink so there will be reviews of Meg, Esmeralda, Alice and Wendy! I also promised a similar comparison post with the Anna dolls and there is some other stuff from previous years (and my dollstories). I will try and post more this year so please look forward to it!