Surprise Swap Tweens (and Tots!) by MGA Entertainment

I'm in the middle of another mini series right now, and this time it's all about dolls with swappable heads.  I started the series by talking about Mattel's Swappin' Styles Fashionistas, and today I'll be looking at MGA's Surprise Swap Tweens line.  There's no rational order to these reviews, unfortunately.  I probably should have approached the dolls chronologically, but I'm always tweaking what's in each review and waiting for things to arrive in the mail, so broad scale organization doesn't tend to work for me.

Also, several of you had excellent suggestions for head-swapping doll lines that weren't on my radar (thank you!), so I might have to slot in a few more reviews than I'd originally planned.  I love the unpredictability of this type of series, though.  It's like a chose your own adventure novel or something.

Today's review is a good example of the chaos, because only when I was uploading pictures of the Tweens dolls did I discover that there are Surprise Swap Tots as well.  These are versions of the classic 3-inch L.O.L. Surprise dolls, and they look interesting.  So I had to hustle to include them at the last minute.  But most of this review will focus on the head-swapping Tweens:

Surprise Swap Tweens by MGA Entertainment, $29.99.

It feels silly writing the $29.99 price under that cover shot, since these dolls are on massive sales right now.  But that was the original price.  Shopping now, I wouldn't pay more than $15.

The Surprise Swap Tweens came out in 2023, and as far as I can tell there are only four dolls and nine heads in the collection.  Unlike the Swappin' Styles Fashionistas, all four of the Surprise Swap dolls have different skin tones.

There's Billie, who's very pale:

And Winnie, the star of this review, who has a skin tone that's a shade darker than Billie's:

Bailey's complexion has warm orange tones:

And Cora's skin is a medium brown:

I chose Winnie for this review because when I was at Target inspecting these dolls (months ago), she was the only one who had an extra head in stock that I was sure would match.  More about the head options in a minute.

The dolls come in big, bright window boxes with a teal, pink, and yellow color scheme:

There's a picture at the bottom of the box that hints at the head-swapping feature without saying it directly:

"Swap styles" = yank the head off.

That picture also makes it look like there are heads with winking eyes, which is something I dreamed about when I first saw the Swappin' Styles Fashionistas.  However, none of the heads have winking eyes--or side-glancing eyes, for that matter.  Disappointing.

The box also advertises 20 surprises:

But I'm telling you right now: I'm a big fan of surprises, and there are no surprises here.

Everything that's included in this set is clearly on display in the box--right down to the last tiny barrette.  Why would they even say that there are surprises?  If surprises are just things that come with a doll, hidden or not, then every single doll in the world is a surprise doll.  Ridiculous.

No winking heads, no surprises...we're off to a bad start.

Anyway, the plastic window wraps around one side of the box:

And there's cardboard on the opposite side:

The cardboard side says "Braids-2-Waves Winnie" in large print, which is an easy way to identify which character is in the box.

The back of the box has some very useful information about all of the available products:

It shows the four base dolls that I told you about: Bailey, Billie, Winnie, and Cora:

Bailey and Billie are very similar names.

Then, more importantly, there's a graphic display of the nine available extra heads:

This is critical because it's the only way to know which extra heads go with which skin tone.  It's a bit ambiguous, though--at least to me.

Starting from the palest character, Billie, there appear to be two extra heads that will match her skin tone:

The eye color isn't consistent for each character, so I can't use that as a clue.

For Winnie, there are three extra heads, which might explain why it was so easy for me to find a matching head for her at Target:

Bailey has two heads...I think:

It's unclear to me who the head in the upper right hand corner belongs to.  The lower left hand corner head is certainly for Cora, and probably the upper right, but the skin tones are not the same in that picture.

There are promotional photos of the actual heads, but they don't solve the mystery:

Here's another version:

In fact, these make it look even more like the yellow-haired head matches Bailey, not Cora, don't you think?  But it must be for Cora.  That's the only thing that makes sense.

It's probably best to be open-minded about mixing and matching skin tones with these dolls, anyway, because if you buy the extra heads online at places like Walmart or Target, you can't choose which head you get; it's a random assortment.  I learned that the hard way.

Getting back to Winnie's box, it was a nightmare to open.  I tried lifting the bottom flap and pulling the backdrop out, but that didn't work.  I pulled and tugged and cut pieces of clear tape and ripped things, and I still found it hard to get the backdrop out:

Battle in progress.

