Cry Babies BFF by IMC

 Amazon IT was pretty awesome about Meena's issues and gave me some vouchers, which I promptly used to purchase a new doll line that had me curious. 

Spanish company IMC's foray into fashion dolls is a spinoff of their wildly popular baby dolls

Which are definitely NOT my cup of tea but seem to be quite loved by kids. 

IMC in fact don't have many brands, Crybabies and VIP pets are the big ones. As far as I can tell, they've never actually made fashion dolls before so the BFFs are very much new territory for them. 

They're listed at £21 on Amazon UK but not currently in stock. Amazon It lists them at 32 euros which puts them in line with MGA's and Mattel's lines pricewise. 

Anyway, let's get a look at this new doll shall we? 

So I don't know a huge amount about the Crybabies as a franchise, but it looks like they have an animated series and several spinoff toy lines already.

the basic dolls are big headed baby dolls with cute onesies often in animal themes and large painted eyes that appear to be inset into their heads. Their gimmick is that they actually cry. 

Uh.. okay? 

The BFF line takes 6 of the characters from the regular baby doll line and reimagines them as tweens. 

 I chose Phoebe, the only black doll in the lineup who's baby doll looks like this. She's a bit different to the usual crybabies in that she's electronic. She plays music and doubles as a night light or something. 

The BFF packaging was unexpected. It's a card box with a plastic tube on one side. The tube is a thick sturdy plastic and three of the four segments spin, with a different image of Phoebe on each side. 

So you can mix and match different poses or something. It's cute but not all the image segments line up that well. 

This packaging definitely takes inspiration from the LOL OMG packaging but brings it's own spin to things (lol get it? spin. I'm sorry.) 

 The back of the box shows us the 6 characters in cgi form. I kinda wish they'd shown them as dolls, I prefer to see the actual dolls than renders but ahh well. 

So we have Kristal who appears to be dressed as a polarbear? Jenna who's a unicorn, Dotty who's a dog, Phoebe who's a triceratops (lol spot the odd one out!), Stella who is all uh.. crystal... themed. I don't actually know what she's supposed to be. Mermaid? Fish? I looked up her original baby doll and it really didn't answer anything. 

Narwhal? 

I mean that hat is clearly some sort of marine animal and she has a horn so... it's gotta be a narwhal right? A really wierd narwhal. 

I don't know. 

and Katie appears to be a cat. 

So rather a random assortment of critters. 

Further cribbing off LOL OMG the BFF box hinges open to show a closet/room. 

Inside we have her headress, a big plastic triceratops frill headband which is elastic banded to the box and a big cardboard box.

The cardboard box contains all her accessories. Shoes, socks, bag and necklace. 

Her little room is cute with a retro egg chair, some sort of perfume? a tv screen and a little globe star projector to one side which is a cute nod to her original baby doll's nightlight feature. 

A better look at all her bits. 

The headband isn't shimmery like her artwork suggests but it does have a lot of molded scale details and painted horns. 

Her boots are amazing with scale patterns, little painted bows on the front, a frilled tongue and studden soles. 

Her socks are made of some sort of shiny polyester feeling material with simple little zigzag stripes. 

Her bag is the same purple as her boots and headband and has a scale pattern on the front but it honestly looks like a bowl of kibble to me. Lol. Whoops? 

Her necklace is the only piece that's not in shades of purple or pink and it stands out like a sore thumb. Why is it blue? 

It's a simple little beaded necklace with a tear shaped pendant and made from transparent blue plastic. It's cute but it doesn't go with anything else. It's kinda wierd. 

She also comes with a little poster but it's folded so much I couldn't straighten it out to get a decent photo. *sigh*

On the other side of it is the collector sheet and instructions. 

The instructions are pretty straightforward, accessories in cardboard box as I already found and doll inside tube.

But we get another look at each character's 3d render. Again, I wish they showed the actual DOLLS here. 

They have different poses here than on the back of the box though. Some of these shoes look awesome. Jenna has boots with big wings on them and Katie has cat faces on her boots. 

The tube was stuck to the bottom of the box with a VERY sticky adhesive pad thing but a good wrench and it's free. 

It's a pretty decent feeling tube, I think it'd make a good pencilcase actually. It's one of the few "reusable" bits of packaging i've been able to immediately think of a use for.

