Bratz - Hello my name is Jade

it's 2015 and Bratz are BACK.
It's been a while, but finally the time has come and Bratz have relaunched... again.
This time with a wee bit more fanfare than the last, and not without it's own degree of controversy.
MGA have rehauled everything, new bodies, new face moulds, new art... old logo (lol) but the real question is, are these new Bratz any good?

Well, certainly when myself and several others saw the first images of them we weren't impressed. The community seemed divided, some welcoming the change and others wishing for the old. But I was curious, and one particular doll did appeal to me: Hello My Name is Jade.
So when Argos' new catalogue launched, I picked up Jade. The prices are a bit steep this year, but they're steep for ALL doll lines, not just bratz.
Even so, the cheapest Bratz line (Hello my name is) retails at £14:99, while the deluxe lines range from £25 to an eyewatering £33 for the snow dolls.
Ouch.
The US prices seem far more reasonable, but sadly we foreign scum just gotta put up with being ripped off. *sigh*

Anyhoo, given the newest budget Monster High line (Boo York) is £17:99 (yes, seriously) the £15 price tag for Jade wasn't nearly so hard to swallow.

And heeeere she is!

monster high - freak du chiq Gooliope Jellington

Gooliope, wow. I knew she was a big doll, I had a good idea of how tall she'd be but nothing quite prepared me for how BIG her head would be. It's pretty impressive and beautifully striking.

Gooliope comes in a box that's a bit bigger than the regular size, but even so she's still hunched over to fit. I love the cracks in the plastic as if she's been banging on it for release lol.
Though mine's hands are positioned a bit wrong for the illusion to really work, it's a fun concept and makes for fun packaging.

Monster High Boo York - Luna Mothews

It's my birthday on the fifth, wheeee.
I'm old. <_< >_> heheh.

Anyway, Smyths had 20% off all Monster High and were still the only place that actually even HAD stock of Gooliope here in the UK (everywhere else is backordered) and husband convinced me I should just bite the bullet and treat myself.

So Gooliope ended up about £28, while Luna was still a somewhat eye watering £21, but I really really wanted her so eh.

First time i've ever ordered from Smyths, as we don't have a store anywhere within about a 20 mile radius and they often don't have online stock. I've never been hugely impressed with Smyths business layout, their website is very deceptive but the past year or so they've been getting better and now the majority of what they have listed on their site IS actually available for home delivery (previously you were lucky to get maybe 10% of their online listings that weren't "collect in store only")
They offer free delivery on orders over £29 and told me it would take 3-4 days so I sat back expecting my parcel not to arrive till Monday at the earliest.
Surprisingly, despite ordering at 11:45pm on Wednesday night, they actually dispatched Thursday morning  and arrived Friday. Sweet!

Retro review - Adventures of Vicky

Well I haven't done one of these for a while, but my ebay parcel arrived so here we go heh.

Back in the early 90s a company called Fabbri produced a part work series titled "the adventures of vicky". Basically, the idea was that in the first issue you would get a 1/6 scale doll and then each subsequent issue would feature an outfit and the magazine would be themed around that outfit.
A similar idea was used for the Felicity Wishes part works, though those used a plush doll. Vicky was a plastic Barbie scale doll and her fashions were designed in such a way they fitted other dolls of that scale just as well.

Why no reviews?

Yeah I feel I should explain why there's been no reviews on anything for so damn long.
Truth is, there's just nothing I WANT to buy atm.

See, we're at that point in the year where the UK has shelves flooded with last seasons stock still at full price and the new stuff hasn't hit yet. That is, if stores have any stock at all.
Sure there's some new stuff, but it's all things I don't collect like Equestria Girls and la la loopsy and such.

I'm waiting impatiently for new MH but it looks like we'll be getting absolutely robbed blind for those this season.
The prices have shot up AGAIN from £19:99 to a whopping £26:99 and let me tell you, that's some sticker shock right there.
I flatly refuse to pay that, it's scalper level pricing and it makes me feel sick to the stomach handing over that sort of money for a doll I KNOW will have bald patches and crappy QC.
I'm just really not happy with Mattel right now, the last wave of dolls lacked that same excitement for me and I think i'm just losing interest. Alas.