This doesn't surprise me with MGA packaging, but it sure irritates me.

I finally got the backdrop out:

Battle won.

It's a cute little bedroom scene, with a three dimensional vanity housing all of the accessories.

Winnie is in the center of the box, giving a peace sign and staring off to the side:

Her extra head is packaged to look like it's in a frame, like a portrait or something:

With the hair spilling out all over.

There's a little card (or actually just a flimsy piece of paper) mounted in the middle that has Winnie's two looks with little expressions next to them.  It says "walks the runway" on the right, and "loves 2 sew" on the left:

It's a cool idea to have different personality traits for each version of the doll, but there's not a lot of information.

I get curious about this type of thing, so I searched online to see what the cards for the other characters say.  This is what I found:

Billie: tours worldwide/tea time at the cat café.

Bailey: belts into the mic/writes poems.

Cora: stylist to the stars/hangs at the mall.

These are so brief, I felt like I was missing something.  So, I went to the MGA shop where I found more extensive bios.  Here they are, copy-and-pasted: 

"As a cat café enthusiast, Billie is making the most of her worldwide tour by visiting various cafes where she loves to chat with her BFFs while sipping her favorite teas. Unbox 20+ surprises including a styling head, fabulous fashions, and more!" (Lies!  All lies).

"Winnie loves to spend her time sewing, but when it’s time to dress up for a night out with her BFFs, she transforms into a Tween Queen, making everywhere she walks her runway while posing with her favorite peace sign."

"Bailey is most recognized as a sensational performer, surprising crowds with her powerful vocals when belting into the mic, but off-stage, she loves to relax and explore more of her artistic talents through writing poems."

"As a stylist, Cora loves to hang out at the mall during her free time to eye any new trends to add to her styling, but her BFFs know that her main inspiration always comes from the stars."

Cora's bio is pretty vapid compared to the others, if you ask me.

I like dolls to be fairly self-contained, so it would have been nice to have this information on the box, but that's fine.  Kids can make up their own bios.

Most of the "surprise" accessories are packaged in and around the cardboard vanity:

For some reason I wanted to try and preserve the vanity, which added even more hassle to the de-boxing experience.  But I managed to get it out in one piece.  Here are all of the accessories:

The vanity is flimsy and crooked once it's detached from the backdrop, so I won't keep it.  It had some small hair play items inside:

The back of the vanity is open, which made extracting the accessories easy:

The vanity contained four hair ties and two tiny triangular barrettes:

None of which were a surprise.

There's also a working carrying case or caboodle:

This hinges open:

And can hold all of the small accessories:

That's nice.

And there's a pink waist grip stand:

And a tiny useless comb:

The three larger items are a headband, a tiara, and a Tween Queen sash:

With everything removed, it's easier to see the design of the backdrop:

I like the Sputnik chandelier.

But the de-boxing wasn't over at this point!  I still had to deal with Winnie, who was securely attached to a plastic mount:

I straight-up hate MGA packaging.

By the time I got everything free from plastic ties and other garbage, I was in a bad mood.  Can you tell?  Let's see if two-headed Winnie can cheer me up:

First, here's Winnie with her original head:

The hair is a fun mix of yellow-blonde and pink:

There are a few gaps in the back of the hair, so I could already peek in and see some of the rooting.  It's not too bad, but it's a bit chaotic:

There's a rooted center part on top, which is nice.

Winnie's hair brushed out well, with just a few areas that were stiff with styling product:

I may not like MGA packaging, but nowadays they tend to do a good job with hair fiber.  This feels like nice, silky nylon:

All of the Surprise Swap heads have some kind of intricate hairstyle feature, which is a great idea.  This head has a bow on top made entirely out of micro-braided hair:

Here's a closer look:

Love it.

I think the bow looks really cute.  My appreciation of it is diminished slightly by the fact that it's not made from the rooted hair, but rather plastic-tied into place.  Typical.

Here's Winnie from the side, where you can see her very flat profile:

You can also see her little pearl earrings:

These don't have a lot of molded detail, but their simplicity works well with the hair and the rest of the outfit:

I pulled Winnie's hair back so that we could get a good look at her outfit and her face:

She has a typical L.O.L. face, with ginormous dark eyes, an almost imperceptible nose, and five little freckles:

All in a row.

