Rainbow High Jett Dawson

 She's finally here! 

And she was bloody expensive. 

At £60 this is a pricey set, but I took the plunge because well, I have poor impulse control okay?

So, first things first, let's talk box.

It's fricken enormous which I mean, I get, it makes it all look extra fancy and a big box makes it feel like you're getting your money's worth. The bigger the box, the more the customer feels they're getting "a lot" which helps to justify the cost.

But, WHY THE FUCK did MGA decide to add PLASTIC PIECES to every corner of this box?

There are 8 little plastic corners glued, yes glued, to every corner and they serve no purpose other than to look fancy. You have to yank them off to recycle the box (and they fall off pretty easily anyway) and they do nothing to protect the box. As you can see, my box is a little squished anyway. 

so what was the point?

It's just MORE plastic crap that'll end up in landfill and it pisses me off.

Stop this shit MGA. Seriously, cut it out. You could have made a fancy box using cardboard caps, they didn't need to be plastic. -_- 

Also the box is a bitch to open. The top comes off but it's held in place with three sharp plastic tabs. I was scared i'd cut myself trying to pull them and I don't appreciate the risk of blood sacrifice MGA. I know it's typical MGA nonsense but their more recent boxes haven't been nearly so bloodthirsty! 

In fact the OMG boxes are generally pretty easy to open and have a lot of card rather than sharp skin piercing plastic. Which I vastly prefer. 

I don't like injuring myself trying to get a doll free of the packaging. It kinda spoils the fun of a new toy you know?

The back of the box is very shiny. It's pretty, but it's huge so i'm not sure what to do with it beyond trashing it all.

Jett's price is justified by her extra bits. She comes with a second outfit that's extremely fancy as well as some playset pieces, a dress form and a sewing machine. 

We'll get to those, but first, the doll. Which i bought the set for.

Jett is beautiful. Her hair is split straight down the middle, half black, half sort of soft rainbow tone.

Her hair is very greasy feeling so I suspect it's saran, saran always feels greasy to me. 

Her hair is styled with a top knot which i'm informed means she's rooted in such a way that there's a bit of a thin bald patch at the top of her head. Her hair isn't really designed to be down, it's supposed to be tied up like this.

And I accept that. The bulk of updos is limiting without clever rooting techniques, but I know many have found this very disappointing. 

I quite like her little topknot though, because it adds interest. I find the plain "straight and unstyled" hair of many of MGA's dolls quite disappointingly bland.

Wierdly, Jett has pieced ears but doesn't come with any earrings. Random.

I ended up pulling some of her back from her face to show off her features a little better.

She has purple eyes with rainbow shines and quite simple white eyeshadow going on. Her lips are painted with the top lip darker and with black lines inside to emphasise the lip shape which is really very nice. Her paintwork feels a little bit more refined, like MGA have finally worked out how to make the most of this pretty face sculpt. 

She has a new body too, with a chest joint and neck articulation. My big issue with the original rainbow high dolls was they couldn't tilt their necks. Jett can, as i'm told can the more recent releases (the winter ones)

Her outfit is really interesting as it's designed to look 2d and sketchy. It's a fun look. Her shoes are especially effective. 

 

Her stockings/tights are made of the same nylon stuff real human stockings are made from with this thick black squiggle on each leg. I know some people hate this, but I think they're quite fun actually. 

They fit really well and are quite thick which is nice. It makes them feel a lot more robust than many doll stockings.

 

 

Jett's hair has a lot of colours in it which you don't always get to see all of due to the style. At the front there's a chunky streak of pink and then orange, then yellow. The green, blue and purple are all a lot more hidden under the black of her updo. 

Her hair is very uneven and choppy, like they didn't quite get around to finishing it after rooting it all in. I trimmed some of the longer ends but the whole lot could do with some proper neatening up. The black half is shorter than the coloured half which is wierd to me. 

 

 

Jett's second outfit is a very fancy red and black dress. It's a mermaid style with a tight skirt and pleplum and it's a bit tricky to get onto a doll or the dress form but it fits beautifully once you manage it.

the fabric is thick and all the layers make it a very heavy garment. 

I don't think it suits Jett. She has pink as the primary colour in her hair, why on earth would you pair red with that? It clashes. 

I mean either give her red instead of pink like a real rainbow or make the dress more pinky.

strange.

