Rewind Review - Cutie Pops

An old doll line today, and a review i've been meaning to write for a good 4 months now. I'm such a slacker.

Anyway, Cutie Pops.

Cutie Pops were a line made by a company called Jada back in around 2012. Now I know next to nothing about Jada and even less about the release of the Cutie Pops as I never really noticed them in stores at the time. In fact, the first time I remember seeing them was in B&M Bargains and thinking "ok those are freaky and weird."

The franchise didn't stay long, after a few lines they disappeared off the market, relegated to bargain discount stores.

Now, as the years have gone on i've become accustomed to giant headed dolls with teeny spindly bodies, i've started to be able to appreciate them and look beyond their terrifyingly distorted proportions. So when I found around Christmas an ebay store selling Cutie pops for £3 a er.. pop... I couldn't resist finding out a little more about these weird dolls. I have a strange fondness for failed and discontinued doll lines, they fascinate me.

So,



the first wave consisted of 3 characters. Chiffon, Cookie and Candi
The ebay store had sold out of Chiffon (the blonde) but still had a few Candi and multiple Cookie dolls.
I decided to get two purely because postage for one doll was more than the doll itself lol.

As you can see from their promo shots, there's something sort of Blythe-like about them with their enormous heads, huge eyes and super spindly bodies. Those stands these promo dolls are on even look like Blythe stands!

The actual dolls DO NOT come with stands.

The dolls come in these cute but impractical heart shaped boxes. Seriously these things are a nightmare to stack on a shelf, they're so space hogging.

The boxes are very pink and very plastic. I admit, I was a bit nervous about opening them given how often I hurt myself on plastic boxes.

For scale, here's my Barbie "Jules" alongside the boxed dolls. They're a similar height overall but with giant heads of ginormous.

The back of both boxes is identical, strangely featuring a picture of "Eclair" (who I think is the same doll as Chiffon, go figure)

It talks about the "pops" and "clips" that are the gimmick of these dolls. We'll get to that.

I opened up Candi first as she was the one that appealed to me most. The rainbow clips are what did it, I love me some rainbow yarn hair.

The box wasn't too hard to open actually, it just hinges open. Getting the doll out was about as fiddly as it ever is but she had no tabs in her head which was nice.

In the box with her are an extra set of pigtails with box and bizarrely cardboard decorations on (why?)

Some little plastic charm things

And a pair of closed eyes.

The doll herself has these big plastic clip on eyes and moulded, painted bangs. Her head is huge and kinda featureless.

Out of the box she's not quite as hefty as I imagined she'd be with such a big noggin, her hair is lovely and soft and clips into her head so you can mix and match the pigtails.

She has a spindly little body and her legs are a bit warped from being in the box.

Her eyes are flat plastic buttons that pop into her eye socket (creepy). They're rainbow coloured with a lollypop and heart in the pupil. She has weird heart shaped eyelashes. These eyes are crazy. They make her look a bit trippy and demented, which I dig.

Her dress is made from lightweight denim fabric. It's a nicely made little dress with a broderie anglaise trim and little pink ribbon straps. The skirt has several plastic charms stuck to it, out of the box they're only on the front of the dress, but there's holes at the back for more to be added.

There's a bit of card sewn into the skirt presumably to keep the skirt poofing out. Weird.

Then she has these funny little bowed legs with striped stockings/leggings on and adorable little mary jane shoes with an ankle strap and a green bow on the toe.

The tights are made of thick knit fabric and are full tights, which is a lovely touch.

The shoes are squishy so come off fairly easily.

Stripped off the doll just looks bizarre. She has these scary heart shaped holes in her eyes that the eye buttons clip into, then her teeny body with static arms, mini hands and bow legs. Her knees are jointed but they're pretty stiff and don't bend much.

Her eyes are painted brown underneath those eye buttons. I'm not sure why they bothered, because damn this is creepy as all hell. Maybe if they'd painted the inside of the head black it would be less horrendous but they didn't so you're left with scary hollow horror eyes.

I swear her smile looks broader and more creepy like this.

There's also heart shaped sockets in her head for the pigtails.

Her hair is actually really nicely sculpted with lines for the hair strands. It's a lovely touch of detail that makes her moulded hair look pretty good.