Her brown eyebrows are straight and severe, with some stylized hair texture at the inner and outer edges:

In lieu of eyeshadow, Winnie has bright yellow scroll designs above her eyes.  These are complimented by three yellow dots on each cheek:

The style of these faces is an acquired taste.  But overall, the paint job is good. There's no pixelation, the eyes have a nice sheen to them, and the freckles and exposed teeth are cute.  My doll has crooked teeth and some paint that strays outside of the molded lip shape, but those are small flaws.  And the lopsided teeth add a bit of personality.

Winnie's outfit has a lot going on.  There's a sundress with a shirred bodice, separate sleeves with big puffy water wings accents at the top, and a vinyl accessory that's molded to look like beads:

The dress has ribbon straps and closes in the back with velcro:

The beaded vinyl piece is soft and flimsy, so it's easy to put on and take off, but it doesn't stay on or stay in place very well.  I took it off and probably won't use it much:

Bizarre.

Here's the outfit without the jewelry:

The shirring on the dress is so pretty, I prefer focusing on that and not the beaded vinyl thing.

I guess there is one surprise with this doll, which is that she's hiding something underneath her sundress!

Another skirt!

At first I assumed that this was part of the sundress, but I took the sundress off and the other skirt was left behind.  It's part of something else.  What could it be?  Since this is our only surprise, I'll let the suspense build for a minute.

Here's the sundress with the separate sleeves:

I really like the sundress.  The colors and design are youthful and pretty, although the fabric is very sheer:

The construction is fine, but you can see that the ribbon strap on the right is safely seated in the stitching of the bodice while the other strap looks precarious:

Okay, now we can have the big reveal.  Under the sundress, Winnie was wearing a completely separate dress!

It's a sparkly pink mini dress with a cutout section under the bandeau-style bodice.

The dress has clear vinyl shoulder straps and closes in the back with velcro:

Here's the dress on its own:

I like the pink knit fabric with metallic silver threads.  It has a bit of stretch, so it's easy to use.

The construction is basic, but fairly tidy for such a small garment:

One of the highlights of Winnie's outfit is her frilly little yellow tulle socks:

They look so cute paired with the pink vinyl heels.  And the socks are easier to put on and take off than I expected.  I also appreciate how the shoes have some painted detail on the straps, and aren't just plain pink:

Underneath both of her dresses, Winnie has a typical Tween body, which is 6.5 inches tall and has eleven points of articulation:

I believe the torso is plastic, with hard vinyl arms and soft vinyl hands.  The rubbery legs have internal knee joints.  Sigh.

Here's the body from the back, where the painted yellow underwear is high-cut to accommodate the large hip joints:

Cheeky.

There's no copyright stamp on the back, which is something I don't see very often:

These dolls have a copyright stamp on the bottoms of their heads instead.

Winnie has a ball-jointed neck with good movement.  She can spin her head around, and also tip it back and forth:

The only weird thing is that she can only lift her head up and down if it's turned to the side, like this:

When she's facing straight forward, she has no up-and-down head movement.

Her shoulders are rotating hinges, and can lift up and away from her body to just shy of a 90 degree angle:

Her elbows and wrists are also rotating hinges with good mobility:

She can touch her hands to her face and mouth:

And clasp them in front of her body:

As I was manipulating Winnie's arms, I noticed a tear near the joint of her right wrist:

That's not good.

And I hadn't even tried to pull the hands off yet.

When I did pull the hands off (which is necessary for re-dressing), I was very careful not to rip the soft vinyl any further:

The hands have nice molded detail that's hard to photograph because of the tiny size.  You can just barely see the pale pink paint on the fingernails:

Winnie's hips don't move very much from side to side:

But she can do full front-to-back splits:

I think her knees can bend through two clicks, but it's hard to tell.  The movement here is not good:

But she can sit in a chair without looking completely ridiculous:

After spending so much time with the Swappin' Styles Fashionistas, I expected Winnie to have a seam in her chest for the head-swapping feature, but there's nothing like that:

So I guess the head will simply pop off?  I turned to the second head for some clues.

This head has a partial torso attached, but it's clearly just a stand for storage and display:

The stand also has a suction cup on the bottom, which allows it to stick to nonporous surfaces (but not my grey backdrop):

The suction would make it possible to style the hair even when it's not on the doll's body, which is a nice feature.

I double-checked the instructions, just to make sure I was doing the head-swapping correctly:

Yep!  I'm meant to simply pull the head off:

Nice hair editing, MGA.

