Disney Fairies Dolls by the Disney Store and Jakks Pacific, Part One: Tinker Bell

I'm struggling with the fact that school starts for my kids in one week.  One week!  How did that happen?  What's worse is that I know there are kids across the country who have already started their classes, which seems crazy.  I always have a hard time buckling down to write reviews (or do anything productive, for that matter) when I'm faced with the last few precious days of summer.  However, this year I'm fortunate to have the assistance of some wonderful guest reviewers.  Today, my Canadian friend Melissa is here to help me tackle a comparison review of Disney Fairies dolls made by the Disney Store and Jakks Pacific.  You might remember Melissa from her thorough BEGoth doll review.

Incidentally, Melissa is also the person who got me hooked on Disney Fairies movies.  I was reluctant to watch The Legend of the NeverBeast because many online reviews say it's really scary and kinda sad...which it is.  But Melissa assured me that it's also great...which it is.  I loved it.  I cried a lot, but oh, how I loved it!  Fawn is awesome.  I also watched The Secret of the Wings, which isn't quite as good in my eyes, but is especially relevant to this pair of reviews.

In this post Melissa will compare the Disney Store and Jakks Pacific Tinker Bell dolls, and then I will waltz in for Part Two and compare the equivalent Periwinkle dolls.  I figured this would be a good way to have both fairy sisters represented...and also to provide two separate opinions about these very different brands of doll.

Tinker Bell by Jakks Pacific (left) and the Disney Store (right).

I kept myself from reading Melissa's thoughts until I had de-boxed my dolls and formed my own opinions.  In fact, even as I type this introduction, I still don't know what Melissa thinks about her Tinker Bell dolls.  I'm really curious to see if we agree on most things, or if perhaps we formed very different impressions of these little fairies.  

I'd like to invite anyone who has both (or either) of these brands of doll to join in and share your opinions, too--either through the comments, as usual, or with the little poll on the right.  It's about time we had a new poll around here!

Melissa will kick things off by showing you the Tinker Bell dolls in this post, and then I will come in a little later tonight or tomorrow with my companion Periwinkle review.

***

The Disney Fairies Franchise focuses on the familiar, plucky pixie character from Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, but takes the viewer into the world of Pixie Hollow, where we meet Tinkerbell’s many specially made fairy friends, explore Pixie Hollow, and are introduced to all sorts of different fantastic creatures. The Disney Fairies started out as a book series (the first book was written by Gail Carson Levine, the author of Ella Enchanted) which spawned a series of six movies to date, the most recent being Legend of the Neverbeast. Naturally, as a successful series, this spawned a whole collection of Fairies dolls from a few different companies. 

Today I will be comparing a Fairies doll made by the Disney Store to a doll made by Jakks Pacific. Since, as you may have picked up from my Begoth review, I kind of have a thing for fairies. Just a little bit. (As an aside, I no longer have my Olivia O’Lantern doll, as after doing the review her body broke beyond repair and I could not find a skintone match for a new body for her. May she rest in peace/pieces.)

So, before I get into the review, there’s a rather complicated thing to sort out about all the types of Fairies dolls currently in production. Prepare yourself. It is definitely worth mentioning that, in addition to the “Deluxe” dolls which I will be reviewing today, Jakks Pacific also makes another line of dolls based on the Disney Fairies. These are often simply called, “Disney Fairies 9” Fashion Dolls” (making it easy to mix them up with the Deluxe versions, which have the exact same name except for the word “Deluxe”…though on Jakks’ website the other dolls are called “Classic” so I’ll refer to them as that here) but there are strong differences between these and the more expensive deluxe dolls. I’ll list the differences I’ve noticed here:

1. Articulation. The Classic dolls have unarticulated elbows and wrists and have click knee joints vs. the Deluxe dolls, who have articulated elbows, wrists and an external knee joint.
2. Clothes. The Classic dolls have much simpler, typically one-piece outfits and simpler shoes as compared to the Deluxe dolls, who often have much higher quality, multi-piece outfits.
3. Face paint. From what I can tell all of the dolls from Jakks use the same face mould for each incarnation of the same character, but the face paint on the Deluxe dolls looks much more detailed and better done than the paint of the non-luxe dolls.
4. Hair. I can’t be sure of whether the hair quality is different between the two lines since I’m just comparing stock pictures, but the styles of the Deluxe dolls definitely have a lot more work put into them and are far more detailed than the Classic dolls, who have very simple hair styles.
5. Price. The MSRP on the Jakks Pacific website for the Classic versions of these dolls is $9.99 (USD) while the MSRP for the Deluxe dolls is $14.99. I’m not sure if this is accurate for the prices of the dolls in-store, but I think it shouldn’t be too far off.

