Fail Fix by Moose Toys - Kawaii qtee

Moose's latest doll line continues the trend of "surprise" nonsense but manages to package it in a way that's new, interesting and downright bewildering.

Introducing Fail Fix!

Much like those Scruff A Love plushies, Fail Fix encourages the owner to fix the toy. A curious concept and one i'm not convinced many parents would be willing to pay for but there ya go.

I wish toy companies could have enough faith in their products as products without resorting to gimmicks but here we are.

Does the gimmick actually work? Scruff a Loves have a major problem that the work required to make them not look like they've been run over repeatedly is well beyond the capacity of most parents, let alone the kids themselves.

Will Fail Fix fail in much the same way?

Let's have a look.

Now of course, i'm no stranger to "fixing" tlc dolls. It's one of my big hobbies, picking up bundles of really mangled dolls and restoring them to something resembling their former glory.

So i'm going into this fully expecting to need to use my years of experience with vintage dolls that have been dragged through hedges backwards and thrown in mud and drawn all over and generally treated like shit to get this doll to look anything like her stock image.

The box is a big bubble package box with a large plastic front and a card back that details what it's all about.

The doll has no name, just a description. She's "kawaii qtee" or is it "hashtag kawaii cutie?" I dunno.

Anyway, the cute artwork asks you to be her "style savior". These are clearly inspired by those makeup tutorials online as everything has a social media look to it with a video timeline and play button and cellphone outlines and such.

I've never watched a makeup or hair style tutorial in my life so I dunno.

The artwork is really nice. It reminds me of the really characterful art of Monster high. Did Garret Sanders draw this?

However, already this line isn't without controversy which I need to mention.

When the dolls were first annouced the company used 3d generated images in place of actual stock photos:

And it turns out the artwork on Kawaii's dress was eerily close to the artwork of an artist on Instagram called Miss Kika.

Oh dear.

It's a worrying trend in the toy industry were companies will quite often crib ideas and use them without credit. We have had no statement from Moose about this and the artist is apparently looking into what they can do.

I wish the artist luck. This shit isn't okay.

But back to the doll!

The back of the box talks about a "magic mask" (uh huh) that'll transform her look (read: remove the mask on her head)

But here's the surprise gimmick. It looks like there's 3 different varients of each doll and you won't know what you got till you open it up. Sparkle looks to just be the standard outfit with glitter and different makeup while Evening is a whole new pattern on the tunic dress and has blue lips. Ooo.

It's hard to see because the picture is TINY. I don't get that. Like.. why make such a little deal out of this gimmick? Why even bother if you're not gonna make a fuss about it? Wierd.

But I prefer this style of blind boxing. I like being able to pick the doll who I like best and minor variations i'm fine with.

The box is AWFUL to open. It took me so long to find a spot I could ram my finger into and pry the very overglued backing card away. It took a lot of brute strength and much tearing.

I don't like boxes that require brute strength to open. It's so unneccisary.

The doll herself is a pain in the arse to get out of this even after you force your way through the damn outer box.

She has a plastic cover on her head which is taped and glued to the backing card from behind.

The plastic robe thing covering her mystery outfit is ALSO fixed through the card.

I had to tear the shit out of this to get her free and I hated every minute of it.

I do think it's a shame they opted for a plastic robe. For replay value something fabric that concealed the whole outfit would have been nicer, or even that had the actual outfit folded and tucked underneath or inside it to preserve the surprise. I'm sure they could have worked out a solution and then you'd have a bathrobe for play which would be really cute.

Instead it's a shitty thin plastic shell and just trash.

Her "fail" face cracks me up. I love the molded lopsided lips and eyebrows. it's really characterful.

Underneath you can see the inset eyes.

She comes with flocked pompom tings, some rubber bands and a clear plastic stand clip on one side.

a green wierdly shaped brush thing and the rest of the stand on the other side.

Is the brush meant to be soap shaped or something? It's confusing.

Free of her box at last.

this girl seems to be the "sparkle" varient as she has glitter on her dress but only the top section. There's some sort of white skinned character with huge purple hair on the dress which has an elasticated ribbing hem and cuffs. The whole thing is made from some sort of stretchy fabric and the pattern goes the whole way around.

Her hair is ENCRUSTED with hard gel to keep it in these wierd coils. It feels really gross.

She comes with a pamphlet of instructions that seems to have been drawn by a different artist to the box art. There's a lot of steps, oh dear.

This picture is cute.

It tells you all the things you get in the box.

The instructions tell you to take a before shot and then remove the accessories from her hair.

how did that even HAPPEN? Like.. in what reality do you end up with your SHOES in your hair? what were you doing girl? Handstands while trying to apply hairspray?

It's ridiculous.

And oh god.. the crunchy box hair... it's painful to look at let alone touch.

Thankfully all the accessories slid out pretty painlessly. The gel nightmare of her hair makes it quite easy to remove everything without yanking any hair with it.

She has a pair of clear yellowish earrings, a matching necklace, a pair of sneakers (one has a painted bow) and three clips: A heart, a bow and a star.

The mask thing over her face is interesting. I couldn't remove it with my hands. It actually sits over her ears completely so the seam is behind the ear rather than in front of it, which means it's quite securely on there. I probably could yank it off if I put my mind to it but the instructions said to use the "magic" mask and I wanted to see if it made things any easier.

