Disney Descendants - CJ Hook

DESCENDANTS!




Yes, i've given up on anything resembling a coherent opening ramble. I'm just gonna yell the doll line and everyone will be "why yes, let me read on."
right?

Okay so Descendants. CJ, new character. She was meant to be released a while back or... got a listing a while back on Smyths anyway but then their stock checker went from "stock soon" to "stock: no longer available" which in Smyths language means "discontinued"
BOO

And then randomly she popped up in stock. Huh? Like months later, bam, she's in stock. No fanfare, nothing, she just... was.
Confusing.

Anyway, for some reason Smyths had listed pretty much ALL their descendant dolls at £7, so even though she was a brand spanking new release, she was £7.
Uh.. okay? Score.

These retail at £20 new, so £7 is a bargain.

I also picked up two neon ball dolls just to get free shipping, because i'm a sucker like that.

Anyway,

CJ Hook, daughter of Captain James Cook (see what they did there? do ya?)
She's a... er.. pirate girl.

Again I question who hooked up with ol' hooky boy on the island of lost souls or whatever, but maybe there's a bunch of evil fangirls swooning over all these moustacheoed bad boys or something I dunno.

I love pirates. So I gotta have a pirate girl doll.

Her box is pretty standard, weird shape like the first wave, mostly made of card. SUPER easy to open (Hey Mattel are you listening?)

The back has the wicked world logo, I think that's the name of the animated show online but I haven't watched it so eh.

She's "hooked on new adventure", not a feeling? what a shame.

Her art is uuuuuugly. I mean, no offense illustrator.. okay lots of offense, wtf is going on here? I mean, i'm not a great artist but i'm also not a professional, someone was paid to draw this so I think i'm allowed to nitpick. She has messed up hands (wtf is up with her lower arms?) and this GIANT forehead, like.. that's not even a 5head, that's a fricken 9 head right there. She looks about 50, she looks like she's wearing a mop or a wig or something I just..
there's so much off proportionately and it's bugging the hell outta me.
I can't keep looking at that bulbous head of hers, she's like daughter of freaking Megamind or something with that bulging cranium. I get that she's got her head tilting forward but there's some big issues here and just.. argh.
RUN AWAY.

For your £20 (or in my case £7) you get... not a lot.
Uh.. a doll, a bag.. and a sticker.

Ooo spoiling us Hasbro?

To be fair the previous wave gave us bugger all in the box too. All that empty space I dunno... it feels... wasteful.

She comes with a compass sticker.
I don't get the point of these stickers, what are we meant to do with them? all the Descendants have come with them and I just don't get it. There's no sticker book for them or anything they can be stuck onto... are we meant to stick them to the inside of the doll's bag or to ourselves or something?

Unlike the first wave Descendants where the sticker was hidden in the bag, this one is slotted into the backing card.

And was FREAKING SELOTAPED IN PLACE AT THE BACK

WHY Hasbro!?? WHY!?

Out of the box, she can sorta stand on her own. She's not that stable but its doable.

She's certainly striking with her red satin coat and map leggings.

For some reason her headscarf is plastic.. I guess that was cheaper than fabric? I dunno.
It's thankfully not stapled to her head, it's just elastic banded. Phew.

Her hair is a bit messy from the box, but it's very soft and shiny. I think it's probably kanekellon like most dolls but don't quote me on that, i'm notoriously rubbish at working out hair fiber.

She's a lovely tanned complexion, a bit like a regular barbie doll's california tan with sort of blonde eyebrows, brown forward facing eyes and red lips.
She has a lot of pink blush on her cheeks and pinkish sort of nude maybe? eyeshadow.

I do like the descendants' faces, they all have a lot of personality and they're very cartoonish and "disney". I think it's cool.

Her hair is a sort of dirty blonde colour with brown streaks. It's a very nice natural colour, I like it.
It's braided in two small plaits at one side and has a slight wave to it.

It's a little frizzy at the bottom but it's okay.

One of her hair bands is blue for some reason. Some are clear. The big one around her high ponytail is black.
Random.

She has this little tied back but at the front on one side and the rest is swept back into the ponytail for the other side. I had to take her hair out of this style to get her headband off, because i'm a klutz and managed to mess it all up taking that elastic band off. Oops?
It wasn't too hard to get back into the original style though and it looks like it's rooted decently enough you could take most of it down, though it kinda needs to be in a ponytail or it floofs out weird.

She has the standard descendant body with those expressive posed hands and pointy pointy fingers. I actually like the expressive hands, they're all the same but I think they add something to the sculpt being in this relaxed position rather than just flat and standard.

