Pop 'n Swap Polly Pocket by Mattel

It's time for some more head-swapping!  If you're new to the blog and happen to like dolls whose heads pop off, then feel free to check out the other reviews in this series.  Incidentally, if you also like doll dissections, there have been a few of those over the years, too.

In terms of head-swappers, I'm leaving the heavy hitters (Bratz and My Scene) for last--to build some suspense.  But this week's girls, Pop 'n Swap Polly Pocket and friends, are pretty cool in their own right.  Not only can they swap heads, but they can trade torsos and legs, too!

Pop 'n Swap Polly Pocket by Mattel, 2008.

I want to thank Jrynkows for the helpful comment in my Fashionistas review, because otherwise I never would have known about these dolls.  I occasionally tune in to the world of Polly Pocket to see what's new, but I haven't done a deep dive into vintage Polly yet.

The Pop 'n Swap dolls aren't that old, hailing from 2008, but they offer an interesting contrast to modern Polly.  Some day, I'd like to explore the original Polly Pocket compacts from 1989 (another recommendation from a blog friend), but I can never seem to settle on which sets to buy and review.  I'd want a nice assortment, and they're not cheap.

In contrast, I had an easy time choosing a Pop 'n Swap set.  As soon as I read Jrynkows' suggestion, I hopped over to eBay and bought the only affordable large set that was available.  It's called Fashion Frenzy Dance:

I think this set's original price was around $22.99, judging by an Amazon page that's miraculously still searchable:

The "temporarily" part of "temporarily out of stock" is a bit optimistic at this point.

I paid $55 for this on eBay, which felt like a steal since the only other similarly-sized product cost $145.

Each of these larger Pop 'n Swap sets has a group of three dolls featured in the upper right hand corner of the box:

I see a redhead!

And there are two other heads mixed in among all of the torsos and legs:

Spare heads.

This box came in pretty bad shape, held together with packing tape, so it was hard to photograph.  That's probably why the price was relatively low.

The back of the box is bright green and has a lot of information:

On the lower left side of the box, there's a cartoon of four girls:

I like the style of the art, but there are no names for the characters.  In my search for other products, I found a few boxes that include names.  I'll use those to try and identify the characters:

Judging by this, I think the four characters on the back of my Pop 'n Swap box are Lila, Kerstie, Polly, and Lea:

My best guess, from left: Lila, Kerstie, Polly, and Lea.

I like knowing who everybody is.

Something I appreciate about the advertising on this box is that instead of boasting "endless combinations," which is often said and seldom true, somebody did the math and calculated that with 32 pieces, there are 400 fashion combinations:

It's actually 405 combinations, not including the accessories.

I also like the "one pop swapping" slogan.  It's very clever.

And there's certainly a lot of popping on this box!

I can't help but have the "pop swap, style" theme from the Swappin' Styles Fashionistas going through my head whenever I see this!

Next to all of the popping, there's a blurb about the Fashion Frenzy collection, with small photos of some other available sets:

The rhyming is catchy.

Here's a closer look at the product photos:

And make them compete for your jubilation.

Those photos are really hard to see, so I went on an internet hunt to try and find promotional photos of some of the other sets.

From what I can tell, there were at least three more of these big sets.  One of them has a sporty theme:

Another one has a camping theme:

And the last one I found is called School Cool:

The smaller Cake Shop set looks amazing--not just because of all the cake, but because there are two redheads!

I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

There were also at least two huge supersets.  One has seven featured dolls and two extra heads:

I see three redheads here!

The other large set has five featured dolls and two extra heads...and also some pet heads!

Pet heads?

That sent me off on a completely different search, and I discovered that there are several Pop 'n Swap sets that include pets!

Is it a dog or is it a cat? You can change them up just like that!

The greatest thing is, and I really wish I'd discovered this sooner, the pet heads can be swapped onto the human bodies (and vice versa, I assume):

Rad.

Inspired by Lanard's Catwalk Kitties, perhaps?

Anyway, I'll need to get my hands on one of those sets, obviously, and will do an update here or on Patreon whenever that happens.  I can't resist dolls with animal heads.

The pet heads are great, but something not-so-great that became clear as I was looking at all of the available sets is that all of the dolls have the same white skin tone.  This makes all of the parts compatible, which is nice, but still.