I’m probably missing some things, but that’s all I’ve been able to glean from pictures and in-store comparisons.

To make matters even more confusing, Jakks is also making another kind of 9” Fairies doll, which are sold as “Basic” dolls and have an MSRP of $6.99...and moulded on clothes. These ones look like very cheap dolls, edging dangerously close to knock-off quality territory, or maybe a better comparison would be the worst of Mattel’s Frozen dolls. Not good.

Phew. For this review I will be comparing a Deluxe Jakks Pacific Fairies doll to a Disney Store Fairies doll. I had considered purchasing one of the, uh, non-basic but non-luxe Classic Jakks Pacific dolls to compare as well, but I chose not to for two reasons. 1. The dolls looked pretty unremarkable in both photos and in-person and 2. Here in Canada, those dolls cost...wait for it... $17.99 in Canadian dollars (so about $14.25 USD at the moment). $17.99! When the much higher quality, more movie accurate and more articulated Disney Store Fairies dolls cost just $10 (CAD) from a Disney Store when you buy two of them. Evidently, Jakks Pacific isn’t just overcharging for having a Frozen label on their dolls. Yeesh.

Speaking of doll price injustice, the Deluxe Fairies Jakks dolls cost around $30 (again, CAD) here in Canuck Land, which is about the same price as a typical Monster High doll here, maybe even a bit more than MH. That’s a big number to live up to, especially when the Disney Store dolls are literally half the price. But I feel like the Deluxe dolls stand a better chance of justifying it than their far simpler counterparts. Let’s find out, shall we?

For this review I’ll be looking at two versions of Tinkerbell, one made by Jakks and one by the Disney Store:

I’ll do my best to keep the Jakks Pacific doll on the left and the Disney Store doll on the right. Both dolls come in plastic boxes with a cardboard backing. The Jakks Pacific box is much larger and fancier, with a faceted plastic outer box and printed cardboard curling in on it.

On the cardboard is an enlarged cut-off picture of Tink from the movies, and on the other side there’s some sort of pink/purple flower decoration. I’m not sure what this is supposed to be. An orchid, maybe?

Or maybe a fairy-eating sparkly flower to keep them in their boxes in case the plastic ties fail?

On the bottom of the box it says “Stylin’ Tink”. Presumably this is the name of the doll for this line.

Because apostrophes are coolin'...apparently.

On the back of the box is an enlarged photo of my Tink and also Periwinkle (who Emily will review later), both in outfits they never wear in any of the media.

I guess this line only had Periwinkle and Tink in it?

Something I noticed while looking at the back of this box is that Tink’s boots, belt and purse are hot pink, while on the actual doll they are purple. I guess the stock photos were taken of prototype dolls and the colour was changed later on?

Pink (sorry for the blurry photo)

Purple.

As a small aside, while browsing what fairies were available as dolls I noticed that Jakks Pacific tends to make the four characters of Tinkerbell, Periwinkle (after she was introduced, and despite her not taking a large role in any of the films aside from The Secret of the Wings), Rosetta and Silvermist. For the Pirate Fairy dolls they forego a Silvermist doll for Zarina.

There are also random photos of Tink on the front of the box, demonstrating her being “Fully Poseable!”:

This is good, but I can’t help but wonder how the fairies ever got their hands on a functioning digital camera and started posing for it. It doesn’t seem like a particularly suitable activity for fairies; I don’t think they even have any cameras in Pixie Hollow. Tangent, anyways.

The Disney Store box has a much simpler design than the Jakks Pacific box, with a less busy colour scheme.

The box is rectangular and clear plastic on four of six sides; the Jakks box is only clear on two. I like the clear sides better when shopping in person, since you can more easily examine the doll you are getting from all sides. I also like the more cohesive colour scheme on the Disney box; it seems more magical and brings fairies to mind much more than the vibrant colours of the Jakks Pacific box. Not that that really matters once you get it out of the store.

