As any regular reader knows, big bundles of dolls are my biggest weakness. I just can't resist them. I LOVE the dang things.
So when one of my fellow Sindy collectors on Facebook posted that she was looking to rehome her daughter's old Monster High collection I jumped at the chance to get my hands on a huge bundle of tlc dolls and parts.
The bundle was £35 and included "at least 40 dolls plus playsets" which is an absolute bargain. The only catch was that it was collection only, because it was too much stuff to easily post. So after some back and forth we settled on a time and place and on Saturday I made the trek across London to Essex with a wheeled suitcase and a large backpack to pick these things up.
For context, it's an hour and a half journey there and another hour and a half back.
I made a day of it. Took a book, had lunch just off Oxford Street, enjoyed some time just to myself. It was a pleasant trip and nice to meet another Sindy collector.
It turns out that her daughter was big into MH but the dolls have been sitting under her bed for about 7 years now unplayed with. Now that the daughter has gone off the university it's time to clear things out. They're just cluttering up the house.
A whole suitcase full of goodies!
My backpack had playset bits and stands and also included was the High School playset.
So.. much... stuff.
So of course, the first thing I did was get all the dolls out and pair them back up with their outfits and suchforth. The plastic bags contain a lot of accessories. There's also a big pile of diaries and a lot of stickers.
First the "custom fodder" dolls. It looks like the original owner at one point wanted to try their hand at customising. Looks like they struggled to remove the original paint on a lot of these though, there's a lot of smearing and staining.
Clawdeen and Toralei have gross sticky hair that needs treating. So does Apple.
The two Descendants dolls need new faces and Anna I dunno what to do with. I'm not a big fan of Disney dolls. Maybe I can find something fun to do with her head sculpt.
Also on the tlc pile are these two. Draculocker Draculaura had half her eyes missing, no eyebrows and most of her lips gone so I repainted them using the ghost remains of her original paint as a guide. I really love how she came out. She needs new hands.
Frankie has lost a whole lower arm and her hair is glue saturated and yellowing as a result. It's gross.
I admit I never much liked Scaris Frankie's hair anyway. She has a great face, I love that blue lip colour on her, but the way they rooted the black and white so it blended together into an ugly grey was a wierd choice. I think she'd look awesome rerooted in maybe just solid white or something.
The "not monster high" but not tlc either dolls. Moxie Girlz Ainsley, A clone Monster High doll on a wierd Bratz-like body with barbie shaped feet (lol) and another Disney Anna.
I always liked Moxie Girlz, they're really solid decent little dolls and I think it's a shame they never really took off. I mean, they were perfect for all those dang "mommeighs" who took to repainting Bratz to make them "more child-like". Mga literally MADE MOXIE GIRLZ for you people! Bah.
The early Moxies had decent hair too. Later MGA started cheaping out and they ended up with crappy coarse nylon with really lightweight bodies but these early ones are heavy as shit and have really soft, thick hair. They're very good play dolls.
The final "tlc pile" are broken parts. Bloodgood's knee joint has broken and I need to figure out a good way to repair it. The little circle that makes up the connector has snapped and I think if I glue it it'll freeze the whole joint. But it might be the only option there.
Howleen's neck has shattered and her head is missing (I wonder what happened to her head) while the Create a Monster Vampire hasn't just got a shattered neck but her upper arm piece has the peg from the lower piece jammed in it. I'd have to drill it out I think. I don't think I care enough.
This lot all have the dreaded "glue head". Mattel gave zero shits about this problem and for close to a decade continued to fill the heads with unstable glue that not only didn't serve any purpose in keeping the hair in place, also wicks up into the hair making it sticky. It also makes the heads rock hard and starts to yellow them from the inside out. It's really gross.
I sought advice for how to treat this and got a few suggestions which i'll test out later in this review.
In the meantime, we have from top left to right: Signature Twyla (She's mostly complete, she even had her pet), Home Ick Abbey (she's lost her apron), Scaris Jinafire (she has her hair decoration, I just need to sort her hair out first), Frights Camera Action Elissabat (She's lost her jacket/top thing and earrings), Frights Camera Action Clawdia (missing glasses)
Bottom row left to right: I Heart Fashion Scarah (She has her three pairs of shoes but not her second and third outfits. Wierd), Skull Shores Abbey (missing her wrap. She has her hat though. Her limbs are really yellowed from the glue they used to do her glitter layer. Eugh), Black Carpet Draculaura, 13 Wishes Gigi (Her hair is totally out of its original style but she does have her pet and accessories), Signature Toralei (missing a lot of her original outfit)
Of this lot Draculaura is the only one i've never owned. Wierd huh? Black Carpet was a pretty nice line, but they have some of the worst glue hair of any Monster High line. Which is really sad.
