30 Dec 2018

Post christmas roundup

Well the festive season is finally over, we made it!

Sure it wasn't without tears and anguish and the usual depressive state, but we made it!
I just gotta make it to new year.

So let's look at toys!


6 Dec 2018

Fresh Dolls by World Of EPI

I'm gonna admit this, I LOVE ethnicly diverse dolls. I'm not totally sure why though, perhaps it's because growing up with a sea of identical blonde, blue eyed, white barbie dolls just bored me to tears? Or maybe it's because I like my dolls to represent the world around me? Or maybe it's because I just think they're pretty. Whatever the case, non white dolls are difficult for me to ignore and not buy.
I can't help it! They're so often far far more interesting than the much "safer" white dolls like generic Barbies of old.

So when I saw some doll people talking about Fresh Dolls I knew I had to go check them out.

A bit like So In Style by Mattel, or the failed Prettie Girls dolls (terrible awful name for a doll line that), the Fresh dolls are Barbie-like dolls who are supposed to be more representative of black women and something a little new and different to the market.

Now, on the one hand you could argue with Mattel's current Fashionistas being extremely diverse in their skin tones and sculpts there's not that much NEED for yet another barbie scale doll on the market but in my opinnion, the more the merrier and it's always cool to see how another company does things differently.

Also, I agree with SO MUCH of this company's philosophy.
https://www.thefreshdolls.com/ You can read Dr Lisa's explanation of how important representation and confidence is for kids, especially little girls of colour. I've seen the study she mentions and it really is absolutely heartbreaking. I'm pretty sure i've had rants similar about the importance of representation here on my blog. 

I also had a chat on facebook to Dr Lisa and she's so lovely. I knew I had to get one of these dolls to review.

Unfortunately in the UK that was a tall order, as for some stupid reason we don't get many black dolls over here (because black brits are totally mythical right? *eyeroll*) and as I predicted, alas, the Fresh Dolls were not ordered into UK stores. US shipping was a bit prohibitive, what with US postage being really high and the pound being especially crap at the moment, so it wasn't really economically viable for me to order and import. I waited, hoping either they'd figure out a cheaper shipping method, amazon us would get some in or by some fluke a UK stockist would actually order them in.

Well.. it happened. A uk stockist!
X-S Stock in fact, who appear to be some sort of outlet store a bit like B&M and Home Bargains.
Now i'm not sure if these were ordered in by somewhere like Toys R Us and X S ended up getting the stock for cheap or what, but heck yeah deluxe dolls for £5:99! (+ shipping of course)

I grabbed Indigo and Jacqueline. I wanted Indigo the most because she has amazing hair.
Sadly they only had the three deluxe girls, i'd have liked the budget Mia with her beautiful afro as well but oh well.

Anyway, let's get a look at this line of dolls!