Update on the Monster High bundle

 So I figured people might like to know what I did with the huge bundle of monster high dolls and how much success I had with deglueing them. 

So settle in and let me show you. 

Another huge bundle of Monster High

 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. 

LOL OMG Fierce

 LOL OMG have been out for quite a while now and judging by the massive slowdown of releases, i'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the franchise is winding down at last. They had a great run, but doll lines only have a limited life span. 

Released in 2019, the OMG line was a spinoff of the blind ball LOL tots, and since 2019 they've spawned quite a few MORE spinoffs including the B-Tweens and JK, and now we have a whole new spinoff. The OMG Fierce dolls. 

Are these going to be the new direction OMG go in to refresh the brand or are they kinda like Moxie Teenz, just a random deluxe aside that ultimately fades into obscurity? 

Let's take a look shall we?

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? 

Rainbow High series 4 - Meena Fleur

 The UK is still being slow as all shit to get any new stuff in but thankfully we have all the european Amazons who ship to the UK for £5-6 which is more than reasonable thank you very much. 

So with the UK still not having the Rainbow High slumber party or rock star lines, how long we'd have to wait for the core series 4 to hit was anyone's guess. 

As it turned out, Amazon Italy got them in stock for immediate dispatch and the cost ended up being the same as i'd pay within the UK even after taxes and shipping which is honestly pretty ridiculous. It really shouldn't cost me less to import something from nearly 2000 miles away than from within my own country, that's nuts! 

I ordered a few things from Amazon Italy in two separate transactions. First I ordered Rock Star Vanessa and she arrived within 3 days in an amazon box covered in customs forms and amazon stickers in Italian which makes sense right?

So then I ordered series 4 Meena and Daphne and that's where things get odd. 

It took 9 days for them to turn up and when they did they had no customs labels, no italian stickers, instead they came in an English box with a return address for Amazon's warehouse in SCOTLAND and Royal Mail labels. This suggests that this parcel came from within the UK and never once got on a place. 

So why on earth are Amazon Italy selling dolls from a warehouse in the UK while Amazon UK still have no listings for these dolls yet? 

It's so wierd! I'm so confused! 

Anyway, dolls are here so let's take a look at Meena first. 

Monster High - Haunt Couture - Clawdeen Wolf

 It's been a while since we had any Monster High content to review huh? 

And though the line ended on a very sour note (good god those gappy reboot bodies were unforgivable) I still have a great deal of fondness for the franchise as a whole. It was the first doll brand I was an active collector for the release of rather than picking dolls up secondhand after the event. I have very happy memories of trawling every Argos across two cities to get the new releases (lol), the excitement of new argos catalogue day or new stock coming into Toys R Us, trips out to the nearest TRU for their latest exclusive. Oh so many doll hunts. 

I miss doll hunts actually. I mean yeah it was a bit frustrating when things didn't hit your region for ages but the thrill of going into a store and seeing all this NEW stuff was awesome. 

In the UK now we just don't get that so much. Argos doesn't do new catalogue days anymore, they just kinda... add stuff as and when to their website. TRU no longer exists. Smyths have no stores within 2 hours travel for me (wtf smyths? wtf?) and the past few years we've just been seeing less and less stuff hitting physical stores as everything goes online only.

and I miss physical stores. I miss sitting in the aisle going through all the boxes to find the "perfect" one. I miss the friendships I made with store workers who came to know me very very well (that one argos guy who would yell across the store "No new dolls today!" or "we have a new shipment! come see!" lol. 

But still, it's nice to see Monster High making a comeback. I'm just not totally sure I trust Mattel not to cock it up like they did last time. 

But when they annouced their collector Haunt Couture dolls I knew I needed to get Clawdeen. After all, I have a ridiculous number of Clawdeen dolls in my collection, she's like.. my girl you know? 

Now granted, the release was pretty shitty. Very short notice for both Frankie and Clawdeen, the price was OBSCENE especially compared with other "collector" dolls being produced and the line was only available from Mattel's online store. Thankfully they've fixed their international shipping. Last time they had a webstore exclusive their online shipping was asking an eye watering $60 to ship ONE freaking doll. I was relieved to see it's now a far more reasonable $15. 

But even so, at $75 each, plus shipping and whatever customs fees I may have to pay, I was pretty anxious about it all. But I didn't want to pass and regret it. I sold a bjd to get funds together. I was lucky to find a buyer quickly.

So, was Haunt Couture worth the inflated price tag? Let's take a look shall we?

Rainbow High Pacific Coast Simone Summers

 Another day, another Rainbow High doll. 

What can I say, they are currently the most interesting doll line on the market. 

I've been eying the Pacific Coast line for a while but at £35 for a bloody SWIMSUIT line, the price made my eyes water. (for reference, the regular dolls are between £30 and £35 with two full outfits so... yeah)

However, Simone was just too gorgeous for me to keep putting off getting. I had some amazon vouchers and she kept popping in and out of stock so I took the chance to grab the last one they had with the reasoning of "I don't want to miss out completely, she seems to be selling the best of the lot"