Our Generation "Charlotte" Doll by Battat

I have become much more interested in 18" play dolls recently.  In the comments section of a recent post, Juliet asked me if I own an American Girl doll, and I felt more than a little silly telling her that I do not.  Many of you know that I've thought about this purchase a lot, and I have every intention of reviewing one of these dolls (maybe Rebecca, Saige or Emily?  Will you help me decide in the poll on the right?), but I just can't seem to make it happen.  I think part of the reason is that there are so many amazing American Girl resources out there--Doll Diaries and Never Grow Up being among my favorites.  Those sites make me feel like I already have an American Girl doll, and so I tend to be more interested in investigating other options.

I often refer to the less expensive American Girl imitators when I am discussing the prices of various 18" dolls.  I have mentioned the Springfield Collection, the Journey Girls (Toys R Us) and Our Generation (Target).  I've never actually reviewed one of these brands, though.  The other day while I was browsing at Target, I noticed that the Our Generation girls were on sale for $18.99 (down from $22.99).  That's a pretty good deal.  Not only that, but there was a cute little redhead with bright blue eyes that I had never seen before sitting on the shelf all alone--clearly hoping that I would bring her home.  Meet Charlotte:

Our Generation doll, "Charlotte."
$18.99 on sale at Target.

The Our Generation dolls are made by Battat.  This is the company that makes Li'l Woodzeez.  They also make an awesome-looking toy called "Symphony in b" that I want to buy for my niece.  It reminds me of this wonderful little Zizzle Zounds music toy that my kids have, and another great muscial block toy by Neurosmith that they had when they were younger.  Good stuff.

Anyway...the doll.  I guess I haven't looked very closely at the Our Generation dolls and their packaging for a while.  The packaging is really nice, and the company seems to have adopted an eco-friendly, charitable approach that I like.  Our Generation could have been included in my Charitable Doll series with Hearts 4 Hearts Nahji and Karito Kids Ling.

The box is made completely out of cardboard and is decorated in bright pink and orange:

There's a lot of reading to do on this box.  On the front, it says, "Fits most 18in/46cm dolls."  With this, I assume they're referring to just the clothes on the doll, not the whole doll.  The idea of the whole doll somehow fitting other 18" dolls conjures some very Silence of the Lambs skin suit ideas in my head...but maybe that's just me.

Why not just say, "clothes fit American Girl dolls?"

The back of the box has a note from Charlotte.  I don't really follow the part of this letter where she says, "we girls have what it takes to do both [swing from a tree and save a rainforest] and that's what keeps us smiling." The "keeps us smiling" part seems unnecessary to me.  Still, I have to admit that I got a little choked up at the end.  It's a nice letter:

Following this letter is Elizabeth's story.  Elizabeth is a 12-year-old girl who raised $15,000 to help earthquake victims in Haiti.  There's a slightly more detailed version of Elizabeth's story on the Our Generation website.  I tried searching for more about this story on the internet, but couldn't find anything except for what was on the OG site.  This made me a little suspicious, so I did some more investigating.  Some of the other real-life stories are clearly true (and inspiring!), so I actually think Elizabeth is a real person.  Very cool.

The box is not only recyclable, but it is made from recycled materials and printed with soy-based ink, which may (or may not) help the cardboard break down faster.

There's a cute photo of Charlotte on the back of the box:

One side of the box is decorated with colorful hearts, the other side has some more text boxes:

Every Our Generation purchase sends 10 cents to Power of a Girl, a Free the Children project.  From what I've read, Free the Children seems like a good cause.  This charity was actually founded by a twelve-year-old kid, and works to help children all over the globe,

The last two blurbs aren't quite as interesting--one is repetitive and the other is just contact information.  Their friendly wording in the contact box does kind-of make me want to dial that number and say, "Hey. I just called to chat."

Charlotte's outfit and coloring look great against the colorful backdrop of the box.  I really like her bright dress and cute freckles:

The box has an outer cardboard frame that can be removed by un-taping and disconnecting tabs all along one side and across the top.  Ripping would work well, too, if you had no desire to preserve the box.

