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!

There were 3 deluxe sets with the extra outfit and 3 basic ones which come in slimmer boxes.

the retail on the deluxe sets was, as far as I can tell, $28 usd ish... which isn't cheap for sure but small indie companies often aren't cheap. Their overheads are waaaaay higher than say Mattel or Hasbro.

They pop up cheaper on Amazon us from time to time.

Anyway, I paid £5:99 for each of these plus about £3 in postage, so they were less than a tenner each, which I consider a steal.

I'm not totally sold on the name of these. Fresh? It makes me think of sanitary commercials lol. "12 hours of freshness!" ahahahaha.
ahem.
still, it's better than "prettie girls" which just was terrible. Poor spelling and a hypocritical message.

The back of the boxes talks about what being fresh means... which uh... explains nothing. Apparently if you're confident and positive you are fresh?
Uh.. okay? cool?
Seems a bit buzzword of the week to me.

I like the next bit though, talking about promoting self love and how these girls can do anything. Heck yeah!

well, we'll see how much they can and can't do soon <_<

There's a picture of all the dolls in the set. Mia at the top with the afro, I love her.

I don't actually know who the redhead is, I think she might have been a special limited one or something as I can't find her on the website but I might just be blind. Who knows.

Anyway i'm only opening Indigo for the time being.

the box was okay to open, it's a fairly generic blister style box that just peels off the backing card.
the doll itself is then held in with only a few little plastic bands (no head staples yay!) and then bam, done.

I can't say she looks very comfortable in that pose.

The Fresh dolls all have these rather unusual faces, it's quite an elongated sculpt with a rounded chin, perky lips and a broad nose.

It's a somewhat unusual face, reminds me of a few older clone dolls. It's not unattractive, it's just a bit oddly proportioned.

Her eyebrows are asymetrical giving her a bit of personality and her eyes are quite cartoony but painted well.

Her first outfit is a satiny feeling blue skirt that goes to the floor and a cute high necked animal print top.
I like the top a lot and feel like it'd be adorable with jeans.

The skirt is fairly decently made, the top is hemmed and everything but puckers a little at her chest. Both feel about on par with other doll clothes to be honest.

The doll herself is made from a lightweight plastic rather like Mattel's own dolls are currently. it's shiny and hasn't got a lot of weight to it but it feels like it'd take a lot of play without shattering, unlike say the weird waxy fragile as shit feeling MC2 dolls. Her head is hard, very very hard.

Her purse and shoes are made of really super shiny cheap looking plastic. Hmm.

The shoes are very very squishy which could be an advantage, but all the gaps mean the toes get stuck so I feel like they'll tear at some point.

Her second dress feels a LOT like something Mattel would release. It's kinda boring but it's okay. The bottom part is a sort of shiny stretch fabric and the top is a soft stretch cotton.

This is everything that's in the box. 1 pair of shoes, 1 purse, 1 dress, 1 skirt, 1 top. Plus the earrings she comes wearing which are simple but nice gold studs.

I'm really not convinced about this dress. It looks kinda... young girlish on such a mature faced doll.

I do appreciate that the shoes aren't just boring little heels though.

Now of course the reason i picked Indigo was her hair. her hair is FANTASTIC. I mean sure you aren't getting a brush into this but why would you want to?
It's some sort of yarn-like fibre that emulates microbraids and it's goooorgeous. I love it. It's rare to get black dolls, even rarer to get black dolls with ethnic or natural hair styles. I LOVE natural hair on women so obviously I also love it on dolls lol.

It's lovely hair, soft and swooshy and styled with a bit tied back out of her face and the rest just worn down.

Her elongated face really does, to my eye, make her look quite grown up. From some angles i'm all "yikes" but from others she's actually quite pretty. Interesting.

Now the company blurb promised a unique body sculpt and they delivered.

While roughly the same height as a Barbie, the Fresh dolls are broader in figure.

She has limited articulation. Hinged knees and elbows. I kinda wish she had wrist joints too, they'd give her so much more dynamism.

She's slightly darker than my Kassandra Fashionista, so a sort of mid brown tone which isn't too unusual, there are darker skinned characters in the lineup but they didn't have awesome hair so... heh.

You can see here though how much wider all Indigo's body parts are. She makes Barbie's arms look like twigs, has far more naturally shaped and fuller breasts, a wider waist and more shapely legs.
Her neck is also shorter and she has a molded collar bone that barbie generally doesn't have in playline.

She's also got a booty!
A really full round butt that Sir Mixalot would be very pleased about.