This is all her crap in a box.

There are four elastic bands and they SUCK. They have next to no elasticity in them at all and I don't see the point of such shitty elastic bands.

I'm still confused by the brush shape. What is it supposed to BE?

Anyway, mask on.

It's designed to look like one of those foaming face mask things which is a cute idea but highlights my point about the bath robe. WHY would you not give her a cute little fabric robe to wear while she does her face mask!??

The mask clips over the ears of the "fail" mask so right now she has three faces ahahahah.

Wiiiierd.

Now the instructions say to brush the hair with the brush.

Let me show you this brush.

What IS this fuckery? That's not a brush, that's a fucking back massager!

look how far apart those prongs are!

Let's see if this does jack shit to the gel nightmare. I'm dubious.

Half brushed out. I have to admit i'm surprised by the hair. I expected it to feel like shit but it's actually fairly soft once you get the gel to loosen up. It feels like Nylon but a decent nylon rather than the horrible gross crunchy frizz nightmare nylon you often get in this colour.

Hair all brushed out. It's pretty BIG but I didn't get much shedding which also surprised me and it's not frizzing at the ends like I anticipated either. Huh.. interesting.

I mean that's BIG hair but it looks like it could be tamed with some patience.

Now the instructions say to remove her mask so let's see what her face looks like at last.

Oh she's ADORABLE!

She has glittery silver eyeshadow and pale purplish pink lips that match her hair.

Her cheeks are very highly blushed and there's like... confetti on her cheeks lol. Random. But cute.

The paintwork is very neat and quite soft, I really like it.

Her head is hard plastic by the way, not squishy AT ALL.

Oh dear, now my inability to style hair is gonna bite me in the ass. These instructions are SO vuage. It just says "put the pompoms in". Where? How? How do I get her hair to do that swishy back thing?

I struggled... a LOT. A lot more than I should have. The pompoms go in well and clip good and strong but it's really awkward to figure out how much hair you need to use to get each nice and secure while still being able to CLOSE and the gel is still present near her scalp so her hair is still crunchy at the top which isn't great for splitting the fibre.

She'd benefit from having her hair washed.

The instructions say NOTHING about the elastic bands she comes with but I elected to use one to hold the sides of her hair back so I could slide the pompoms in easier.

As I mentioned earlier, the elastic bands have next to no give in them at all so they're not very easy or pleasant to use for this.

The fail Fix dolls are surprisingly teensy dolls. Kawaii stands around 9 inches tall, making her a similar height to the Snapstars dolls (mine has a Yuko chan head on it right now)

the body shape reminded me of the reboot bratz with the cinched waist and flared hips.

It's also worth mentioning at this point articulation. Fail Fix are articulated at the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee and neck.

The hands also come off for easier dressing, a feature I always appreciate.

Her hands are rubbery and soft and come off and go on pretty easily.

Her size means she can fit into a lot of Bratz stuff.

As well as some Monster High things but with both it'll depend on the item.

She also fits the Snapstars clothes but as the Snapstars clothes are generally absolutely shit that's not much of a benefit.

But how adorable is she?

Her stand is a bit odd because while it's fairly sturdy and I appreciate the clear plastic allow it to blend into the background, the base is this wierd shape with a piece jutting out and I don't understand why. Why isn't it just rectangular? That'd be WAY more convenient on a shelf.

one thing that does concern me after handling and undressing and redressing her a few times is the longevity of the glitter on her dress. Itseems to be wearing at the shoulder seams already and i'm not sure it'll stay looking decent over time with regular play.

Her earrings are a PAIN IN THE ARSE to get into her ears by the way. Her rock hard head means there's no give, at all, so it takes a lot of shoving to get the earring pegs to slide in and I was scared i'd break them so many times.

her necklace, like almost all doll necklaces falls off if you don't fix it in place with an elastic band. I used one from her packaging to solve that issue.

The fail face can be reused if you really want to, but you have to take her earrings out first.

It's sort of a shame you can't do much else with it as it's quite a cool looking thing.

But it's made of VERY thin and VERY brittle feeling plastic so hmmm.

Let's go back to articulation for a moment before we wrap up.

The knees on these dolls bend but not to a full 90 degrees. It's good enough but it's nothing amazing.

Likewise they can't quite touch their own faces.

But their wrists allow for a lot of expressive posing and they can tilt their heads which I LOVE. Also the knee joint has a rotational joint inside of it so they can do the adorable knock kneed poses that add so much personality and life.

I mean come ON! how cute is she with her knee cocked in like that?

Her stand does a pretty good job of keeping her upright without toppling either which is nice.

The failfix dolls retail in the UK at £19:99 which is a little steep, but you're paying for the gimmick aren't you? That said, the outfit is substantially better made than Mattel's Barbie or Cave Club dolls (£15) and her articulation is about on par with LOL OMG (£32).

Her hair isn't as terrible as I feared it would be and honestly I think after a quick shower in some hot water she should be absolutely fine.

I've had dolls with substantially worse hair that didn't have a wierd comb the shit out gimmick so ultimately i'm fairly impressed with what Moose has done here.

She's a solid 8 failed makeovers out of 10. Would buy again for sure.