Along the bottom of the Disney Store box is the same CGI image of Tink, in a smaller, full-body view this time. It also shows her name written across a green leaf-looking thing...spelled here as Tinker Bell. Meaning I have been spelling it wrong.

Whoops.

There’s also a sign advertising the wing fluttering feature that the Disney Store fairies come with. I flipped it around to the back and tried the box’s advice by pushing the green button, but the wings barely moved. It will probably work a lot better out of the box.

Okay, that’s enough about them in their boxes: time to start trying out deboxing.

The Jakks box has a bunch of plastic tabs with tape around them. I was hoping I could just peel the tape off the shiny plastic along the top, open the tabs and slide the doll out, but of course it wasn’t that easy. All of the tabs need to be opened before you can remove the doll. Thankfully, due to the shiny plastic, it’s actually really easy to just peel the tape off and lift the tabs. No scissors required!

Then you can just peel off one more piece of tape holding the backdrop in place and slip the doll out:

Of course, it can’t all be this easy. The Jakks Tink is held in place with all sorts of plastic tabs:

Uh, oh...Ugh.

At this point I gave up finesse and just started cutting anything plastic on the back of the box, since I didn’t see any other way to get the large plastic tabs through without causing cardboard mayhem. It wasn’t until I got to the last tab that I realized there are two mini-tabs on the ends of each plastic tab that can be folded in so they can fit through the slits in the cardboard. This is actually a lot easier than snipping them all down to the back of the box until they fit through the holes. Also less flying plastic to contend with. Too bad I didn’t think of this earlier. Oh well.

Unfortunately, even once you have all the plastic tabs folded in (or hacked off) and pull the doll off of the cardboard, there’s still the plastic brace to detach her from.

Double ugh.

The plastic holding her wrists in place actually slips right off, thanks to a long slit along them, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Tackling this contraption from the back is a good idea. Way less risk of cutting up delicate fairy wings.

I cut the twine holding the wings in place and then there was some sort of plastic neck brace threaded through strip held down with a bunch of tape. It actually wasn’t that hard to undo, but it seemed really excessive. Once I did both of these things, Tink started to come out...but left her wings behind:

Are they supposed to do that?

The wings are threaded through slits in the plastic brace-thing, so they have to be bent in a rather frightening way to come out. I decided to detach her feet first.

The super tight plastic-ties don’t make getting the feet out easy. Because of the shape of the plastic brace there was no way I was getting the shoes out from the back, so I had to risk cutting them from the front.

Thankfully, this was a lot easier than I thought it would be. The ties are tight but there was a spot on both feet I could slip my scissors in and cut without risking very much. Crisis averted.

Now, time to go back in for those wings. Getting the top wings out is actually pretty easy, but I was scared of breaking the much shorter, bottom wings. I ended up pulling the wings up from the centre between the top wings firmly, and the bottom came out safely from that.

Here’s my loot:

That was a lot of work.

Unfortunately, even though Tink is now out she still has packaging stuck to her:

The purple thread went through the bottom of the doll’s skirt and tied around the purse. I’m not sure what the purpose of this was, but it came out easily...and left a hole in her underskirt. It’s too small to photograph clearly but it’s large for such a small skirt. Pout.

There’s also thick twine mysteriously going off into something in Tink’s back, and two of the teensiest plastic ties I’ve ever seen holding her headband to her head...but I decided to leave these for later since I had had enough.

Now, time to debox the Disney Store Tink. Yay?

Disney Store Tink has a similar type of box with plastic tabs and tape, but these are way easier to open than the Jakks box. I didn’t even have to peel the tape off; I could just pull and it came off, along with the tabs opening.

Super simple.

Then you can just remove the backdrop with Tink from the plastic:

And simply pull two small pieces of tape open and the box back flips up to reveal where you can remove all the attachments:

Having grown wise from the Jakks box, I folded the tabs that could be folded, twisted out the twist ties, slipped out the hand-holding pieces and before I knew it Disney Store Tink was almost out. The only thing I had to cut was the piece at the bottom holding her feet down, and that was super easy to cut.

And then I could take her off the backdrop. Easy peezy.

The next part wasn’t quite as easy, but it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Other than the plastic twist thingie around her waist (which I had to cut since it was looped around inside her clothing), it was all super easy and I didn’t have to cut anything. It took me maybe a minute to get all the remaining things off of her. You don’t have to wait to the end to know who won the packaging category: Disney Store is so easy to manage compared to the nightmare of the Jakks Pacific packaging.

