LOL BTW be tweens by MGA

 It's finally here! RESTOCK!

or rather, partial restock.

A lot of stuff still hasn't hit or had any sign of doing so before september but some new stuff hit so... yay partial restock?

This means new LOLs including the brand new line, the BTW or "Be Tweens" (Anyone else feel like MGA are kinda scrambling for acronyms at this point? lol)

Let's get into it.

 

These new dolls retail at about £20 and boast "15 surprises" which as we well know by this point, is an outright lie on MGA's part. There's no surprises with any of the OMG dolls, all the stuff is shown on the front of the sodding box ffs. 

Anyway, 

I only ordered Cherry B.B (and now I have that UB40 song stuck in my damn head) because she was the one I liked best. 

The box is about half the size of the OMG box but looks pretty similar, brand continuity is nice to see.

Hoops was cute too, I love her hair but I wasn't sold on her outfit. I may pick her up at a later date. 

Their catchline is "I'm in Be Tween, but right where I wanna be" which is honestly.. not the worst tagline MGA have ever come up with. 

So these dolls are supposed to be Tweens? So that's er... *googles it* 9 - 12. Interesting. Going by the makeup and outfits i'm gonna lean hard toward them being closer to 12 than 9.

I don't know too much about the original LOLs because I only collected a few of them before getting bored and annoyed by the whole blind box thing. But Cherry is supposedly this girl's older sister. Not that you'd be able to tell because there's absolutely no similarity in look beyond a vuage 50s theme. Wonder why they didn't add some leopard print or something... huh. Wierd.

The box is extremely easy to open, it's just a drawer that pulls out of the outer sleeve and bam, there's the doll. There's also not too much plastic here. There's a plastic shell holding in the boxes, her magazine (it's actually a composition book) and hte doll herself but that's it. Even the boxes are card. Interesting.

Cherry comes partially dressed in a slightly ill fitting tank top thing and matching cropped trousers with lace socks. She has articulated arms but straight legs just like the bigger OMGS. 

She has a yellow line for her eyeshadow, a tiny you can totally miss it unless you're looking close beauty mark on her cheek (it honestly looks at first glance like an error with her lash paint, it should be bigger and more obvious imo) and the usual straight OMG style eyebrows. 

Her lips are bright pink and parted with painted white for the teeth. 

Her fingernails are painted pink to match her lips and her hair is several shades of fushia and pink. It's got a bit of product in it and a bit flag from being in the box but it's not too bad, I haven't bothered to brush it out because it doesn't seem to need it.

Her comp book has a photo of her ducklipping for the camera and has a this/that section which is a bit random. Sock Hop vs Renegade? What?

So inside the box this is what you get. The doll, who's plastic tabbed in with a fair few tabs as is MGA's style, two cardboard boxes instead of the plastic ones the OMGS come with (I think I prefer this, they're still reusable but also recyclable), a paper baggie and a cardboard piece that's part of the "playset" her box is supposed to transform into (the same way the OMGS claim they're a playset. MGA's definition of playset is pretty erm... pathetic)

The backing card is cute though. There's one of those kitchy cat clocks, a vintage polaroid camera and a few more modern ones (they all look like old film cameras though) and some... honestly kinda creepy photos of the doll's eyes and lips. What the heck girl? 

The doll can hang out in her tiny cramped room if she really wants to.

In the baggie is her jacket. It's a teensy little denim and plether? letterman style with a dice motif on the front and a camera on the back. 

I don't know what the heck those letters say. It looks like POIDH so... erm... I dunno. I'm sure it's some reference i'm just too old and clueless to understand.

Inside one of the card boxes are ALL her accessories, wrapped in tissue. There are a pair of retro glasses, a comb, two bracelets (least I think the bigger one is a bracelet), a little necklace with a cherry pendant and a pair of earrings with a cherry and what I initially thought was a sugar cube but turns out is just an unpainted pair of transparent dice. Sugar dice? lol.

The other box contains just her shoes which are a very cool pair of heeled ankle boots. There's a small paint defect on the front of one of them.

The cardboard.. pillar... thing also has a drawer in it which I didn't initially notice.

Inside that is her bag, which is a little glitter encrusted dice. It opens but it's too small to put anything into. 

Now we get to the playset aspect. The card pillar thing slots into a little slot in the bottom of the box and when it's up there's a mirror and a box of what I assume are records.

It then folds down into an er... daybed? I think? it doesn't look overly comfortable.

But what is neat is that the little card boxes fit perfectly into the drawer. Fun! 

I wonder though, why there's only one drawer. The other side is just card, it doesn't open. Maybe for structural integrity? But it's a shame because it's clearly supposed to LOOK like two underbed drawers. 

It's a neat touch though and means that once you open the doll all her stuff will fit back into the box if you so desire. 

I couldn't get her chunkier bracelet to work with her jacket so I took it off. Seems like a bit of a design flaw there, unless it's not supposed to be a bracelet... I dunno. 

My doll has a small flaw in her eyepaint as you can see, one eye overlaps the molded border lol. I've seen far worse. The rest is all crisp and clean so eh. 

You see what I mean about the earrings looking like sugar lumps or something? Or ice cubes? why didn't they paint the dice pips?