The second group are the "hair is a bit sticky/gross, could do with treatment but not as urgently" lot. A few of these might be fine with just a good rinse, but they aren't all as immediately "ewwwww" to touch as the first group.
top row: Signature Venus (Missing her vest), Scaris Rochelle (missing her top. Has her wings though), Signature Ghoulia (missing most of her original outfit), Scaris Catrine (missing some accessories), Monster Exchange Lorna
bottom row: Frights Camera Action Viperine (missing several accessories), Hydration Station Lagoona (I also have the actual hydration station and it does work. The bubble stand is broken though), Cupid (missing her wings but she still has her ring. That's wierd), Ghouls Rule Frankie (missing a few bits), Freaky Fusion Sirena (missing tassel things and necklace)
One wierd thing about Ghoulia is that there's a few bits from three different Ghoulias in this bundle but only the one doll. There's bits of signature Ghoulia (and i'm pretty sure the doll IS signature Ghoulia), the top from the fearleading 3 pack Ghoulia (none of the other bits or the other two dolls though) and some of Skull Shores Ghoulia's bits. Huh? I wonder what became of those other dolls. Super wierd.
The next lot are the "hair just needs a brush and restyle" ones. No glue hair here, whew!
Top row: Dance Class Robecca (her headband is broken unfortunately), Dot Dead Gorgeous Spectra (missing her wrist bows and her necklace), Frights Camera Action Honey, I heart Fashion Wydowna (missing most of her second and third outfits, has all her shoes though), Roller Maze Operetta (she actually DOES have slightly sticky hair, she shouldn't be in this pile but I forgot when I took the photo. Oops?), Gooliope (again her hair is a bit sticky but it could just be the gel in it. I'll only find out when I wash her)
Bottom row: Jane Boolittle (missing several bits), Scaris Cleo (I wonder what happened to the Lagoona she came in a two pack with...), Signature Nefera (complete, which surprised me), Coffin Bean playset Clawdeen (no outfit, go figure)
I used to have Scaris Cleo, I think she was sold a long time ago. I had forgotten how pretty she was. Same with Dot Dead Gorgeous Spectra. She's a beautiful doll. Spectras suffer badly from yellowing though, especially on their transparent parts and this girl is no exception.
The boys!
The seller mentioned how much of a pain in the arse it was to find the boy dolls. They were always produced in significantly lower quantity than the girls with several being store exclusives. I remember I used to hit like 4 different Argos stores across 2 cities back in the day to find the new stock.
Top row: Invisibilly (missing his hat), Neighthan, Sweet 1600 Clawd (he's sticky and missing most of his clothes), Scaris Deuce, Ghoul Spirit Slo Mo (Now THIS boy was a pain in the arse to find. He was short packed and only in the A case assortment, which was rapidly replaced with the B assortment that only had the three girls. The three girls shelf sat but he sold out immediately. I remember picking up the girls for £3 in wilkos at one point because they were so damn desperate to get rid of them at that point. Nobody wanted them! everyone wanted Slo Mo.)
Bottom row: Mansters 2 pack Gil (this was a toys r us exclusive), Home Ick Heath (He came with the Abbey in one of the earlier pictures), Mansters Deuce (the other half of the gil/deuce two pack. They came with a game board with little pieces. It's cute), Signature Jackson (poor guy has no pants lol. He does have his glasses, they just don't like to stay on)
There's also a pile of Create a Monster sets.
The vampire girl's body is broken (and pictured in the broken pile image) while the sea monster hasn't got her torso piece but does have all her limbs. Skeleton girl has her limbs but is missing one hand.
Gargoyle Boy came dressed like this and I find it hilarious. He's kinda rocking it. He does have his wings.
There's a few wigs but the cam wigs are awful. There are also several pairs of shoes that came with these dolls so that's nice. The Skeleton girl came with awesome skeletal heels.
Also Nightmare, who Bloodgood came with. I find it wierd that NONE of Bloodgood's clothes are present. She has literally one shoe, everything else is missing. I wonder what happened there.
So all in we have erm... about 56 and a bit dolls?
I'm not actually sure how to count all of these.
There's 39 mostly complete monster high dolls, 3 "not monster high" dolls, 5 full create a monster dolls plus parts, 1 horse, 3 dolls who I might be able to repair and 6 repaint fodder dolls.
Quite a lot of stuff.
And this isn't even going into the playsets.
I haven't sorted the Coffin Bean bits yet but the High School is missing a few bits. One of the desks can't be built because it's missing one of the pieces and the bleachers are missing one strut but considering how many small bits there are and the fact they do NOT fit inside the damn playset when it's folded up (what a shit design there. What's the point of it folding up and having a handle if it's not able to actually be used as a carry case? wtf Mattel?) i'm surprised as much is intact as is. I mean it even still has all the teensy little accessories.
So, now it's time for experiments!
I was given a few suggestions for glue head so let's go through them.
Elissabat was my chosen lab rat. I picked her because she had very bad glue and isn't a very rare doll. Also she's incomplete anyway.
