Paola Reina Amigas and Resinsoul Shi

Me and spending is a little like pringles, once I pop I cannot stop.

Amazon certainly didn't help matters.

I was randomly searching "latest" in the doll section to see what if anything new had hit UK shores and stumbled upon a line of Paola Reina dolls that I had very vuage memories of having seen before. But for a fraction of the price they used to be.

Paola Reina Amigas Liu

Paola Reina Amigas Carolina

these two in particular caught my eye.

The first because ethnic dolls in this style are astoundingly rare and finding non black minorities is especially rare in dolls full stop.

The second because I can't resist giant curls or red hair <_<

They were both only about £15 at the time of ordering though I don't know who the heck is actually selling them because Amazon's listings are really vuage.
and a lot of the listings are extremely misleading.

There's a few listings that don't make it clear they are JUST for clothing for example, and in the case of my Liu, the seller actually changed the picture of the doll after I ordered from the same face mold but with a sort of dirty blonde hair to the black haired version.

Now in my case that was a good thing because I had preferred the black hair but the only other one with such a combination was £20+ and i'm way too stingy to pay that lol.
But it was a bit iffy of whoever's actually selling them (I don't think it's Amazon themselves, the listings are too vuage)

What's also strange is that despite me KNOWING this line is called Amigas, they are NOT listed as Amigas... at all. Anywhere.
They're listed as "queen" and I don't really understand why.

The ever lovely Toybox Philospher actually reviewed one several years ago here. Which is likely why I sort of vuagely recognised them.



Now i'll be the first to admit that "toddler" style dolls are seldom my cup of tea but the older I get the more I start to appreciate them as very classic styles of doll.

And I dunno, something about these ones just really appealed to me.

I don't own many dolls in this style. I have two Journey girls who are 18 inches but they're about the only style of doll with that classic "doll" look I actually have in my collection. And I have them because I think they're slightly spooky in a "small child in a horror movie should be clutching one of these" kind of way lol.

What can I say, Paola Reina drew me in with interesting face sculpts.

But I had quite a wait for these to come into stock.

What I understand about this line is that it's a few years old now and the company who makes them are TINY and as a result they don't really get that mainstream sort of attention. But they do seem to be still making new ones, which I found interesting because I initially thought the line was defunct.

As well as selling fully dressed dolls for between £30-45 on average, they also sell lower priced versions dressed either in very simple little PJs like Carolina or wearing just a pair of panties to be dressed by their new owner.
These market at around £15-20 on average it seems and I have to say, it's a good idea.
A low cost option to get into the line is always a good thing I think as the full sets are a little too pricey for my stingy ass.

The clothes however do look GORGEOUS.
There's several full outfits I actually really really like.

Anyway, i ordered these on the first of May and they didn't arrive till the 21st. Honestly I half expected Amazon to cancel the order but nope, they got them in eventually.
So that was nice. Sometimes Amazon's backordering actually does work.

I used a voucher left over from christmas to get these down to about £20 for BOTH heh, because i'm cheap.
it helped to justify the randomness of their purchase.

 They came in simple little plastic baggies with no fancy branding or anything.

In fact the line name isn't even ON the packaging that I can see.

The sticker on the back says "origin" and appears to be some sort of certificate of authenticity.. or so it says. I'm not entirely sure. Paola Reina's website is pretty poorly translated in parts so it didn't give me much insight. This is what it says:

Origin is the quality brand that distinguishes a product manufactured 100% in Onil, granting each product its authenticity, safety and quality, based on tradition. This symbol has caused a doll, a classic toy, can revive completely renovated.

And the only indication of the line name is on the barcode there where is says "Amiga"

Which is interesting.

What's pretty cool about these dolls is that they're made in Spain. Paola Reina are a teensy tiny company who still make everything in their home country and honestly that's pretty rare in this day and age.

From what I can establish from their website they've been making dolls since 1870.

It's very easy to get the doll out of the baggie and there's no plastic ties or anything, just a little tag on her wrist held on with an elastic band.

It's been a while since I had a doll so easy to debox!
Well.. debag lol.

They smell of vanilla essance, a sort of chemically vanilla aroma that gets everywhere. It's not unpleasant, but it's STRONG when you first open them.

Apparently ALL Paola Reina dolls smell of vanilla. I dunno why. Bit random.

The Amigas are about 12 inches tall, making them a rather unusual size for this style of doll. We'll get to that.

Carolina has a LOT of very vividly red hair. It's nicely rooted, it's very very curly but it is a bit flat from her packaging.
It needs fluffing out.

The curl means I don't think it'll tolerate being combed much though.

She has inset bright green eyes, glued in lashes and a really adorable pudgy face.

I find it interesting that she has pretty simple eyebrows and no lower lashes at all, but has surprisingly realistic freckles.

Her body is pretty standard for an immature doll body. It's kinda pudgy with simple joints at the hips and shoulders so she can sit but that's about it.

It's a perfectly functional body and feels pretty sturdily put together.

She has no markings on her lower back or anything.

She has little molded elbows though which are cute.

Her clothes are simple but nicely sewn. A pair of shorts with stars on with an elasticated waistband and a t-shirt that velcros down the back. She also has a hair band tie thing that matches the shorts. I didn't try to remove that though.

but of course I was curious what else she could wear.

This Groovy Girls dress fitted pretty well.

As did this one, though it's quite damaged.

The Ken shirt fit fairly well  too. The skirt is a BJD MSD sized skirt which is perfect for her waist.

I found an old vintage "mummy knitted" jumper for her, some msd 3d printed glasses that fit perfectly and some Disney princess shoes (I think they're from one of the larger disney dolls but I actually don't know. I found them in a charity shop and bought them thinking they might fit another doll.)