Disney Store Fairies packaging=Dream

Jakks Pacific Fairies packaging=Nightmare

Now that both of the girls were out of their packages, I figured it was only fair that they stand (or lean against the wall, as it were) side by side:

I wanted to show how they’re roughly the same size: I believe they’re both 9 inches tall. In box, the Jakks Pacific doll looks much larger than the Disney Store doll; partially because of the far larger (and more wasteful and annoying) Jakks box, but also because the Jakks Pacific Tinker Bell is actually packaged with her feet about an inch or so off the box bottom, while the Disney Store doll has her feet planted firmly on the bottom. These things combined make it hard to tell how big they actually are.

This was when I decided to test out the wing fluttering feature on the Disney Store doll. Okay, so you have to press the button down and the wings will go back once, then let go of the button and they’ll come forward to their normal position. So to get any kind of continuous flying motion you have to keep on jamming your finger into the button repeatedly in a position where none of your other fingers are blocking the wings, all while trying to hold the doll still with your other hand, but of course she gives out in one joint or another since you can’t hold them all at once and then all of the force goes to moving that joint instead of pushing the button (because you have to push the button hard enough to make your fingers sore for the wings to move) and so on. Let’s just say I am not so impressed with it, and neither are my sore fingers.

Here is a picture of the wings with the button unpressed:

And the button pressed in as much as it can go (it’s much easier to work the mechanism when Tink is doing a faceplant on a solid surface, but not exactly good for play value):

I probably won’t be using it at all after the initial testing out. While it’s a fun idea, it’s not user-friendly and I can’t see many kids having fun playing with it. 

The good thing about it though is that the wings are attached to the Disney Store doll so they stay in place very firmly!...Unlike the Jakks Pacific doll’s wings, which are attached to the clothes via some very flimsy velcro. The velcro makes it really easy for the wings to get jostled around and fall off, and really difficult to put the wings on in a non-crooked position. So for the majority of these photos the Jakks doll will have her wings clipped.

While the wings were off of the Jakks doll, I took the opportunity to compare the wings of both dolls:

What’s interesting is that the construction of the wings (other than the whole one being stuck in the doll’s back and one having lousy velcro thing) is actually really similar: both pairs of wings are made out of a type of almost laminated-like paper-thin plastic and have glitter applied to them in a particular shape (presumably the pattern of Tink’s wings from the movies). The Disney Store wings are larger and the wings are separate from each other to accommodate the moving mechanism.

The Jakks wings are printed with gold glitter on green plastic backing and the glitter lines the pattern on the wings: The Disney Store wings are printed with green glitter on clear backing, and the pattern is actually shown by what isn’t glittery, so it’s the inverse of the Jakks Pacific method of showing the design.

The Disney Store wings have far more detail and a more complex design than the Jakks wings and in general are far more eye-catching. However, the more complex design leaves more room for error and there are a few glitter smudges and unclear areas on these wings; nothing glaring, but noticeable if you closely examine them. Here are some photos of each of the Disney wings up close (on the backside) so you can see the little blips in the pattern:

There’s a couple areas of tiny asymmetries on the Jakks wings but they’re miniscule.

The glitter stays on surprisingly well on both pairs of wings, but the Jakks Pacific wings don’t shed at all, while the Disney Store wings shed an imperceptible bit. If there are glitter piles all over my house by the end of this review, it will not be the fault of either of the wings.

Despite the few small areas of smudges and missing glitter on the Disney Store wings, I still really prefer the look of the Disney wings to the simpler, smaller Jakks wings. Especially since the Disney Store wings stay on correctly (seeing as they’re bolted into Tink’s back, they had better).

Just looking at these outfits, it’s pretty obvious which one would cost more to make:

The Jakks outfit is multi-piece with a variety of different materials:

The Disney Store outfit is a skimpy green glittery leaf explosion:

I like that the Disney Store outfit is movie-accurate and screams Tinker Bell...but I wish they also went the movie accurate route with the amount of glitter on Tink’s trademark outfit. Apparently, Disney is unaware that leaves don’t naturally grow glitter and shed it in the fall...or whenever.