I took the plastic cover (with all of that messy packing tape) off my box so that I could get a better look at the display:

We can see the three featured dolls more clearly now, and I think they're Lea, Polly, and Lila:

It was pretty easy to pull those dolls out of the molded shell that was holding them in place...although there was one minor torso injury:

Pop.

The rest of the body parts and accessories came arranged in a plastic tray:

In this tray, there were five discs that serve as doll stands, two hats, a few small music-themed accessories, two heads, six torsos, and six pairs of legs:

All together, there are five heads:

Mystery head, Lea, Polly, Kerstie, and Lila.

I'm calling the dark-haired head second from right Kerstie, but the blonde head with pigtails on the far left is not a character that I recognize.  Let's called her Tina, since there was a Polly Pocket character with blonde pigtails named Tiny Tina.

There are nine torsos in the set, and among them are four different arm configurations.  There's a version with the right arm down and the left arm raised as if asking a question.  Two torsos have this position:

And there's the mirror image of this, with the right arm up and the left arm down:

Three torsos have both arms at around waist level:

And one torso has a unique arm position with the left arm at waist level and the right arm relaxed:

All of the torsos are plastic with flexible vinyl arms, and all of the arms are skin-colored, with one exception.  The torso with the bright blue top and long sleeves has arms molded out of light blue vinyl.  The hands on these arms are painted with a skin tone:

The paint is messy here, with ragged edges and some blue showing through on the fingers.

The skin color also doesn't match the rest of the body very well.  I looks a little green:

I'm glad there's only one torso that uses this technique.

Of the nine different legs, two have molded loafer shoes with the left leg bent at the knee:

Here's a closer look at the shoe mold:

That looks like a big buckle on the top.

The majority off the legs (five pairs) have slightly bent legs with tall boots:

Only one pair of legs has molded pants; all the others have fabric clothing.

Here's a closer look at the molded pants and the boot design:

Two pairs of legs have a bent left leg and wedge-heeled sandals:

Here's a closer look at the shoe mold:

There are so many pieces here, I wasn't sure how to get started!

I decided to choose one of the featured dolls, Lea, and take a close look at her:

She comes wearing a dark pink crop top over a painted pink camisole.  Her fabric skirt has a printed circle design with contrasting stitching.

Lea's red hair is worn in lopsided pigtails, with a rooted part that's offset to the right:

She came holding a fancy purple purse with a lot of molded detail:

I'm not sure what the circular designs on the purse are supposed to be (orange slices?), but I like the fringe at the top and the basket weave in the background.

Lea's three body parts are each connected by a simple ball and socket joint that's easy to pop apart:

I'll look at each section separately, starting with the head.

Lea's ponytails were heavily gelled--to such an extreme that they could hold her head up in the air!

Her face paint is surprisingly nice for such a tiny doll.  She has sage green eyes with three painted eyelashes on the top, and no eyelashes on the bottom.  Her eyes are accented with light pink eyeshadow and a single painted eye crease:

Lea has pink lips that are a little too bright for my taste, but they fit with the colorful dance theme of the set.  Those bright lips highlight an intentionally lopsided smile that I find endearing.

Her eyebrows are solid and slightly arched, in a light brown color that coordinates well with the hair:

Lea doesn't have any freckles, which is disappointing, but overall I'm impressed with the face.  There's no pixelation visible, and no glaring paint defects.

The hair is less impressive, but I love the natural red color!  The rooted part at the back looks good, but I can see a bit of scalp poking through on the left side:

The ponytails were so stiff and unyielding, I decided to take the hair down right away.

Indeed, the rooting outside of the part is not great, with lots of visible scalp:

I didn't expect anything else with such a small doll.

Also, the hair had a hard time relaxing out of its ponytail shape.  So I set the head aside for a minute to look at the rest of the body.

These bodies have six points of articulation (neck, shoulders, waist, hips).  The shoulders are simple rotation joints that allow the arms to spin around:

I like that the elbows are bent to give the arms extra expressiveness, but the posing options are limited.

I popped the toro off to get a closer look:

The cropped top is nice, with neat stitching and only a few loose threads here and there.  The back is sewn closed, so it's not possible (or at least not easy) to take this shirt off:

Underneath the fabric shirt, the torso is painted pink, with two big holes in the middle:

Those holes confused me at first.