DAMN she's cute.

Ridiculously cute.

Of course she didn't arrive alone. I also bought Liu. She arrived nude wearing only a pair of simple white cotton panties.

I had a Glitter Girl fashion pack i'd bought for curiosity sake (I wanted to know if they fit slim msd, they do) and was delighted to learn that she fits it perfectly as well.
Even the shoes fit!

which is interesting because Glitter Girls are 14-15 inches tall so a good few inches taller than these girls.

i LOVE Liu's face. She's got wonderful features, not something you often see in dolls, especially not dolls of this price point and it's delightful to see some quite obviously non caucasian features.
So many doll companies honestly opt either to go a bit too charicature or to just give a white doll dark hair and paler complexion and call it a day (i'm looking at YOU Mattel)

Alongside a Barbie doll gives you an idea of the size of these dolls. They're actually quite a practical size for play. I always felt like 18 inch dolls were just ridiculously unfeasably huge compared to the child who was supposed to play with them. I mean sure, as a kid giant toys are kinda cool but in terms of actually being able to do anything with it, this size is far more useful to carrying around and dressing and such.

Alongside my Journey Girl Alana they look so small, and Alana looks so staring and blank.

Amigas have such expressive faces, it's really impressive actually.

For the record, Alana's outfit was another purchase this month. It's a Design a Friend outfit from Argos. I thought it was cute and couldn't resist it.

I took my two new girls outside for some shots with the clover.

Honestly their faces are so endearing. I really love them.

Look at this gorgeous girl!

I admit, i'd rather like a Nora (the dark skinned member of the group) as well. But I couldn't find one for a good price on Amazon when I was looking. 

The quality of these dolls is exceptionally good, particularly when you consider the price tag for the non fancy dressed dolls. I'm very impressed.

Paola Reina are an old company and one who've got a reputation to making very good toys, but they're one of those old fashioned companies who's products have usually passed me by as not being "my thing".

I'm really glad I took the plunge on these two girls. They've very different to my usual dolly stuff but I really do enjoy them.

and the vanilla scent has become less clawing as the days have gone by.

The other thing that arrived earlier this month was the Resinsoul body I ordered back in March.

This is the new Shi body, purchased to go with an old Li head I got in a trade. See her company listing here

The head is actually a shade darker than the body but it's not too bad. Resin batches tend to vary and i'm not actually sure how old the head IS.

This new body is basically the female version of the Tang/Sui boy bodies. Shi/Zhen are effectively the same body but Zhen has dragon parts like Sui does, and a larger bust piece.

You can swap them out if you want the smaller boobs though.

Like the Tang/Sui boy bodies, Shi/Zhen are taller than the normal Resinsoul bodies and have double jointed arms and legs. Properly engineered doubled jointed arms and legs at that!
See the usual resinsoul double jointed bodies use a wierd cup system that doesn't actually work very well.
Tang and Shi use a proper peanut shaped joint which makes them far far easier to pose.

Alongside my Mei, Shi is a giant!

Mei is 42cm tall while Shi is listed as being 45cm.

However, she's still shorter than the standard boys (Hugo is on the double jointed standard boy body which is supposedly 44cm)

Her joints work pretty well. She can kneel beautifully and her arms bend nicely however without sueding to give her some friction she can't really do in between poses. Her arms are either straight or they're bent fully, that is IT. I've found that's a common issue with strung dolls, the tension of the strings means it's much harder to do more subtle poses without some modification to make the sockets and joints less smooth.

Shi has a really long torso and larger hands than the standard girl bodies.

Her legs are also slightly chunkier and longer.

I think Mei and Rong (the two standard female bodies) have more natural looking breasts, but otherwise Shi's body is pretty impressive. Certainly it poses better than any of my other resinsoul girl bodies, though she struggles to sit properly.

Her hip sockets don't quite seem deep enough and the tension of the strings pulls her torso backwards, trying to straighten when you attempt to sit her down. I think hot glue in the hip sockets might help but I haven't attempted this yet.

She got a temporary outfit to preserve her dignity while I wait to have the cash on hand to buy her wig, eyes and proper outfit.

It may be a while before I get her finished.

I've not been too well lately so painting dolls isn't something I feel up to doing right now. Which is a shame but what can you do?

I was going  to take photos of her alongside a Tang body but then I realised that i'd have to not only undress Silas but also unstring him to remove the millput lifts in his ankles that make him taller and I didn't want to.

The big problem with a lot of my bjds is they have pretty complicated multi layered outfits with laced elements and it takes freaking forever to get them dressed again and arghhh.

Getting Kismit (the Mei in these photos) redressed was time consuming enough dangit.
so by the time i'd done that I didn't really want to have to deal with Silas or strip off any of the other boys.

I'm a lazy bum, i'm sorry.

Still, I like this new body and i'm pleased Resinsoul have FINALLY given us an option not only for a taller girl but one with proper joints. I've always found the doubled jointed body very very irritating, the cups in the arms spin and get in the way resulting in bizarre poses and awkward angles, not to mention making getting clothes on much harder due to the joint rotating and twisting wierdly.

it's why the past few boys i've ordered have been on the Tang body. The elbow and knee jointing is just so much better.

I don't mind the single jointed body, it doesn't pose that well but it's servicable and the joints don't spin and get in the way.

But it's nice to finally have a double jointed female option with joints that aren't shit.

I mean genuinely, i freaking HATE these goddamn cup joints.

But I don't own a regular Rong body, I only have the one with hooves and I didn't want to struggle with her clothing to get a photo. The hooved body doesn't have the same knees anyway so it's not a great comparison.

So sorry about that.