The inner box has two cable ties holding the doll in place and a small catalogue taped to the back.

On either side of the top cable tie is a tiny piece of cardboard that looks like a matchstick.   These are attached to the doll's braids to keep the hair from flopping around.  It's a pretty clever system and very easy to get undone.

The bottom of the box has a creative barcode and the Battat company information.  Battat is a Canadian company, and I love the French wording, "Maison Joseph Battat."  It sounds very fancy.  

Tres chic.

The little pink catalogue says "og outfitters" on the front.  Our Generation is a nice name for the doll line, but "og" is not the best acronym.  It's a bit like a zombie grunt.

Uungh.

The catalog has a few pages displaying the different Our Generation outfits that are available.  I didn't see any of these in the store.  Each outfit has a title that is a play on words.  This one, "Red For Anything," is really cute:

"Let's Hear it for the Poise" is also a cute outfit, but will kids get that reference?  I mean, Footloose is a great movie, but I haven't seen it for 20 years.  

Give the poise a hand.

Here's Charlotte completely removed from her box.  She stands very nicely on her own:

This doll is so bright and cheerful.  I really like her colorful outfit mixed with the vibrant but natural tones of her eyes and hair:

She has cornflower blue sleep eyes with applied upper eyelashes and no painted lashes.  Her eyebrows are very thin and short and don't attract a lot of attention.  She has just the right number of freckles, and the freckles have a realistic shape, rather than just being circular dots.  My doll's eyes are ever-so-slightly askew, with a wandering left eye.

I suspect that "cornflower blue" popped into my head because these irises have a very flower-like design.  I don't know if all of the Our Generation eyes are like this, or if Charlotte's eyes are especially flowery because of her floral outfit.  

I don't really like the color of Charlotte's mouth.  It has a purple tone to is that makes her look like she's really cold, or worse--suffocating.  I find that I am unintentionally holding my breath when I look at this picture:

Gasp!

The sleep eyes work fine, but they rattle around a bit.  Also, the eyelid color is not a great match to the vinyl of her head, and the eyelashes prevent the eyelids from closing completely.

I'm watching you!

Charlotte is marked "BATTAT" on the back of her neck:

Charlotte's medium auburn hair is styled into two chunky, casual braids.  She has an off-center part in front that I think is intentional.

I like that her flower headband coordinates with her outfit but doesn't match it exactly.  

The headband is secured to her head with two small plastic ties.

The headband is made out of a lined fabric with orange and pink flower designs.

It has a small elastic section in the back for an easy fit:

The one-piece dress is made out of a lightweight blue corduroy with contrasting knit sleeves.  The dress opens down the front with a long, bright yellow plastic zipper.

The dress has a fabric designer label on one side and an embroidered felt flower on the other side:

The decorative zipper pull is made out of felt and is stitched to the top of the zipper, presumably to keep the dress from being unzipped or removed at the store.

It's a little alarming to unzip the dress and find nothing underneath.  I guess I am more used to unzipping things like coats and sweatshirts that tend to be worn over other items of clothing.

Ta-da!

The dress seems well made.  The material is thin, but the seams look sturdy:

The neckline has a blue ribbon liner for added shape:

The embroidered flower has a white backing inside the dress:

The flower is nicely stitched and looks great:

The zipper pull is not as well-stitched as the purple flower and looks a bit like a fried egg:

Yum.

Underneath the dress, Charlotte is wearing striped knit leggings:

What's distracting about her body are the three huge tags that stick out of her left side seam:

Ahh!

There's a brand logo tag:

A long, friendly essay about hair care:

And a materials tag:

The leggings have a velcro opening in back, but they can also be slid on and off without unfastening this seam.

The pink molded shoes are nothing special, but they do help Charlotte stand up on her own:

She's wearing a simple pair of white knit underpants.  In this view, you can see the overall shape of the body.  She has a cloth torso with jointed vinyl head, arms and legs.  There are some asymmetries in the body shape, but it looks fine overall:

The front of the cloth body is seamless, but the back has a single seam down the middle and an extra seam along the bottom to add some shape:

The added seam in back makes her look like a bit like a Weeble:

The arms and legs both rotate within a plastic joint capsule.  The joint is sewn to the cloth body with two or three rows of stitching:

These joints seem sturdy, but they do not offer much maneuverability.  The doll can strike simple walking poses:

A football pose:

Touchdown!