First was Dettol which I thought might do something to the glue because alchohol apparently helps. Dettol is used by my other half to soak paint off of miniatures and it contains alchohol and a few of the other things that are in the other products suggested.
I soaked Elissabat for about 10 minutes. I was wary to do it for too long because it STINKS.
What I found was that her head was squishier after a little dettol soak but her hair was still sticky. I feel like it might have done more had I left her in it for a full hour or so, but it would have left her absolutely reeking.
Dish soap did nothing despite being supposedly "good for grease".
Someone suggested the rather out there suggestion of "oil" with the reasoning that vegetable oil or butter can be used to remove stickiness from other stuff. I had nothing to lose here so I gave Elissabat a little shampoo in olive oil.
now this was an interesting one because I didn't expect it to do much. What I learned was that it DID remove the stickiness, and replaced it with greasiness.
but I suppose that's progress of some sort.
Dish soap yet again failed to help to remove the greasiness. *sigh*
Finally I moved onto the stuff I had to go out of the house to buy. Oxy 10 and Cif.
I used a sticky gross Clawdeen to test the oxy as her hair was absolutely horrendeous anyway. I didn't really know what to expect there because oxy just cleans stuff, but interestingly it did soften up her hair which was previously glued to her scalp. I suspect very hot water may have done this too though.
her head was also a bit squishier after.
Elissabat got a good shampoo of cif which smells of lemon and dries your hands out terribly. I suggest gloves if you're gonna use it because it feels gross.
It took a couple of shampoos before I started to see any difference. I think I wasn't leaving it long enough. In the end I elected to leave her for a good hour with the cif sitting in her hair and assess after that. This seemed to work. So yeah, patience is key in this process.
her head is squisher but there's still a hard lump of glue in there. However her hair is now grease and stickiness free. The cif did dry it out a lot though and I feel like she'd benefit from a conditioning treatment but it looks alright and actually sits like hair not a solid greasy clump. Glue head is so gross.
SUCH an improvement.
Bolstered by this success I grabbed a few more dolls to test out the cif method.
No face Toralei, the no face Clawdeen i'd oxy bathed and Cupid who's hair was just a little tacky but very very tangled up.
Doll bangs always refuse to cooperate.
Cupid's elastic bands had also disintergrated over the years so had to be replaced. I couldn't replicate her heart so she got a circle. Sorry.
I remember from when Cupid first came out what a pain in the arse her hair was though. She came with her hair CAKED in product to keep it in a wierd flip curl style which wasn't at all screen or art accurate. It's also rooted with no proper part line so it all sweeps back from the front, which makes it annoying to style.
A lot of people ended up curling the hell out of her hair to try to get it to look correct but it was a chore.
I'm pretty sure this is the first Cupid release because of how her hair is rooted. The second release had fuller hair with a little more volume and with an actual parting if I remember rightly. It looked a lot better and was easier to work with.
I don't have anything to curl Cupid's hair unfortunately, so I think i'll just leave her as is. Though I am trying to convince her damn fringe to sit DOWN like it's supposed to.
Both Elisabat and Cupid's dresses originally had clear plastic straps but both had started to disintergrate. I couldn't resew them as they were just crumbling in my hand so I ended up snipping them off both dresses so they wouldn't be in the way. They looked ugly anyway as they'd yellowed to this gross nicotine stain colour and were sticking out in random directions.
Unfortunately in Cupid's case, she really does need something to keep her top up. I wonder if you could replace those transparent straps with something a little more resiliant. Because clearly that plastic doesn't survive, it just crumbles into gross yellowish dust. *puke*
Faceless Toralei's hair actually dried out pretty nicely. Which surprised me because Toralei had two stickiness issues to contend with. The glue inside her head, and the glue gel shit that was saturated into her hair to keep it in the bob style in the box. She had SOLID hair out of the box, like proper helmet hair. It was gross.
Now this Toralei had only her eyes left of her face paint, and not all of her eyes at that. The edges had been wiped away. I did try to wipe her totally clean but her eyes were stubborn and my magic eraser was crumbling in my hand so I gave up.
Instead I elected to work with what she had left and see what I could do for her.
She got completely new lips, eyebrows, makeup and lashes (she had no lashes left at all). I also painted her gloves back on as they'd been wiped and left her with red paint smears and stains all over her hands. I couldn't get all the marks off.
I gave her one yellow eye because most of the green had wiped off anyway and I wanted to make her look like a whole different character, not just Toralei.
Here she was before.
And after.
I feel like the front of her hair had been cut, presumably to achieve this look. It's a cute style though, I like it. It needs a little neatening up but it's not bad.
So far i've partially repainted two of the dolls, and I really like both of them. I've always wanted the draculocker Draculaura but so many of her dolls are pretty wonky and wall eyed. It's fun to have a unique one.
So the next step is to treat all the glue head as best I can, try to restyle the dolls back to as close to original as I can and then rehome the ones i'm not keeping.
It's gonna take a while but i'm gonna enjoy it.
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