The Disney Store dress is held up by two clear plastic strips that rest on Tink’s shoulders, and sit above the sides of the wing mechanism:

This outfit closes with a strip of velcro in the back of the bodice. The skirt is open:

I was a bit worried about Disney Store Tink flashing people with the open skirt, but there’s plenty of fabric in the ‘leaves’ in her skirt to overlap without any green pixie panties poking through. Phew.

Another area of concern for me was the ease of dressing and undressing Disney Tink because of the non-removeable wings. It is a little difficult since you can’t go from behind to remove the dress but it’s actually complicated the most by the plastic wedgie strip that’s supposed to stop the dress from riding up since then you have to take the dress off over her legs too. I’m probably going to end up snipping the piece off.

Your days are numbered, plastic.

The Disney Store dress is made out of a very stiff green material. It can stand up on its own no problem:

Other than the ludicrous amount of glitter (my sister pointed out this could be misplaced pixie dust...lots of it) this dress is simple but has very good construction. Everything is centred, the bodice is lined with green satin and darted, and the seams are sturdy.

Despite a few small not-as-great things about it, for the price point this is a really nice little dress.

Disney Store Tink’s only other piece of clothing are her trademark green pom-pom shoes:

The shoes are very movie-accurate, but the high heel Disney feet don’t work too well with the flats, meaning there’s no way Disney Store Tink is standing on her own.

Not happening.

The shoes were held on with elastics, so, of course, this means that Tink now has lovely permanent elastic-shaped marks on her soft legs:

Why does Disney insist on wrecking their own dolls before they even leave the box? Call me foolish, but I don’t understand this line of reasoning.

Anyways, here’s Jakks Pacific Tink:

Jakks Tink comes with a little purse attached to her belt with a peg.

This is actually really clever, and I love the idea, unfortunately the peg is really difficult to get out. The belt fastens with two more of these pegs, so I had lots of fun getting the belt off Tink.

At least it survived my wrestling match.

As an afternote, after taking it off, I also cannot get the purse to stay in the belt anymore. No matter how hard I push it in it just pops right back out. Nothing looks broken, but it no longer works. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to come out? But then why make it removable?

The jacket is the piece with the velcro on the back, that allows Jakks Tink to wear her wings. Here’s a photo of the velcro:

The jacket is made out of a stiff purple synthetic material with an interesting pattern on it. The material doesn’t feel particularly good, but the trim and pattern look nice:

Under the jacket is a green satin bodice/tube top:

It has an attached fabric belt (another one?), pink ruffle trim and contrast pink stitching. The green satin is actually really nice feeling, and surprisingly thick.

This is an awesome piece of mini clothing.

Then there’s a super poofy, stiff, ruffly green skirt.

Flipped inside-out.

Despite its poofy tiers, this is a rather unremarkable piece to me. Other than how stiff it is, and that it has a few holes in it from the purple thread. It’s okay though.

And finally, Tink is wearing a pair of light lilac-toned tights:

However, to get these tights off, you first have to get the shoes off...which is no easy task. More sore fingers! Seriously, just what is it with me and having issues with getting shoes and tights off of dolls?

Anyway, once the whole leg-conundrum is finally all off, the short boots Tink is wearing are actually really cute. They have her trademark foot pom-poms, and the moulded pattern is all natural, woodland-looking materials, but the shape of the boots themselves are very modern:

These boots look really cute, but, even without the tights on, these are practically impossible to get off of Tink’s feet. They’re unusable because of it. They also actually make it even harder to balance Tink than when she’s barefoot. There’s no way she’s standing in these things...and then they’re ridiculously difficult to get off.

Trap of Useless Boots.

Now that their clothes are all off, I’m super curious to compare these two bodies. I’ll tell you right now, they are very different indeed:

Or maybe I don't need to tell you that.

You could fit two of Jakks Tink’s torsos in Disney Store Tink’s. Jakks Tink is tiny compared to Disney Store Tink:

So much for clothes-sharing.

In these photos you can see that Jakks Tink has moulded underwear with a vines and leaf pattern. It’s painted green. It’s really cute. Disney Store Tink’s underwear are just painted green. There’s a small smudge defect on my Disney Tink’s underwear paint:

Okay, at this point in the review something was really starting to bother me. Disney Store Tink looked taller to me. It was hard to tell since neither of these girls can stand up on their own, so I laid them down and dug out my measuring tape. Not counting their wings or hair bun, Jakks Tink is 9 ½ inches while Disney Store Tink is 10 inches. This is really odd to me, since Jakks Tink looks like she should be larger from in her box, but Disney Store Tink is actually larger. Boxes can be deceiving.