She can do some awkward front-to-back splits:

When she sits down on the floor it looks like a side-to-side split:

Thinking she might be something of a gymnast, Charlotte attempted "the bridge:"

Over very troubled waters.

But decided to abandon gymnastics and just invent her own unique sideways kick cheer:

K.M.C.A!

I am not very impressed with Charlotte's posing repertoire--she couldn't even sit on a chair in a believable way.  I really wish I had seen one of the newer poseable Our Generation girls at the store, because those dolls would probably be a better fit for my articulation hang-ups.  

All of the other 18" play dolls that I own are slimmer in size, and so Charlotte's body looks chunky and shapeless by comparison.  Here are some examples:

The Princess & Me Rapunzel is skinnier and taller, and of course she doesn't have a cloth body so she has more detail throughout her torso:

Rapunzel's dress does not fit Charlotte, mostly because her arms are too wide for the sleeves:

Charlotte's dress looks cute on Rapunzel.  It is a bit loose, but for this style of dress, a perfect fit is not essential.

When I look at these two dolls together, I like Charlotte quite a lot more.  Her clothes are of much higher quality and are more versatile.  I like the shape of Rapunzel's body better, but that's probably because I am used to collecting fashion dolls.  Charlotte's cloth torso makes her more huggable and easy to hold.  Charlotte's face is a bit generic, and her lips are a bad color, but she makes Rapunzel look really bizarre with those huge eyes and blocky eyebrows.

Charlotte is about the same height as my EuroGirl and Carpatina Erin.  Erin and Charlotte have similar coloring.

The clothes-sharing situation is pretty much the same as it was with Rapunzel.  Erin's dress is too tight for Charlotte:

And Charlotte's dress is a bit big, but still looks good on Erin:

It's not really fair to compare Erin to Charlotte, since Carpatina dolls cost three to five times as much as the Our Generation dolls.  However, owning Charlotte makes me appreciate what a beautiful doll Erin is.  That's not necessarily meant to take anything away from Charlotte, it's just that by looking at Charlotte, it's easier to appreciate the steps that were taken to make Erin a high quality doll.  

The only ~18" play doll that I was interested in as a child was Sasha.  Here's a picture of Charlotte with Sasha, just for fun.  They can't share clothes.

I've never mentioned this doll before, but I want to show her to you now as another contrast to Charlotte.  This is a Madame Alexander "Friends Boutique" doll from Walmart.  They've replaced these dolls with the My Life line now (which might be way better, I don't know).  This doll cost around $30 and was so awful, I couldn't bear to review her.  She smelled really chemically, her hair was a nightmare, and her clothes were made of incredibly cheap materials that I didn't want to touch.  She looks good, but looks can be very, very deceptive.

I also wanted to compare Charlotte to Ling, because Ling's cloth torso is similar in size to Charlotte's body:

These two can share their clothes nicely.  Ling's skirt is a bit tight on Charlotte's Weebly proportions, and Ling is a bit tall for Charlotte's dress, but all of the clothes work except for the shoes:

Ling's orange shirt is pretty cute on Charlotte....

But Ling is such a beautiful doll, she ends up stealing the show no matter what she is wearing:

I suspect that Charlotte can also share clothes with American Girl dolls.  She fits well into the Springfield Collection outfits I have, and those are supposed to fit American Girls.

Here she is in the magical Springfield dress that looks good on everyone, and in the Springfield pajama set I own:

Trying on all of those clothes made a bit of a mess out of Charlotte's braids, so I took her hair down to investigate the quality.  There is a lot of hair, and it is a very pretty, natural color.  The braids give it some wave:

My doll had a huge twisted snarl in her hair at the back of her head:

I had to cut that beast out.  There was no way I was going to get it untangled.  It looks like her hair got twisted by a piece of machinery or something.  Ouch.

