Royale High - Roblox fashion dolls? What?

 So uh... Roblox... you know... that game platform with the lego looking avatars has um... fashion dolls now.

that's a real thing that exists.

and they look every bit as bizarre as you'd think. 

Clones, heck yeah clones.

 I do enjoy a good clone doll. There's something charming about them. I don't mean the cheap copies of an existing doll just made with inferior materials, I mean the ones that actually put effort in and while clearly knockoffs, have a particular heart to them. 

and so today we're going to talk briefly about my latest acquisition. B&M Rainbow High clones. 

Monster High G3 - Catty Noir

 She's finally here, months late but here at last. 

Let me explain.

See, Catty hit the US market back in like June? Meanwhile here in the UK her release date kept being pushed back... and back... and back. 

as it stands, as of today (September 16th) Smyths, the biggest toy retailer, STILL has no confirmed stock date for her. She's been on their site "awaiting stock" since July. 

But I managed to find a retailer who DID have her in stock at last. 

Not Argos, Not Smyths, not Amazon even. Not even Very. Nope, instead the company who got stock in first was Grattan/Freemans. Who are Grattan/Freemans I hear you ask? Grattan are a West Yorkshire based catalogue company who generally sell clothing, but have a small toy section.Freemans are their sister company following some sort of merger in 2000. Like Very/Woolworths/Littlewoods, the two companies operate near identical websites with the same stock and have the same admin and honestly I don't fully understand what the point of the multiple sites IS but whatever. 

 Not somewhere I would have thought to look. I only found this because of Google, and was honestly really surprised to see they had Monster High dolls at all, let alone having Catty in stock. 

Not only was she in stock, they had coupons which saved me some more money.

Whooo!

I ordered and waited about 4 or 5 days for delivery. Like Very, Grattan use Evri for their delivery and Evri is slow as shit. 

But she arrived! So let's get a look at this  new rendition of Catty Noir!

In my defence, it IS the school holidays....

 At least that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it lol. 

in all honesty, the real reason i'm so sporadic in posting is purely down to energy levels. 

I've learned that because my energy is so low most of the time, buying dolls mint in box actually tends to result in them sitting in a pile never getting opened. Opening the doll is an extra hurdle for me, it takes time and it takes energy snipping all those stupid little plastic ties and tape and all that crap. And I just don't want to.

On top of that, I have no space to display new stuff anyway so there's this whole "well they're safer in their box" attitude too. 

I NEED to do a massive declutter but that ALSO takes energy I just don't have. 

it's like this vicious cycle. I buy stuff, then I have to make space for stuff, but I don't have energy to do that, so stuff sits in a box in the corner collecting dust and making me feel bad. 

Dum de dum. 

But what actually does help me a lot is buying secondhand dolls, because then I don't have to debox them. They arrive, I can have instant gratification and then they go in the pile. 

Problem is, they're addictive. You KNOW I love me a bargain bundle after all. 

But anyway, let me share at least SOME of the stuff i've obtained over the past few months of radio silence. 

Most of my stuff is still in boxes waiting for me to go on a mad deboxing spree but that's not likely to happen for a while. 

so in the meantime, here's the other stuff.

Monster High g3 - Spectra Vondergeist

 Well this one was a surprise. Yesterday Spectra just appeared in stock on Smyth's website. No fanfare, no preorder, just bam, we have her.

I was unsure whether to just order her right away or wait for other people's reviews/photos but in the end I decided to take the plunge because I was assured she'd NOT have poly hair. 

I admit, i've been buying a lot of my g3 MH secondhand because they're dolls I need to "fix" thanks to poor hair choice or badly painted eyes (i'm looking at YOU MH Boys) 

But Spectra looked beautiful in her promo images. My only real fear was whether her hair would be okay. Has Mattel listened and stopped resorting to poly for everything? Or was she going to be yet another nice redesign ruined by Mattel's cheapness? 

only one way to find out. 

VIP Hair Academy

 In terms of toy lines I expected a doll spinoff of, I cannot say VIP pets was one I would have had money on. Then again, I wouldn't have put money on that line getting a reboot either but there you go.

So for those not aware, I "heart" VIP Pets are a line of small plastic dogs with rooted hair who's whole gimmick revolves around hair play. 

The return of the Living Dead Dolls - Sadie

 It took about a year, but Sadie's finally here!

Preordered back in early 2023, there were some delays with this release though i'm not sure why. Her release kept getting pushed back without any information being offered. So hmmm.

Living Dead Dolls are BACK though, after a hiatus of a few years (excluding their "presents" line of movie tie in dolls) and a big drama involving one of the creators being removed from the project. 

I don't know the full details on that beyond "he was scamming people for money for work he never did for years and everyone was sick of his shit and then his business partners cut ties"

That's all I know. 

I'm sure there's some juicy gossip involved, i'm just not privy to it and his former partners are being hush. 

Anyway, that whole thing was a big reason I believe for the massive delay between now and the previous series 35 which came out back in 2018. Yeah, we haven't  had a core doll release for LDDs since 2018!??? We've had a few movie dolls in that time, but no original dolls. 

So when in 2023 it was announced that LDD was coming back and in a new form, it was pretty exciting. 

The only downside was the price point which was a rather eye-watering $120 +P&P

Mezco have at least it seems, finally sorted out their international shipping. But with postage and customs fees and all that, Sadie cost me a pretty penny.

So was it worth the money? And was it worth the wait?