Anyway, the dress itself is made of a thick shiny red and black material with silver shot through it and what I think are words. I think it says "rainbow" but i'm not sure as it's in a sort of graffiti font that coupled with the shine I find hard to read. 

This dress was tabbed into the box with more little tags than I bothered counting. It was kinda annoying.

thankfully being a thick fabric means that any small holes from the tabs aren't noticable. 

 

The back of the dress opens with velcro and features a massive bulky bow.

 And underneath is a full intergral petticoat with a rouched red and black that reminds me of petals.

This dress definitely feels very deluxe, very "collector line" with these little details. It has some loose red thread on one side of the bodice that looks to be factory just not snipping their thread ends but aside from that it looks to be pretty well put together. 

I am quite impressed by this dress, even if it isn't my style at all. 

the shoes that I assume go with the dress are interesting as well. They have a fabric ribbon and a rainbow sole. 

All I will say is that white shoes with a red and black dress seems like an odd choice. Wouldn't you wear black or red shoes? Or do I just not understand fashion?

Her dress makers dummy is plastic with a fabric outer, which is pretty cool. The fabric is slightly shimmery.

and the wheels actually TURN! this is not a drill people, MGA remembered how to make turning wheels!

they don't just turn, they also swivel. 

This delighted me way more than it probably should have but after the disappointment of the non turning skates on the LOL OMG dolls, this was a surprise.

She also has two plastic cases. One had her shoes in, the other has a coat hanger. 

They're nice little boxes and I presume would be useful if you had the closet or whatever and wanted more cases for accessories.

The sewing machine is dinky and stylised and has a little knob on one side that you can turn to make the needle move up and down. 

it's cute. Though I kinda wish it wound up. I expected it to wind when I first fiddled with it but it doesn't seem to be the case. 

Still I think it'd be a lot of fun to play with. Just needs a desk to put it on. 

I think I might have preferred a sewing table to the plastic boxes.

The tape measure is actually a proper tape measure as well. It's doll scaled but it's made of the same stuff real tape measures are made of with little metal tabs at the ends. This surprised me too, I expected it to be well... cardboard... because that's the kind of shit toy companies pull all the time.

that it's actually a functional piece is really cool. 

It is however creased and bent due to how it was displayed. I don't know how easy it would be to smooth it out. 

Still, all in all you've got some really nice bits here. 

The playset pieces are well made and surprisingly detailed and the second dress is extremely fancy.

which makes the £60 price point feel a little more justified. 

I mean if we consider that the regular dolls are £35, £60 is still eyewatering but only feels a touch extravagant rather than extortionate. 

The playset pieces add some fun little bits to any display or any kid wanting to play out the whole "fashion design" aspect of Rainbow High's IP. Certainly I feel like it's a more playetic piece than the closets which really are only for storage. 

If I had the space i'd keep the dress makers dummy because it's the most realistic one of those i've ever seen for a doll. 

 

I was feeling kinda guilty and second guessing myself after I ordered Jett but having opened her I don't think I really got ripped off. 

I feel like Jett probably is more worth about £55, and you're really paying the extra fiver for her needlessly fancy plastic tipped box but that's not too bad a markup really.

Jett comes with two varients. One has giant numbered labels and is supposedly "limited edition" while the other is like this set, with only small hidden labels that don't get in the way.

I prefer the small labels and I don't really understand the point of a "limited edition" that's identical to the regular edition except has an oversized number sewn to it.

it feels kinda pointless. 

MGA claims these were seeded in at random but who the heck knows. Whether the UK cases will include any of the "special magical giant label" versions remains to be seen. 

As it stands though, I don't particularly care. 

I like Jett, i'm glad I got her. She's extremely pretty and I enjoy the contrast of her outfit against her rainbow hair. I kinda wish more of the Rainbow High dolls utilised contrast rather than colour blocking. I prefer it aesthetically as colour blocking I find kinda... merges together into a kinda boring blur. 

In summary, while a lot of the time with dolls I kinda feel "meh, wait for clearance" i'm glad I didn't wait with Jett. I'm enjoying her. MGA have made a lot of improvements to the rainbow high body and paintwork which i'm digging. 

I mean I admit, I was getting pretty bored with Rainbow High after wave 2 and then MGA came back with wave 3 who have different face molds and Jett who's all contrast rather than block colour and that is MY JAM. 

damnit MGA... you sucked me back in.

Dagnabit, my wallet weeps.