Still, I really want Gooliope and she better damn well come into stock soon because i'm going mental waiting. Her hair looks like it sucks but she's enormous and that's awesome.
She has me genuinely excited, but we're sitting twiddling our thumbs waiting for all the new MH stuff to actually hit our shores.
same with the new EAH stuff.
and the new fashionistas who are sloooowly trickling in (I NEED LA girl in my life, like.. so bad)

The other factor is that i've been too sick to actually go out shopping. I order most of my dolls online these days because with a young family, I just don't get the time to go wander toy stores for hours and when my health decided to go "hah, screw you", walking any sort of distance became practically impossible anyway from a physical perspective.
Also it's getting into summer and heat and I don't get along. I want to punch the stupid sun seriously. I hate the sun. -_- it's a big firey jerk.

I still do try to pop out every so often, but not with nearly the frequency I once did. It's become difficult, too difficult an it's a bit of a bummer.

I may end up doing some retro reviews just to keep something to read. I dunno if anyone would be interested in reading about strange obscure doll lines from the past. What do you guys think? Just while we wait for new things to hit and our usual schedule of snark and combined gushing can start once more.

What sort of things are you guys looking forward to? and is there anything you'd like to hear my rambling perspective on? Let me know in the comments!

Ever After High - Duchess Swan

I've had a lot of dolls lying about unopened for months. A combination of general apathy and lack of display space has made me reluctant to open them, and in the case of the MH and EAH stuff, those blood thirsty boxes have been a HUGE offputting factor.

But today my pc crashed and wouldn't load back up for several hours, so I did some deboxing.

Duchess had been preying on my mind a lot recently, i'd seen some gorgeous shots of other people's doll with her hair restyled and in a more modern outfit and I started getting the itch to try my own restyle.
I always felt the doll was gorgeous, but her outfit was not at all to my taste.

Anyway, I finally got her deboxed so here we go!

Update and more rambling

Yeah i've been kinda slacking lately. Honestly I haven't really bought any non Makie dolls in a while.

Mattel are suuuuper slow to release stuff here and I already bought Haunted and Exchange and that's all I really wanted. None of the other lines grab me and say "buy meeee". Sure a few are pretty, but the price is prohibitive and i'm seriously losing interest.

I'm kinda excited about Boo York and Freak Du Chiq, even though I only really want Luna and Gooliope (maybe Elle but her colourscheme is so like sooo many other dolls in the line, she doesn't stand out so much for me). But on the whole, i'm kinda going off the recent Mattel products with their shitty thinly rooted hair, lack of detailing and massive price tags. Also those boxes... I cannot forgive boxes that demand blood.

And there's not much else on the market really. I mean... the shelves are pretty sparse around here. There's Barbie sure, but i'm not a huge Barbie fan.
There are still some Moxie Girlz trickling into the country but we aren't getting every line, we only seem to get about 1/3 if not less of the stuff the US is seeing... and they're still over priced.

There's just not really anything new or exciting out right now. No competition to Mattel, no rival dolls on the shelves. It's pretty damn depressingly barren. Maybe it'll get more exciting toward the end of the year.

So what HAVE I been buying? uh... makies... lots of Makies lol. I'm up to 12 now with another on the way and even more on my wishlist.
they are awfully addictive. I'm really enjoying them, both designing them and coming up with characters for them all heh.

I also got a hold of some zelfs. I bought a few each wave since they were released, but I only seem to ever want 3 or 4 from each line, which isn't enough to send off for the LE one heh. I should have, I liked the cat one but by the time I worked out that I should just buy a few more zelfs I "kinda liked" to have adequate reciepts the time had almost run out. I'm pretty sure they must have run out by now. maybe next wave...

Ain't they cute?