Alright, now that that is settled, these two girls wanted to have a pose-off, and I could hardly object. To preface, Jakks Tink has eleven points of articulation while Disney Store Tink has nine. (All the same places, except that Disney Store Tink is missing wrist articulation, and has internal click knee joints...eek.)

Here they are both doing their best side splits:

Disney Tink totally wins the side split category.

Actually, there’s one more thing I should say about articulation. The Jakks Pacific doll has super tight joints. Like, super crazy tight joints. When she first came out of the box I thought her arms were stuck in the same position. After working all the joints for a good while last night, they’re moving better, but it’s still really stilted overall. Bearing that in mind, let the pose-off recommence:

Here’s the front splits...from both ways:

Obviously, Disney Store Tink has much looser hip joints with a far better range of motion. If you think that’s bad, look at the legs reversed:

Jakks Pacific Tink’s left leg can’t move back any farther than that. Here she is bending her left leg back as far as it can go standing up, with Disney Store Tink for comparison:

And here they both are sitting on the floor (or trying):

Both of these dolls stink at bending their knees, which I expected with the Disney Store click knees, but was unpleasantly surprised by with the Jakks doll’s knees. The Jakks knees are a bit better than the Disney Store knees, but only by a sliver (the angle in these photos makes it look more drastic of a difference than it is: sorry about that, these dolls are both so hard to balance):

The Jakks doll actually has ever-so-slightly rubbery lower legs: they’re very firm, but it is noticeable that they’re a different material by the feel of them. They match up with the rest of the doll’s skintone seamlessly.

Despite the stiff shoulder joints that, like all of the joints on the Jakks doll, tend to snap into certain (usually unrealistic…) positions and not hold ones in between, the Jakks Tink actually has a really nice range of motion in her shoulders. Not many of the positions are realistic though...and moving them around is hard to do because of how stiff the joints are.

The Jakks doll has really terrible elbow articulation. This is as far as she can bend her elbows:

Trying to cross her arms.

The Disney Store doll has her beat all the way for elbows. She can only bend them one way, but since you can rotate her shoulders around, this isn’t a problem:

With the Jakks doll’s super limited elbow articulation (and everything articulation…) and the Disney Store doll’s total lack of wrist articulation, there is no way either of these girls are touching their faces:

The Jakks Pacific Tink has fantastic head articulation. She can look up, down a little, turn all the way around and tilt her head in either direction:

The Disney Store Tink’s head articulation is nothing in comparison: she can only spin her head around (all the way, like an owl...or a possessed child):

During this review I noticed that the Jakks Tink looks like she had a very similar body shape to Ever After High dolls. Here’s my Duchess to demonstrate:

I was delighted to discover that they can share tops, dresses and skirts perfectly; the only issue is the height difference, so skirts end up shorter on Duchess and longer on Jakks Tink. This means tights are a no-go, but I wonder if they could trade pants and they would just be shorter or longer on each other? Hmm. Duchess’ feet are twice the size of Jakks Tink so shoe-sharing is not happening. Here they are looking great in each other’s outfits:

While I was posing them for these photos, I couldn’t help but notice how much higher quality of a doll Duchess is. Despite having articulation in all the same places, Duchess is leagues ahead of what Jakks Tink could ever do. There is zero comparison between what these two are capable of:

This is the most dynamic pose I ever got this doll into.

Disney Store Tink was feeling left out of these comparison outfit shots, so I’ll move on to their faces now:

Both of them have detailed, good-looking face paint. Both dolls also have pointed ears, which is an adorable detail.

My Jakks doll has a few defects on her eyeshadow: on one side she has a few tiny smudges and bumps (which are too small to photograph) and on the other she has a far more noticeable dark pink dot under her eyebrow:

Where could that have come from?

Disney Store Tink has no face paint defects that I have noticed.

Okay, so all of the Jakks Pacific Fairies dolls have faces that I personally don’t think look much like their animated counterparts. I find the Tink face sculpt to be the best of all the Jakks Fairies, but when compared to the Disney Store face sculpt...there is zero comparison for which face captures the character better.