Her hair is somewhat complicated. The front is heavily gelled to maintain the liberty rolls at the front or whatever that style of fringe is called, while the back is tied into a high ponytail and wrapped in a much longer braided piece. 

Her hair is two shades of pink. A deep fushia tone and a pale pink colour. I think there's only two shades... The fushia looks two toned in some lights so... yeah. 

Her sunglasses have a subtle leopard print pattern on them which is the only nod I can see to her lil' sister... wierd. I can see those being a pain to look through too, you'd have spots in your eyes all the time! lol.

She has a painted bit of hair at the sides which is very cute. I think all the BTWs have little baby hairs painted on.

The body is why I think these dolls lean more toward 12 in age because they have broad hips and small busts but quite clearly there's some boob happening there. This is NOT a child body.

The BTW body is as needlessly detailed as the OMG body, she even has individually sculpted butt cheeks and butt dimples! lol.

Her teensy little arms move about the same as the larger dolls. She can touch her face and bend her wrists, she can also tilt her head which makes for decent poses for photos.

Her legs can't spread but she can at least sit. So i'd say the articulation is on par with the OMGs there. No real surprises or difference there. 

She's absolutely TINY though. Alongside the OMGs she comes up to about their shoulder and a good third of that is just head. 

The BTW head is almost the same size as the OMG head but does seem to be a unique sculpt with a slightly more pronouced nose and lower set features. 

What gets me about this though is that 10-12 year olds really aren't THIS much shorter than adult women (hell, most 12 year old girls are taller than I am!). The scale of the LOL dolls is all over the place. The toddlers aren't at all in scale with the OMGs either (they're about half the size they should be realistically) and the BTWs feel too short to be "tweens". I mean, to be a pedant for a moment, if we assume the OMG dolls are supposed to be 1/7 scale (they aren't 1/6, MGA tends toward 10 inches for their dolls as opposed to the 11-12 inches of 1/6 scale) then they're 5foot 5, which is about average height for an adult woman in most of the world. But using that same scale, that'd make the BTW girls only 4 foot tall when the average height for a 12 year old girl is closer to 5 foot (it's 4ft11) 

which means that the BTWs are at least an inch too short. 

Of course, i'm just being pedantic. But still, it's wierd that MGA can't keep their scale consistant across their franchise. The LOLs are wierdly off scale with the OMGs too. 

They are adorably dinky though. It's actually a really nice size to handle at 7 inches tall.

The glasses Cherry came with seem to be a recolour of one of the OMG pairs and their heads are similarly enough sized that they can easily share glasses, as well as necklaces and bracelets. The OMG earrings tend to be quite oversized though so look a bit wierd on the shorter BTW.

Even the BTW stand is this adorably dinky little thing.

It has two stand clips, one seems to be a fraction tighter than the other. I assume this is to account for different outfit bulk? 

 

Of course, I was curious what the BTW body could fit into. 

Bratz Kidz pants are too narrow and the tops won't do up but the length of the jacket arms is about correct. Bratz skirts seemed to fit, though the internal underwear thing to stop the skirts spinning could mess with fit.

Reboot Bratz dress was too long in the body but did fasten at the top and bottom. Sleeves were of course ludicrously long.

The Pinkie Cooper dress was exceptionally cute but wouldn't fasten at the back. She's wider than Pinkie, which surprised me.

Monster High tops wouldn't fasten at the back either, though did look cute as a short dress.

These pj pants though fit beautifully. They're even the right length. 

I'm not sure where I put my Boxy girl or my snapstars but those are the scale of doll the BTW reminds me of most. 

Going through my box of "small doll clothes" I found that some Bratz sized tops fit okay as long as they had short sleeves and weren't designed to be skin tight because they're a little too big in the bust and shoulders. Bratz skirts were the right size in the waist but most things were too long. Monster High skirts and shorts can fit, but it's a little hit and miss because MH have such long torsos and skinny legs. 

All in all, not an overly easy sized doll to find alternative clothing for, but the OMGs have a similar problem. They're all a rather odd size. 

I do appreciate though how easy the LOL dolls are to redress. Like the OMGs the BTW dolls have removable hands (and their hands are TINY so be careful you don't lose them) and their hard plastic legs make getting tight fitting pants and socks and things onto them so much easier. 

I'm very pleased with Cherry. I was initially not sure I really LOVED the BTWs and was umming and ahhing about whether to get one but i'm glad I did. She's absolutely adorable in how teensy tiny she is. I really enjoy smaller dolls, they just feel more natural to hold and play with for some reason. 

I also do really like the partially open mouth on the BTWs. The LOL OMGs are molded to have a slightly parted lip, they just don't paint them that way. I don't know why. But the parted lip and painted teeth make the lips look more defined and shaped, which is nice. 

The BTWs remind me a LOT of the Bratz kidz, which is fun because the OMGs remind me of Bratz. 

It'll actually be interesting to see what happens when MGA bring Bratz back as they claim they are going to, because then you'll have MGA competing with themselves lol. Will both lines coexist or will one destroy the other? Because with Rainbow high they're different enough not to directly compete with the stylised OMGs but Bratz? 

yeah... 

it'll be interesting anyway. 

Still, the BTWs are a cute addition to the LOL franchise and a nice alternative if you like the OMG faces but find their extremely mature bodies a little offputting.