Her outfit is... disappointing.

It's all one piece. ALL of it.

I wasn't overly surprised to learn the jacket was sewn to the blouse, that's fairly standard and they'd done a pretty nice job of overlapping the jacket and the blouse and even lining the part of the jacket you could see in the box.
But I was surprised the shorts were attached (they have a rather chunky waistband that hides that seam, and her belt over the top) and the leggings are sewn into the shorts (bummer, they looked like they would be a separate bit)

The jacket is made from stiff satin-look materia and only lined near the blouse. The blouse has a frill down the front which is repeated at the ends of the sleeves of the jacket to look like long sleeves.
Her shorts are made from this suede soft fabric with gold contrast stitching and of course the leggings are stretch cotton as expected with this awesome map pattern.

It's very cleverly done and it looks really good ON the doll, but it's extremely disappointing from the perspective of someone who likes to redress dolls and likes mix and match options.
It's a costume, not an outfit really. It's the sort of doll costume not designed to be taken off the doll which in my opinion completely defeats the point of a fashion doll. But I guess we've moved away from FASHION dolls and more into "action figures with fabric costumes" these days.

Her belt has a little hook clasp. Cute.

Her headband is a plastic headband with moulded fabric tassly bits. It's a bit hard to get on her head because of her hair style, you have to sort of ram it through the thick bit of hair on one side and then it holds in place quite well, so... yay that?

She has these fabulous boots with buckles and gold painted detail at the top (wonder why they painted that but not the buckles?)
I dunno what the design is meant to be, it looks a bit like weeds or... islands or? i dunno. It's just frilly scrolly bits and blobs to my eye.

Her bag is made to look like a treasure chest, it even has little feet.
But no handle, so I assume she has to carry if like a chest too.
Not a very practical handbag then.

It does actually open but not where the key hole and fake lid is, it opens along the top so this is the "top" of the lip if that makes sense with the little feet being the hinge.

The back has the same scrollwork but isn't painted.

the hinge I feel is a bit weak but that seems to be the case with ALL moulded bags these days.

Still it's cool it opens, I like that.

and it stands on those little feet really well too.

Redressing CJ doesn't take long, after all, it's just one large jumpsuit to get on her. I'm glad this whole removable hand thing has become so standard across all doll lines though, it really does make redressing the dolls so much easier and really prolongs the life of sleeves and dolly fingers.

Only awkward bit is the belt, which is a bit fiddly to get on under her jacket and over the quite thick waistband of her shorts. It fits very snugly. 

Of course, every pirate needs a sword and I happened to have a few extra of my little sword toothpicks laying about.
They're metal toothpick/cocktail sticks made in the 70s by Toledo. They're perfectly 1/6 scale and actually pretty sharp at the end. I have, I admit, been known to use them as actual toothpicks ahem.
I have a dozen of them scattered about being used by various dolls, and had one in just the right style left over for CJ.

Even from this angle you just cannot see that her outfit is all sewn together. It's commendable really, they put actual genuine effort into making sure it still LOOKED right, even if it was limiting the amount of fabric they had to use.

She has a stiff collar, painted on strap fastenings on her jacket and a pleated waist that makes the bottom of the coat poof out for a properly dramatic piratical look.

Yarrr
and all that.

And this is the only way she can hold her bag.

Honestly she's a pretty cool doll. I like how expressive her face and her hands are, the articulation of the descendants is perfectly fine for most poses you'd want to do and her outfit looks AWESOME when it's on the doll.

But it is one piece and that's a bummer, and she does come with like.. nothing else. Which makes the RRP of £20 a little bit gouging feeling.
£7 was a bargain, but I think had I paid full price i'd be feeling a bit ripped off.

I summary, I give CJ Hook a solid 8 bottles of rum out of 10. The rrp is far too much for what you're getting, but Hasbro has rather trumped Mattel here when it comes to showing that a sewn together outfit doesn't HAVE to look crap and that it's possible to cleverly hide those seams and make the outfit look completed, finished and good.

But like the other Descendants, quality is pretty solid, hair is good, body is good, face is good. I'm yet to actually see a Descendant's doll with smeared or damaged facepaint. Slight wonk yes, but I haven't seen any all smeared like so many Mattel dolls.
So good job Hasbro.

Cj comes with no brush, and you might want one to tame her box hair. I know I used to moan about drowning in doll brushes, but at the same time, when you open a doll that doesn't have one, you do feel their absence.
I've taken to keeping a comb on my desk for deboxing.

Anyway, she's a cool doll and of course, I always love me a pirate lass.

"You fight like a dairy farmer!"