The lid pops off and the whole doll slides out shrouded in tissue paper. 

She's on some sort of stand thing that runs all the way down the length of the tube and has a clip that holds her in position. I assume this is to stop her rattling around in there. 

And here she is! She's got a really big head, massive inset eyes and huge feet. 

Her face is cute but also a little odd. She's one of those dolls that I can look at and think "oh adorable" but then look back and think "yikes". It's an interesting head that's for sure. 

Her huge eyes are "follow me" style eyes so no matter what angle you view her from she's always looking vuagely in your direction. 

They're big and simple eyes in a sort of aqua colour, very stylised just like the baby dolls. 

Her eyebrows are arched in a perminant look of slight apprehension. 

She has duck lips set in a perma pout and most of her features are squished right to the bottom of her face, leaving her with a massive forehead. 

Her hair is a gorgeous shade of pale purple and unlike all the other times i've seen this colour used (Ghouls Rule Clawdeen, Bratzillaz Yasmina Clairvoya, Mermaidz Riviera) Phoebe's hair is silky soft and has no frizz at all. 

did.. did they finally find a supplier of this colour that wasn't plasticky frizzy shit??? omg... 

I shouldn't be that surprised given IMC's other line, the VIP Pets, are a hair play line, but i'm so accustomed to seeing this colour turning into absolute frazzled mess. It's nice to have a doll with soft hair in this beautiful pale purple shade. 

Her hairdo is fairly complicated with these smaller braids pulling the hair back from her face and then braiding into the big chunky braids on either side. 

Her head is very flat with a wierd profile. lol. 

 I really don't think I could redo this style if I took it down. 

I'm terrible with braids. 

Her hair is thickly rooted but even so, her scalp IS painted to match. 

Phoebe's head is, as I said, massive. It's around about the same size as the Rainbow High heads. 

She is however, significantly smaller.

Phoebe stands around 8 inches tall, making her a little taller than the OMG Btweens and shorter than the Rainbow Junior High dolls. 

Phoebe's jacket is gorgeous. It's shimmery foil fabric with a scale pattern and little buttons on the cuffs. It's teensy and adorable, look at this thing!

It's sewn really well and has so much detail from the little collar to the capped shoulder pieces.

And it's fully lined. 

The belt is purely aesthetic, it actually fastens with velcro which makes sense given how fragile a belt made of this foil would have been. 

It does have an unfortunate tendency to slip open because the velcro isn't very strong but it's such a cool piece that i'll let that slide.

Unfortunately the black lining has stained one of Phoebe's arms. Only one of them though which is bizarre.

She also has wierd red stains on both knees that I can't figure out. Is it intentional "blushing"? She hasn't got any such colouration anywhere else but she also has nothing near her that would leave red marks so i'm just flat out confused.

Under her awesome jacket Phoebe wears a romper in pale yellow. It's another cute piece that helps to make her look younger. It's quite a child-like garment and like the jacket, really well sewn. 

It has a crystal motif over the bodice, white collar, puff sleeves like decorative white uh.. flaps? and elasticated puffy legs. 

The fabric is some sort of stretchy polyestery blend again, similar to her socks. For some reason the bodice part has a white section before it connects to the puffy pants part. I'm not sure I fully understand that decision. I think it would have looked better having the crystal motif the whole way down but maybe they were concerned about misplaced crystal shapes around her groin?

Stripped off Phoebe's body also seems to take a lot of inspiration from dolls like Rainbow High with the very wide hips and chunky thighs. 

I rather enjoy that this pear shape has become so popular for dolls. I like it. 

Phoebe has molded panties and a painted little singlet top for modesty.

Her articulation isn't brilliant. Her knees can't manage 90 degrees, nor can her elbows. She can touch her face but it's such a large target that's hardly a feat.

She has rotational movement in her neck but absolutely no up,down or tilting ability, like the first wave Rainbow High dolls. 

Her legs can only splay this far, though they can rotate in the hip joint. 

One of her shoulders has a molding defect which makes it harder to move. 

Her hands come off for easy redressing. Another trend I like to see. Incidentally, her wrist pegs are the same size as the OMG wrist pegs so they can swap hands, if you really want to. Lol.

She sits pretty well.

A lot of dolls tip backwards or can't quite manage to bend their upper legs to a full right angle but Phoebe manages it no trouble. She sits like a champ provided you balance her big head. 

