Every few years we get another line of Black dolls hitting the market and almost every single time they're US only (because obviously black people don't exist outside of America huh? -_- ) which makes them extremely difficult to get anywhere else in the world.
They don't usually last very long unfortunately, trying to compete with the big hitters like Mattel and MGA is very very difficult. It is however always interesting to see a new small company make an attempt and as anyone who follows this blog knows, i'm very much of the opinion that black dolls MATTER and these attempts to give kids that choice and diversity is extremely important.
And so, the Naturalistas are the latest attempt. They're created by a group called Purpose Toys who appear to be more of a group that brings creators together rather than their own manufacturer? I'm not totally sure. They themselves describe it as "a supportive community of Black founders" and claim "Purpose Toys partners with entrepreneurs, providing the infrastructure and resources necessary to succeed at retail."
It appears that for this doll line they partnered with Just Play for distribution which makes sense. Just Play are a moderately sized toy company best known to the doll community at least, of making the 24 inch tall Barbies and such. They don't seem to have many franchises all of their own so much as they do things for other companies and act as a distributing partner or something. I'm not totally sure how it works honestly. But if you look at their website they have a partnership with Disney, Mattel, multiple kids shows and youtube channels, Warner brothers, Nickelodeon... the list goes on. They're even currently holding the rights for Slinky and Shrinky Dinks as well as producing those Art Squad dolls (which sorry, i'm not gonna be reviewing. They freak me out.)
Anyway,
the Naturalistas are a line of 11 inch fashion dolls who's big gimmick (can you call it a gimmick?) is that they each have natural Black hair textures and styles. Their aim is to promote the beauty of natural hair, something that sadly is still policed and discriminated against in the western world.
I'm afraid with lines like this it's impossible not to get into politics because there are inherent politics to their existance. It's sad that something like hair IS political in the first sodding place, but that's the crappy world we live in i'm afraid. As the Skunk Anansie song goes "yes it's fucking political, everything's political"
So let's dive in.
Special thanks to maleficentmrsofallevil for shipping these girls all the way to the UK. You rock!
The dolls come in a fairly standard blister style packaging which was removed to get shipping down a little. This girl is Liya and her hair is HUGE!
The dolls all come with the same pale pink backing card with their Naturalistas logo printed on it, and all their clothing features the logo as well.
They come with a bag and a pair of shoes which for some reason are not worn. This has become a bit of a trend in recent years, to package the dolls barefoot. I assume it's so you can get a better look at the shoes or something? But I find it personally kinda annoying. More plastic tabs to cut.
The whole line features 4 main dolls and Grace who is a deluxe doll, coming with a wig and some sort of playset. Each girl has a different hair type which is very unusual to see.
Liya for example is listed as having 4C type hair.
To the uninitiated, hair types are classified as type 1-4 (straight to coily) and A-C which defines the "shape" or size of the curl. A being a quite loose S shaped curl, B being a little tighter and C being a very tight curl.
4C is therefore the tightest curl you can get. 4C hair has a zig zag shape to the curls themselves and is commonly seen in those very structural styles like afros and puffs.
Liya's style is "stretched", which quite literally means what it says. 4c hair is very densely coiled so has a lot of shrinkage, the coils naturally sit close together which is how you get those gravity defying styles, but apply heat or certain protective styles and those fibers will stretch out, the curl will loosen and you can get this unique lion mane look.
Liya's hair really is a mane, it's glorious but i'm not entirely sure how realistic the scale of it is. It is however very soft and pleasant to run your hands through.
All the characters also have little bios which is nice. Their thing seems to be that "naturalistas" is a brand that exists in their world and they're involved with. Liya herself is a model and an engineering student I think? Which is interesting.
Other characters are things like fashion designers for the Naturalistas brand (which i assume means they're meant to have designed all the outfits?), a cosmetologist/chemist with a natural haircare product brand and even a social media influencer who does haircare and style tutorials.
It's kinda cool that the brand seems to exist in universe and that all of the girls are in some way entrepreneurs themselves.
the bottom of the back of the box has info about the founder of Purpose toys. But also has some other things I find interesting.
Do you see the UK CE mark? And the address of Just Play in Oxfordshire?