If I pull the shirt even further up, you can see the molded and painted details of the cami top:

The skirt is a bit messier.  The stitching around the waist is sloppy, and the row of stitches down the middle of the skirt is off-center:

Underneath the skirt, there are more holes, and now I can see that they're meant to anchor the fabric clothing.  This skirt is only held in place by one stitch on the left side:

The hips are rotational joints that allow the legs to swing forward and back.  This makes for excellent running poses:

And pretty good front-to-back splits:

The dolls can also sit, but the angle between the thighs and the waist is larger than 90 degrees, so the body can't sit upright very well:

I wish that the legs had an internal wire armature.  Being able to bend the legs at the knee would make a big difference in balance and poseability.

I put Lea back together, and she looks good, but that hair is such a mess!

I did a thorough boil wash (several, actually) in very hot water, which helped, but I couldn't completely get rid of the crimps from the ponytails:

The hair feels nice now (much better without all of that gel!), but I wish I could have gotten it to lay flat.  I have no idea what the hair fiber is--possibly mid-grade nylon, since it holds its shape so stubbornly:

The only joint I haven't talked about yet is the waist joint.  I didn't really appreciate this joint's mobility until after I had Lea's head back in place.

In addition to allowing the upper body to spin around, this joint has some forward-backward movement:

That extra bit of mobility is nice, but makes me worry a little about the integrity of these ball and socket joints.  Can they withstand years of popping and swapping?  I hope so.

At 3.75 inches, Lea is slightly taller than her 2019 counterpart:

Pop 'n Swap Lea from 2008 (left) and Fash-Tastic Bday Bash Lea from 2019 (right).

Aesthetically, I like the older Lea much better.  She has a sweet face and realistic proportions, while the newer doll looks vacant and slightly crazed by comparison.  Her eyes are so big.

In fact, I feel like there's been a steady but notable decline in the appearance of the larger Polly figures over the years.  When I look back at my 2011 and 2012 dolls, I feel like they're cuter than the 2019 Lea, above, but not quite as nice as the Pop 'n Swap version:

Polly Pocket from 2012 (left) and 2011 (right).

Even between these two, I prefer the older doll.  That 2011 Polly on the right, with her rooted hair, cute face, and easy-to-use clothing, was a good moment for the brand.  Too bad it didn't last long.

Anyway, I feel like I'm all over the place with this review.  I need to get back on track!  Let's look at the second of the three featured dolls, Lila:

Lila is wearing a yellow cap-sleeved shirt over molded and painted capri pants.  Her arms are both bent, and she has pink boots on her feet that match the printed floral design on the shirt.

The holes in Lila's torso are put to good use, with her shirt securely sewn into place:

She has auburn brown hair with soft layers in the back:

Part of Lila's hair is pulled into a high ponytail on her left side, and another section is pulled back into a low ponytail on her right side:

That's a pretty fancy hairstyle for a three-inch doll.

Lila's face paint is not quite as nice as Lea's.  I like her bright blue eyes and half smile, but the band of white eyeshadow above her eye crease looks odd, and her eyebrows have areas of rubbed paint:

The third featured doll is Polly herself:

She comes in a dance costume with a painted long-sleeved leotard and a short wrap-around skirt.  Her right arm is raised, and she has molded flat-heeled shoes that match her outfit.  She carries a pink purse with ballet slippers on it.

Lila's purse got away from me for a minute there, but here it is with Polly's ballet purse:

Polly has long blonde hair that is blissfully free of styling gel.  It's nice and soft and hangs down to her waist:

Polly has similar facial screening to Lila, with a band of white eyeshadow above each eye crease:

And another lopsided smile.

I like the pale blue color of her eyes and the slight shimmer in her pink lips.

Here are all three of the featured dolls:

They make a nice trio, with the symmetry in their arm positions and the fun mix of hair colors and outfit styles.

I popped and swapped all of the parts until I had new combinations with no overlap to the original pairings.  This worked out well for Lila and Lea, whose new outfits are cute, but Polly ended up with a clashing ensemble:

Ack!  Don't look at me!

Even though I was initially frustrated that the clothing can't be removed, I have to say that I'd probably go nuts trying to dress and undress dolls this small.  It's so easy and fun to simply pop on a new torso or some new legs!

Next, I wanted to bring the Tina character to life:

Tina has light brown eyes, pink eyeshadow above her eye creases, and neon pink lips.  Some of the pink from those lips got transferred to her nose, though, which doesn't look great.

Like Lea, Tina's hair is styled into extremely stiff ponytails.  But I didn't feel like doing another boil wash, so I left them alone.