The hair fiber is soft and easy to comb.  It's not as nice as Ling's silky hair, Lorifina's shiny locks or Tonner's Rapunzel hair or anything like that, but it's decent play doll hair.  I like it.  It has a nice shine to it and doesn't seem prone to tangling: 

The rooting is organized into neat rows near the face, but then gets more random towards the back.  The density of hair plugs is good and the scalp doesn't show during normal play.

This doll has plenty of hair:

I put Charlotte's original dress back on, but I left the pajama top underneath it to make the outfit more complete.  The tank top has a strange cut, but it matches this outfit surprisingly well:

The headband does a nice job of taming the wavy hair:

Her are some action shots with Charlotte back in her original clothes.  She can't strike a lot of interesting poses, but she tries hard:

Og....

Fake sleeping.

Bottom line?  It is clear to me that a lot of effort was put into making this doll as good as she could be for the price.  She is the least expensive 18" play doll I have ever bought, but she would be at the top of my list if I were shopping for a young girl.

Charlotte's face is what attracted me to her in the first place.  She has pretty blue eyes that open and close, realistic freckles and a cute smile.  The only problem with her face is that her lips are too purple.  She has a nice, thickly-rooted mane of red hair that is easy to brush and can be styled into braids, ponytails, or just left down.  Her outfit has two cheerful, well-made, age-appropriate pieces sewn in fabrics that feel soft and natural.  Her clothes fit most of my other 18" dolls.  Her body is chunky and lacks detail and flexibility, but she is easy to handle and her body looks sturdily constructed.  Her box is simple and environmentally friendly.  As an added bonus, purchasing Charlotte donates a small amount of money to an inspiring charity organization that was started by a kid and works to help children all over the world.  The box and the connection to charity round out what is already a wholesome and appealing image.  

The high end 18" play doll market can be incredibly expensive.  One of the reasons that I don't own an American Girl is that every time I visit that store, I seem to end up with $200 of merchandise in my cart before I even get started.  It is refreshing that there are some significantly less expensive options on the market.  Less expensive options are only attractive, though, if they have something appealing to offer at a decent level of quality.  Charlotte meets those requirements very nicely.  This doll is a much better option than the Princess & Me Rapunzel, and certainly a better deal than something like the Friend's Boutique doll.  I am happier with her quality than I am with my poorly-wigged EuroGirl.  She can't rival Carpatina Erin or Karito Kids Ling, but she is more equivalent to them than her price suggests.  My guess is that younger kids won't notice Charlotte's quality shortcuts as much as parents will appreciate her price.  I am impressed enough with Charlotte that I am excited to look at one of the slightly more expensive poseable Our Generation girls.  Those dolls might be a really outstanding option.  For now, though, I'll enjoy this redheaded cutie who cost less than one American Girl outfit.

Summary:

Age Level	3 and up.
Value	Great value--especially at the sale price of $18.99.
Quality	This doll is well constructed. Time was clearly put into giving her an appealing appearance and image.  She has soft, thick hair that is easy to manage.  Her face is nicely painted, with the exception of her lips.  Her eyes have three dimensional detail and can open and close. Her body is blocky and lacks articulation.  Her clothes are colorful, well-made and age-appropriate.
Packaging	Excellent.  The box is all cardboard with only two cable ties holding the doll.  Efforts have been made to choose environmentally friendly materials.
Collectable?	No.  This is a budget play doll.
Versatility	Her generic face and wardrobe make this doll highly versatile.  She could take on a range of personalities, and be mixed in with collections of other 18” play dolls.  She is equivalent in size to American Girl dolls, and can share her clothes with many of the slim 18” dolls.  She can not wear the 18” slim clothes in return, though.
Overall	Based on Charlotte’s price, I had pretty low expectations.  I ended up being impressed by the attention to detail in this doll.  Her face is appealing, her hair is good, her wardrobe is fun and well-made.  The whole line has a nice, positive, modern image.  If she had a little bit more articulation, she would be wonderful.