This suggests that the line was meant to be a global brand, so it's possible the uk MIGHT see them eventually. Amazon UK have a listing but they're third party only which doesn't mean much.
sadly, as we tend not to get doll lines like this over here, i'm not gonna hold my breath. It'd be lovely to see them on UK shelves, but this country really has a big issue with not stocking dolls of colour. -_-
While the doll was held in with quite a few plastic tabs i'm DELIGHTED to tell you that she didn't have a single plastic staple in her head. The only thing holding her head in place was a plastic thread around the poor girl's neck (poor dolls with their plastic garottes) but no staples in the head! This makes perfect sense given how dense her hair IS. Any plastic tabs would be very very difficult to remove without damaging her hair and they're unneccisary anyway.
I do wish more companies would stop using the damn things.
The faces on these dolls are beautiful. Liya has a soft smile, some flattering dark copper lipstick and simple neutral eyebrows. Her eyes are done in yellow and brown to give them depth and her makeup is a subtle greyish brown with a beige on the upper eyelid.
The face paint is crisp and clear though due to her hair, a little prone to ending up with little bits of shed hair all over it.
I believe the whole line uses the same face mold but they paint them very differently, which makes them all look quite distinct.
The Naturalistas line are very low priced at around $13 each, and this is reflected in their lack of accessories.
Liya comes with a sparkly blue dress, a pair of heels and a simple solid plastic handbag.
they don't come with a brush which actually feels wise. I'm not sure this sort of hair SHOULD be brushed, it feels more like finger combing is appropriate.
Liya's shoes are a pair of "nude" heels that match her skin tone. I've never been entirely sure about nude shoes, but then, I am not a fashion person so what do I know?
These shoes have a little defect on one where the ankle strap likes to twist on itself when putting it on the doll. only the one shoe does it and I can't work out WHY but it means you then have to carefully untwist it and it's put strain on the strappy bits.
The shoes are otherwise easy enough to get on and off though of course being strappy shoes, they also suffer the "not sure how well they'll hold up" curse. I've lately had a lot of strappy doll shoes break on me and it's frustrating.
Further to their price point, the Naturalistas only have very basic 5 point articulation. Shoulders, hips, neck. Their heads cannot tilt or look up and down, only side to side.
The limbs are all hard unyeilding plastic so don't expect any knee clicks here either.
now that said, the sculpting is really very impressive. Liya has some washboard abs going on, a cinched waist, full bust and shapely but slender limbs.
She's also got a booty. And a teensy tiny little curve to her stomach as well.
Her hands and feet are more proportionate to her body than a lot of similarly sized dolls so they appear HUGE by comparison. Her feet for example are closer to monster high sized. (Unfortunately they can't quite wear MH shoes because their heel arch is a little lower, standing on the balls of their feet rather than tiptoes like MH dolls do. Bratzillaz shoes mostly fit though.)
their hands are rather beautifully sculpted with long slender fingers. They aren't as detailed as the LOL OMG hands, but they're definitely far more detailed and expressive than Barbie hands.
Speaking of Barbie bodies, this My Scene girl is helping out comparing the sculpts.
The modern Barbie standard body (the belly button body as it's usually referred to) feels a lot more clunkily sculpted alongside the Naturalista. Liya has a much more proportionate upper body with narrower shoulders than the Barbie, as well as feet that don't look like ridiculous little hooves.
The Naturalista also has more shapely limbs, especially her arms which look less like noodles. Barbie really does have very shapeless upper arms huh?
Barbie also possesses no arse while Liya has some actual junk in that trunk. Liya also has a fuller bust than barbie.
The other Black owned doll brand on shelves in the US at the moment, and ultimately the Naturalistas likely biggest rival, are the Fresh Dolls.
I reviewed the first wave a while back and it's been a couple of years now. on the one hand, i'm glad to see the line is still going, on the other, i'm sadened to see that they really haven't made any sort of improvements to their product in all that time.
Compared to the Naturalista doll the Fresh doll body looks positively amateur. It's very blocky in shape and the lower legs are especially ridiculously shaped, tapering down into little hooves with ankles so narrow they look set to snap if you apply any force.
While the Fresh doll has more articulation than the Naturalista, it comes at the cost of aesthetics. The half arsed 90 degree hinges of the legs and arms give her robotic motion and look awful. I have to ask once again, why oh why does she have elbow joints but not wrist? And why oh why have they still not tried to make these joints look a bit better and work better?
I suppose at least the Fresh doll can look up and down. Something poor Liya can't do.
Both dolls do however possess arses, unlike poor arseless Barbie.
But god those knee joints are ugly aren't they?