To get Tina dressed, I dug into into the stash of extra body parts and found a torso and pair of legs that look good together:

I really like the jeans, and appreciate that the purple boots match the tulle top.

The last character to look at is Kerstie, with her dark auburn hair and violet eyes:

Kerstie's makeup is similar to Tina's, but this is probably my least favorite head.  The purple eyes aren't very realistic, and my doll has a wonky left eye.  Also, I don't tend to like doll bangs, and these are quite messy.  Furthermore, the ponytail is so stiff that I couldn't position the head on the table very well, and yet there's no center part, so if I took Kerstie's hair down, I bet there'd be a lot of visible scalp.

I gave Kerstie a fun outfit to make up for her underwhelming head:

It's Miraculous Ladybug!

But, oh man.  Look at that ponytail!

Defying gravity.

Now that we've looked at all five of the heads, I'll let the girls model the remaining outfits for you.  

First, here's Polly wearing a purple polka dotted halter top with a matching handkerchief-hem skirt:

Flintstones chic.

The top in this outfit doesn't stay in place very well (especially when there's no head), and the unfinished hem of the skirt looks a bit sloppy.

Next, here's Kerstie wearing a fuchsia v-neck blouse with angel sleeves over a colorful polka dot mini skirt:

I really like this outfit.  The blouse is very pretty and the skirt is well made.

Lila is ready for cold weather in her red and yellow giraffe print fleece jacket paired with a matching mini skirt:

Too bad the purple boots don't match.

You might notice that these dolls often look crooked or off balance. When the legs are placed next to each other, the bend in the knees pitches the whole body backwards: 

So I usually have to put one leg slightly behind the other, to tip the weight forward:

Again, wire armature in the legs would have helped a lot.

This torso came with the only piece of jewelry in the whole set: a pink beaded necklace with a circle pendant:

There are a few hats in the collection, too.  One is a purple cap and the other is a pink sun hat:

Lea is the only one who has hair flat enough to accommodate a hat, so I have her wearing the purple cap with a fun tank and mini skirt combo made out of stretch purple fabric with metallic silver dots.  This is the only outfit we haven't seen yet:

I love both of these pieces--especially the tiered skirt.

Here is Lea again wearing the sunhat paired with her original shirt and the jeans that I like so much:

Now that we've seen all of the outfits, I can run through a few general things about the clothing.

Most of the leg sections have plastic colored underwear, but there are a few that do not:

There are also a few situations where the thread that attaches the clothing to the body has come loose:

I was initially disappointed that the clothing was sewn to the bodies, but after playing with the dolls for a while, I actually think it would be a pain if the skirts and smaller pieces came off.  They could easily get lost and would be fiddly to put back on.

Many of the clothing pieces have finished hems, which is impressive for the tiny size:

That red skirt is particularly good.

But there are some unfinished edges, too, which could fray over time:

A similar thing is true with the tops, where some of the shirts have meticulous finishing:

And others have a few rough edges:

Overall, I'm impressed with the clothing.  The variety of styles is great, and most of the pieces look good and stay in place well.

Compared to the clothing, the little accessories in this set aren't as interesting or well-made, and they definitely show their age!  There's a tiny pink Mp3 player:

Which Tina can only hold if she has a bit of putty in her hand:

It looks like the microphones that come with this set have little slots for the dolls' hands, and I'd test that out for you, but I didn't see the mics right away and they got thrown away with the packaging.  Sorry.

Kicking myself.

It's too bad there aren't any gripping hands in the mix of torsos.  I know the dolls are small, but Lego Minifigs have gripping hands and they're only one and a half inches tall.

The last accessory is this boombox:

It's molded on one side and hollow on the back, with the time (12:00) printed against a blue strip at the top:

The highlight of this set is definitely the mixing and matching that can be done with the five heads, nine torsos, and nine pairs of legs.  The ease of use and entertainment value here are easily worth the original $20 price.

I suspect kids would have a great time playing with these dolls and mixing up their outfits.  And the simplicity of exchanging body parts is surely more accessible to little kids than changing tiny outfits.

However, when I picture these dolls in a kid's room, I can't help but wonder what the storage for all of the extra legs and torsos would look like!  It's a bit strange to have so many body parts lying around:

Just a regular day choosing an outfit.

I really enjoyed trying out different top and bottom combinations on all of the girls.  I finally settled on a favorite outfit for each of them, and here they are!