To be honest quite a lot of her shape reminds me more of the curvy barbie than regular Barbie, but with a smaller waist. Her butt seems a similar shapely little bubble bum and her thicker thighs should mean she looks nice in tight fitting stuff.

Now, while Barbie can wear some of the Fresh doll stuff (okay most of it) and Indigo could steal Kassandra's outfit, I tested some other Barbie stuff and learned that pants are just NOT gonna work here. Indigo's thighs are too shapely for skinny twig leg Barbie jeans and similar. A shame.
But they do mention this on their website.

I wonder if stuff designed for Curvy Barbie might fit... but I haven't got any curvy fashion packs around and both my fashionistas came in boring elasticated shirt dresses which fit literally everyone.

But dresses SHOULD fit and stretchier (IE the stuff currently sold in stores by Mattel) tops should fit too. Just be wary of cute shorts and pants and more tailored things like jackets.

They have similar feet too. Similar really high heel. The Fresh doll has molded toes!

Barbie can wear Fresh Doll shoes but they're a bit gappy in the leg. Likewise Fresh Dolls can wear most squishy soft Barbie shoes like these boots. I couldn't find any heels to test but I assume they'd work okay.

In terms of articulation well... sadly there's a lot this girl can't do, despite the claims on the box (ahahah jokes)
Her knees are a very basic hinge joint so she can bend her knee 90 degrees and that's it.
there's NO rotation at all.

Likewise her arms only do a 90 degree bend and her hips don't allow her to do full sideways splits.

She can sit pretty nicely though, which ultimately is what most kids want their dolls to do right?

She cannot look up and down though. Her head moves side to side but there's ZERO up/down motion which I find a bit limiting. I'd love her to be able to look DOWN at whatever she was doing.

Alongside my old Fashionista the limitations are pretty clear.
Jules (the Barbie) has rotation in her knee joint which means she can pull a few more interesting poses while standing or sitting. Her knees and elbows only bend 90 degrees just like Indigo, but unlike Indigo she has a wrist joint which allows a whole lot of new poses and actions.

I believe there was talk that the next wave might have jointed wrists, I hope they do. They add a lot I think.

Like the ability to put your hand actually ON your hip.

Still, I rather like Indigo. Her body shape is a nice change and I loooove her hair. She is limited in what she can wear which could be disappointing to a child but the company does produce a range of fashion packs. Sadly they're all a bit basic and budget looking and not that cheap.
She also has pretty limited mobility but i'll take joints like this over static bodies any day.
At least she can bloody sit down! Unlike the modern fashionistas!

I'm going to be watching with interest what World of EPI do next. Already they've released some boys for this line which i want... very very badly...

I love that both the girls and the guys all have little bios on the website.

Indigo here for example is really into Afropunk and loves changing up her hair regularly. That endears her to me immediately because it reminds me of my old Family Support Worker who was a sweetie and every other week had a totally new do which was amazing and OTT. Bright red braids? a small afro? Butt length extentions? She did it all, it was so much fun.

They don't get a lot of info but just enough to start some ideas you know?

Mia is a singer, Tamra is obsessed with high fashion but not very good at school (how old are these girls meant to be?), Jacquline is a seamstress, Lynette is a writer, Gabrielle is the party gal and chatterbox, Aleyna's the tomboyish sporty one who also has a thing for food lol, Aria is a jetsetter and Victoria is an actress with a passion for vintage hollywood.

A decent spread of interests there, though I can't help but wonder if maybe a few more unconventionally girly interests might be nice. you know, have someone who's super into biking or fixing up old cars, or a gamer girl or something hehe.

The boys are nicely diverse too, and to my great joy NOT marketed as anyone's boyfriend!

Anthony is described as "the big brother" and a great listener and motivational speaker. He's a communications major (so I assume they're all college age?)

Malik is a camera guy, painter and general creative sort who's studying agricultural engineering, which is interesting.

And Daniel is a game designer! D'aaaww he's a geek! he's also a skater. I love him already. Can I take him home? lol.

Unfortunatley the boys are exclusive to Fresh Dolls own site and shipping is awful. *sobs*

A nice line that offers something a little different to the collection anyway.
A decently made play doll with a nice message behind it. Limited perhaps from a collector perspective, but I think a kid could have a lot of fun with these dolls and they'd stand up to being played with. 

FRESH DOLLS CAN DO ANYTHING! - Except look up 


Overall, I give Indigo a solid 8 out of 10 robot arms. Not bad at all, and I look forward to seeing what else EPI do with the line and how they improve them.