The Fresh doll does however gain points for having more overall mobility. Even ignoring the hinge joints, she has more motion in her hips and shoulders than the Naturalista. The Naturalista body can only pull their legs forward into a sitting position, they can't do the splits as the leg will not kick out that far behind them. Their legs also don't splay more than your standard human can, so no sideways splits there either. Now this doesn't bother me that much because her mobility is realistic, most humans can't do the splits like dolls can either, but for those who care about these sorts of things, the Naturalista body has a little less mobility than a modern fashionista barbie doll.
The girls can wear one another's clothes, but not shoes.
Like Liya, the Fresh Doll (I don't know her name, i'm sorry) has a similar stretchy metallic fabric for her shirt. Is this stuff just really fashionable at the moment?
Like Liya's dress, the pink top is really prone to snags and the design of the velcro actually makes it even worse than the Naturalista dresses. The back of the top is a mess of pulls and snags and it's really disappointing to see such a lack of forthought regarding playability. Kids will undress their dolls, the material HAS to be able to withstand that.
I'll admit, i'm not overly impressed with the Fresh doll. I really liked the first one I had but this one has the same issues with added thinly rooted hair. I'm also just not convinced about the oversized heads on these dolls. The Naturalistas are substantially prettier to me and a lot of that is the fact their heads are fairly proportionate.
Hasbro Sindy clothing fits for the most part, though Liya has a larger bust than Sindy ever did.
Likewise this vintage Barbie stuff mostly fits, though the hips are a little snug and the bust a little tight.
Modern Barbie stuff I found to be fairly hit and miss. Curvy Barbie stuff is too big in the bust area and regular Barbie can be too narrow in the waist/butt region and too small in the bust. YMMV there.
I felt like Liya needed a jacket so she got this very 70s looking old Barbie jacket to wear. It's a bit baggy. Liya has much narrower shoulders than old Barbies lol.
Liya wasn't the only Naturalista I was sent however. I also got Paige. Paige is a chemist and has her own hair care brand. Her hair type is 3C and it's styled in a high side ponytail.
It isn't as soft as Liya's but it's still quite pleasant to touch. It's very very textured and thick.
As I mentioned earlier I believe these dolls all use the same face mold but Paige's eyes are larger and her lips painted a little thinner. She has a certain Disney Princess look to her to me, something about the style of her eyepaint makes me think Disney art. She's very cute. She also kinda reminds me of Olmec's Imani.
It's the purple eyeshadow I think. Lol.
Paige's lip colour is a matte muted fushia sort of tone and her eye makeup is a soft lavender.
Her earrings I thought were silver but they're actually clear with silver glitter inside them. Never seen that before.
Her dress is the same slightly stretchy sparkly material that Liya's is, this time in silver and with a cutout on one side of the bodice. Like Liya's dress it has bust darts and is fully hemmed but suffers from a few pulls and snags. It seems to have held up a bit better than Liya's so far though. Go figure.
Both Paige and Liya have identical bags and shoes, though in Paige's case both are pink.
I'm not sure why they're pink, they don't go with anything else she's wearing. Maybe silver was too samey? Still, an odd choice imo.
Looking at the backing card it looks like all 5 dolls use the same shoe mold which makes sense, it keeps the price down. Three have the same bag and two have a shoulder bag instead.
Overall i'm impressed with the Naturalistas, especially for their price point.
they have come out with some simple little fashion packs which cost almost as much as the dolls themselves but they offer some options there if Barbie/Sindy stuff isn't working for you. Shoes are definitely going to be the primary issue with these girls and I hope later releases give us some variations on that front.The fashion packs do have new shoes (including a pair of chunky sneakers) but i'd love to see the dolls themselves come with some variations.
I'd also prefer more casual outfits for them. Only two of the 5 are wearing what i'd describe as casual wear, the other three are all in these sparkly formal gowns which is fine but they're a bit too "party" for me. I prefer my dolls in everyday wear.
Of the fashion packs, I quite like this one
while this next one is kinda silly
What even ARE those glasses? LOL.
The final one is a bathrobe
Which looks very cosy but those shoes look lke they're about to fall off at any second! Oh dear.
I like this line and i'll likely get some more at some point. I just wish I didn't have to import them.
They're a quality line with a shockingly low price point. Usually these sorts of lines end up quite expensive for what you get because they're small little companies who don't have the resources that bigger companies have. I wonder if the partnership with Just Play helped to bring those costs down for Purpose Toys here. However they've done it, that very competative pricing is definitely a big boon for the line.
They've already released another small store exclusive line called "pixie puffs" that features 2 new characters so i'm hoping to see a lot more from these guys.
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