Not only is it fun to change outfits on these dolls, but at around 1:24 scale, they're also a nice size for dollhouse play.

I don't have a dollhouse at the moment, but I'm pretty addicted to the Rolife Super Creator sets, so I built the burger restaurant for Polly and her friends.

Lila got a part-time job at the restaurant, and was eager for her friends to stop by and try the food:

The slogan here seems to be "love & meat:"

There's no safe way to caption this.

And one of the menu items is a shrimp burger?

Um, no.

As soon as lunch time arrived, all of the girls poured into the shop:

We love meat!

Everyone was talking at once and Lila got overwhelmed, so Polly and Lea decided to take charge of the ordering:

This is better.

The menu was so tempting, Polly bought some of everything!  Or almost everything:

We'll try everything except the shrimp burger, please.

Meanwhile, Lea took drink orders:

Cola, lemonade, grape, or orange?

Lila got to work making the food, while Lea filled drink cups at the soda machine:

This soda machine is so cool.

Pop.

But when Lea came back to the table with drinks, she realized there was nowhere for her to sit!

Nobody saved me a seat?

Lila quickly pulled an extra chair out from the back of the store:

Thanks, Lila!

But Lea had a little trouble sitting down...

How'd my jeans get so tight?

Nobody said anything about Lea's jeans, but Lila quietly took the extra chair away and returned with all of the food:

I hope these jeans can handle some meat food!

There was so much food, it filled the tiny table:

That's a lot of meat.

Lila didn't even know where to put the big bucket o' chicken:

I could just keep this meat for myself...

But somehow, everything managed to squeeze onto the table, and the four friends tucked in to enjoy their delicious, meaty lunch:

Bottom line?  Sometimes I wish I'd started blogging a bit earlier than I did.  It seems like a lot of cool things were happening in the early 2000s--especially in the head-swapping department.  I would have loved to explore the full line of Pop 'n Swap Polly Pocket, especially those sets with the dog and cat heads.  What a hilariously fun idea.

There are a few problems with these dolls, though, the biggest of which is the hair.  All of the characters except Polly come with heavily-gelled hair.  Lea, Kerstie, and Tina's ponytails were all rock hard right out of the box.  I was able to soften Lea's hair with a boil wash, but the crimps from the ponytails didn't go away.  I'd boil all of the girls' hair, but am reluctant to take down any hairstyle that doesn't have a rooted part for fear there will be too much exposed scalp.  I should say, though, that Polly has nice hair, with very little styling product and a soft texture that's pleasant to brush.  And Lea's hair feels good after the wash.  I had a few other little problems with these dolls, like the inflexibility in their legs, the fact that they tend to tip backwards, some messy paint here and there, and mild concern about how the unfinished edges on the tiny fabric clothing will hold up over time.

Another issue with this line is that there's zero ethnic diversity.  And not just with my set, but with every single set I found pictures of online.  All of the dolls are white.  That's good because it means all of the dolls can share all of the body parts, but it's bad for obvious reasons.  Where's Polly's friend Shani?

Aside from those critiques, there's a lot to enjoy here.  First and foremost, these dolls are fun to play with.  That's such a basic thing to say about a toy, but it isn't always true.  Popping different torsos, limbs, and heads on and off is easy and entertaining and, frankly, I enjoy it a lot more than wrestling with a pile of outfits.  Also, most of the clothing is appealing and well-made, especially given the tiny size.  The shirts and skirts are sewn into place, which leaves obvious stitches on a few items, but the thread keeps everything in place for easier outfit swaps.  I'm curious about whether or not the popping joints will loosen and come apart more easily after extended use, but so far I haven't noticed anything like that.  

I also like the Pop 'n Swap faces, especially when compared to the more recent versions of Polly.  They have nicely-screened features with very few paint defects.  I find the proportions refreshing, too, with normal-sized heads and eyes that don't span half the face.  The makeup might be a bit bold in some instances, but it fits with the bright, colorful theme of the set.  And any doll line that includes pet faces in the swapping repertoire--well, there are bonus points in my book for that kind of thing.

One of the biggest draws for me with the 17-year-old Pop 'n Swap dolls is their age.  I like seeing how popular brands like this one have evolved over the last few decades.  I especially like it when a vintage doll turns my head in a way that the modern equivalent does not.  These body-swappers mark a unique moment in the Polly Pocket family tree, making it a lineage that I'm eager to explore further.