Phoebe's big feet reminded me of Cave Club. Her legs definitely feel similar, though nothing else does. Phoebe is far chunkier and solid feeling than the Cave Club girls.

But they have the same sized feet! Cave Club can fit the BFF shoes as if they were made for them. Which is pretty cool.

 All dressed up with her headband Phoebe looks adorable. She's one of the those dolls where the more I handle her and look at her the more endearing her wierd little face becomes. 

The headband is VERY hard plastic so a bit of a pain to get on as it has next to no give it in. Once it's on though, it stays on very securely. 

Her bag isn't as successful. Not only does it look like a bowl of kibble, it also really doesn't fit very gracefully around her bulky jacket. 

I think she looks substantially better without it. 

Posing her arms with her jacket on isn't easy, as is often the case with jackets on dolls, it really limits her poseability because of the bulk of the fabric. 

So what fits who? 

Well while the Junior High doll can fit Phoebe's outfit for the most part (the jacket wont' stay velcroed shut), Poppy's outfit is too big for Phoebe. The shorts just about fit but are a teensy bit too loose but the shirt gapes badly at the bust and is far too long in the arms.

OMG clothing is too baggy.

Except the jackets. The jackets fit beautifully. The OMG doll can steal Phoebe's jacket and Phoebe can steal the OMG's one no problems. The sleeves are even almost perfect. Nice.

Rainbow High can also steal the jacket, though of course the sleeves are 3/4 length and it's unlikely it would fasten closed with another shirt underneath. 

But it looks really nice. 

No rainbow high clothing will fit Phoebe, it's all too big. The OMG Btween stuff is far too small.

She can however steal the OMG glasses, they fit her better than the OMGs because she actually has a nose to hold up the frames. 

The thing that holds her inside of her tube CAN be used as a stand if you really want, but it's not overly graceful. The lid piece pops off meaning you can remove this piece to use the tube for something else but this piece isn't really useful for anything. 

Also the doll can stand unaided anyway.

She has no problem with those big clompy boots on. She can stand like a champ.

Presumably the intention was for the box to be reused a little playset, which kids might do but i'm sure as heck not gonna. 

that said, it's all just cardboard so should be fully recycleable. The only plastic piece was the tube which can be reused for something else and is attractive enough to actually want to hang onto anyway. 

Right now I shoved a nude doll in there to get her out of the way lol.

Overall I actually really like Phoebe. She has a really strange face that's very in keeping with the style of the baby dolls this line spun off from but there's an endearing quality to her big eyes and funny squished up face. 

I also love the dinosaur theme. Dinosaurs are awesome and you don't tend to see dino themes on dolls (cave club excluded of course). 

Her boots are awesome, her jacket is amazing. 

She has some production flaws, an iffy shoulder and staining on her arm unfortunately, but as she came all the way from Italy i'm not sure what to do about that. 

All the sewing for her clothes seems to be excellent and even after undressing her and trying her jacket on multiple dolls nothing is unravelling (unlike some of the rainbow high outfits cough cough) All the pieces feel like they'll actually withstand play which I appreciate. 

her headband will eventually mess her hair up though. 

Speaking of hair, she has really soft lovely hair in a gorgeous colour and i'm delighted by that. It's very pleasant to touch and I feel like if I took it down from the braids it'd be really nice to comb and play with. I suspect it's that kiwi fibre MGA are using for their Rainbow High dolls, an exceptionally soft silky feeling material that's extremely shiny and comes in a lot of awesome colours. 

Phoebe isn't without issues. She can't look up and down or tilt her head and her articulation is very limited. She feels fairly robust, even with the molding error on her shoulder it hasn't broken but I feel like her legs being unable to splay outward IS an issue when it comes to breakage. Kids will pull the legs outward and legs will snap. Having the ability to pull the legs outward really helps to prevent leg snapping as a child tries to dress or pose the doll. 

Now all this said, this does appear to be IMC's first attempt at a fashion doll and while you can see a lot of inspiration from other products like Rainbow High and LOL OMG, the BFFs also manage to be their own distinct thing with pretty good quality and a lot of important decisions being made right (hair fibre for example, quality of clothing and so on). 

For a first pass, Phoebe is an exceptionally good fashion doll honestly. I'm impressed and I look forward to seeing what IMC do with this line.