The pigtail pieces all have the heart shaped peg on the end to slot into the head. They also have another heart shaped socket on the front of them.

Those are for the bows, the doll comes with two sets of these and they slot neatly into the pigtail's plastic base.

They also have a hole in them for the charms.

This is the second set, they're denim to match her dress.

So theoretically you have 4 different looks just out of the box for this doll. Spotty bows with black hair, denim with black hair,

And of course each bow with the awesome rainbow dreads.

The charms, according to the box are actually called "style pops"
They seem to be able to clip into the dress, or the bows

Here's the spare ones the doll came with. The rest are already on her dress. She has bow ones and uh.. heart.. lollipops? I don't know.

Slotted into the bows, they're quite cute.

The charms all pop off so you can mix and match them as you please. They clip into this little plastic heart with a hole in the middle.

The ones on Candi's dress also have what look like maybe balloons? I'm not totally sure.

She also comes with a brush that has two little holes in it....

When you add a pop to everything in her outfit that has a hole, you're left with... you got it, precisely two spare ones.

They slot into the brush. I think that's brilliant! A great way to store these tiny things so they don't get lost as easily.

Worth nothing, the eyes have the same shaped slot on the back of them as the ribbons so you can have creepy eye pigtails bwhahaha.

All dressed up she's a strangely cute doll, those eyes make a big difference. I love these pigtails best and thought the balloons looked cute around the bottom of the dress. The mix and matching is honestly pretty fun, I spent a good half hour or so just playing about with the different combos lol.

You can add the alternate eyes too, so she can be winking (she looks a bit more like she hurt her eye but eh)

Or sleeping standing up.

But I like the open eyes best, they look crazy.

Here's Candi with everything that came in her box.

She came with nearly a dozen "style pops", two sets of pigtails, two sets of bows, a brush, two sets of eyes and of course her full outft (dress, tights, shoes)
Not bad for £3.

I also got Cookie, but my photos of her seem to have gone walkabout. Not sure what happened to them.

She's very similar to Candi except she came with a hat, a hat her pigtails couldn't actually stick out of. Random. The hat was actually just tacked flat on her head instead of being worn so her pigtails looked to be sticking out of it. Come on guys, would little holes have been too hard?

Her style pops were all cake plates, party hats and presents. They're all interchangeable with other Cutie Pops dolls too, so she could steal some of Candi's sweet themed pops and Candi could take her party hats or whatever.

Again her hair was lovely and soft but her purple hair was cooler to me.

It's part yarn but then has ribbon in it too making it wonderfully textural.

Her shoes are similar to Candi's but have bigger bows on.

Her tights don't cover her feet and are made out of some sort of lacy material.

She has little freckles which are adorable.

Her hat had a hole for one single "Style pop" too.

She only came with one set of bows, her second accessory being her hat.

Her open eyes are flat blue with a cookie? and a heart in the pupil. They aren't quite as delightfully crazy as Candi's, they're just a bit creepy to me.



Anyway, final thoughts?

I really enjoyed the Cutie Pops. I don't think they have a lot of staying power in terms of play, they're a bit strange looking and their bodies are a pretty odd size making redressing them a little awkward. They can't really pose much and they can't stand for long because they're top heavy and have teeny feet. Once you've gotten them into the assortment of pops and clips you like best, you're kinda done.
Yeah the mixing and matching is really fun, but will that fun continue to a second or third play? I'm not sure.

You could buy new "pops" and things for them, which was a cute touch and they did make a lot of them. There's at least 3 other waves of these, so there was a lot of potential for mixing up your own unique dolls.

I'm still not convinced about the giant heads, they're a little TOO giant, a bit too inflated for my tastes but if you're into Blythes, these dolls have a very similar aesthetic. Just like Blythe they have no eyebrows and spindly little bodies of uselessness. They're a way cheaper alternative anyway, and I wonder if it would be too hard to make new hair pieces for them. Could be a challenge for some creative folk.

They are fun and I enjoyed sitting and playing with them for a bit. Candi has a degree of craziness to her look that appeals to me, she's just that bit MORE ott than Cookie who sadly comes across as just a bit bland alongside her rainbow candy themed friend.

I give them a solid 8 cute hydrocephalic kittens out of 10 (Sam & Max quote y'all, I knew i'd get one in eventually!)