The Jakks Tink also has these angry looking eyebrows which, combined with her asymmetric smirk and heavier pink makeup, make her look edge more towards a teenage mean girl than the perky, familiar fairy:

As you've probably noticed, she's also really prone to eye-glare.

Disney Store Tink has a makeup-free, movie accurate, cheerful face that I can’t help but love. She looks too much like...well, Tinker Bell for me to criticize her face. I’m too emotionally attached.

By now you’ve probably noticed that these two have very different skin colours: Jakks Tink is very flushed looking (my sister says ‘slightly sunburned’) while Disney Store Tink has a slightly more yellow-toned, but more neutral skin tone that is (surprise, surprise) quite accurate to the movie. These two would not be a good skin tone match if ever you wanted to swap heads.

Disney Store Tink has rock hard hair. The only part of her hair that isn’t solid is the back of her hair that’s not part of the bun.

The bangs are cut to mimic Tink's chunky, thick strands from the movie...
but they just end up looking like an uneven haircut.

After I took the hairband off her bangs took awhile to lay flat again.

The Jakks doll only has styling product on the very top of her bun, and a bit on the top of her head. The bangs are completely styling product free, and the fibre feels amazing. Her bangs have more of a V-fringe shape to them, to allude to the shape of Tink’s bangs without directly mimicking them, but I think this is far more successful than the Disney Store’s attempt:

It’s hard to see in photos, but Jakks Tink has two-toned hair. There are two shades of blonde in her hair and it looks really great.

Jakks Tink also looks like she has more hair than the Disney Store Think (who I’m pretty sure is rooted specifically for the style and will have a bunch of bald spots, so I’m not going to be taking her hair out). I think the Jakks doll looks like she might stand a chance of looking good with her hair let down, but I won’t be taking it out for this.

I was going to pose these two together for some cute shots, but with the Jakks Pacific doll’s hard to put-back-together outfit and both of their posing limitations (but mainly the Jakks doll) I didn’t see that being a very fun time. Neither of these dolls are very easy to handle--the limited and/or stiff articulation, the poor balance, the hard to use outfits (Disney Store Tink’s is simple, but the other fairies are sadly not), the gelled hair and (for the Disney Store) the giant glittery wings all combined do not an ergonomically friendly doll make. As someone who lacks a bit in the fine motor skills department, this is always something I look for in dolls. I wouldn’t recommend either of these dolls to someone who struggles with motor skills, or very small children. Just something I wanted to note.

In summary? The Jakks Pacific doll is definitely not a $30 doll. Truthfully, I’m not entirely certain she’s a $20 doll either. Her outfit (minus the shoes...and the wings) is great quality, and her hair is nice, but otherwise? Jakks Pacific has a lot of quality control and design issues they should have worked out before these dolls went into production. All of the articulation, aside from the head which stands out more than it should amongst all of the messed up, barely useable joints on this doll, is extremely disappointed. The only thing more frustrating for me with articulation than an unarticulated doll is an articulated doll with poorly made, barely useable joints. And ten out of eleven of the Jakks Pacific Tinker Bell’s joints are just that: difficult to use and, even once you can get them to move, they have very stiff, limited movement. There’s no excuse for a doll this highly jointed to have such limited poseability. There’s also no excuse for how hard the accessories like the shoes, belt, purse, wings and headband are to use. The idea of the Jakks Pacific Deluxe Fairies dolls are great, but the execution and even the design really falls short. Compared to the (for me, much) cheaper Disney Store Fairies dolls this becomes even more glaring...especially if, like mine, in your area the Jakks Pacific dolls are sold for much higher than their MSRP.

The Disney Store Tinker Bell doll definitely wins in the value category; there is no question in my mind that she is worth $10. Despite a few small bad design decisions her easy-to-use outfit (though the Disney Store Periwinkle and Fawn do not have easy to use outfits), extravagant and well-attached wings, and most importantly, her charismatic, movie-accurate face win me over. I’d say she’s much more of a play doll than something for older collectors to have fun posing and photographing...but she looks awesome on a shelf and is a great souvenir from the Disney Fairies franchise. The Disney Store Fairies dolls aren’t perfect dolls, but for $10, it’s pretty hard to resist bringing home a couple of these cheery, personable fairies.