It was pretty easy to pop the extra head off the torso stand:

This isn't any different from the original 3-inch L.O.L. Surprise dolls, though.  Their heads all pop off:

3-inch L.O.L Surprise doll.

So I guess all of the little L.O.L. dolls could be considered head-swappers!  I never thought of them like that.

I haven't reviewed a regular Tween doll, so I was curious to see if they also have heads that can be easily popped off.  That would make the whole Surprise Swap concept unnecessary, wouldn't it?  I happened to have an unboxed Tween doll sitting around in my basement, because of course I did, so I figured I could open it up and see if the head pops off.  

The doll is Hoops Cutie.  I have a soft spot for any version of this character, because she's the first L.O.L. doll I ever owned.

The packaging and presentation of this doll is much better than it is for the Surprise Swap dolls:

There are actual surprises inside.

It took only seconds to get Hoops out, and she's certainly a cutie!

She immediately tried to pull her head own off, to help me out:

But the head didn't pop off, so I had to step in.

I took Hoops Cutie's clothes off before I heated her head:

Her body and articulation look the same as Winnie's.

Next, I used some gentle heat from a hair dryer to soften the head.  After that, it pulled off fairly easily:

The neck joint has a flange at the end that keeps the head in place:

And the neck socket on Hoops Cutie's head has a notch for the flange, while Winnie's head is notch-free:

Surprise Swap head (left) and standard Tweens head (right).

That's a long-winded way to say: no.  Not all Tween dolls have swappable heads.  They should, though!

For anyone who's curious, Hoops Cutie's head can fit onto Winnie's body, but it wobbles:

Hoops has her own body, though.  She doesn't need Winnie's.  

It'd be more useful if the Surprise Swap heads could fit onto conventional Tweens bodies.  That way it would be possible to use one of the extra heads to refresh a doll with a damaged face or bad hair, or to give a permanent body to a favorite Surprise Swap head.

At first, I though this wouldn't work:

Ostrich neck!

But if the head is heated for a while, it will slide all of the way down into place:

The neck articulation feels normal, too.  But this head was hard to get off.  The flange on Hoop Cutie's neck can get caught on the interior vinyl of Winnie's head.  But with enough manipulation and heat, the head came off.

Since I'm already on a tangent, I should mention that it was at this point in my review process, when I was thinking about other L.O.L dolls and whether or not their heads could pop off, that I stumbled upon the Surprise Swap Tots.  These are traditional sized L.O.L. dolls that somehow have changing faces:

From the promotional photos, it looks like the dolls come with extra face plates, much like Nendoroid or Penny's Box dolls:

I need to see how that works.

I didn't feel like this post would be complete without at least a quick look at the Tots, so I bought one and waited for it to arrive.  I'll open that later, at the very end, so as not to completely derail the flow of poor Winnie's review.

Speaking of Winnie, here she is with her secondary head!

I feel like she's not Winnie anymore, but I guess I'll still call her Winnie.

This Winnie has bright blue hair with pink streaks in it.  The texture of the hair isn't as nice as the first head.  The fiber feels soft and smooth, but it looks wild when it's brushed out: 

There's a lot of volume:

I tied the hair back almost instantly.

The special feature in this hairstyle is a pair of large braids that stick up at the very top of the head:

Makes me think of Cindy Lou Who for some reason.

I don't like this style anywhere near as much as the braided bow on the first head.

This Winnie has a more flamboyant face than the first.  She has the same eye color and the same style of eyebrow, but her eye makeup is more pronounced, her freckles are purple, her lips are hot pink, and she has purple reflective diamonds in her eyes:

There's some graininess in the purple parts of this doll's eye, and her open mouth is partially filled-in with paint:

I wanted to play around with this version of Winnie, to see how she looks with the outfits and accessories:

That looks pretty good!

But I got tired of the frizzy hair and messy braids, so I gave the head a quick boil wash.  It turned out well:

However, the rooting on this head is worse than the first head:

That's a lot of visible scalp.

Here's a comparison of the two heads:

I'm not sure why the rooting would be different; the hairstyles aren't that different.  It's strange.

The exposed scalp on the secondary head will limit the number of styles that'll look good on Winnie, but she can use the hair accessories, like the pink bow headband:

And the tiara--which matches that silly beaded chest piece:

Once again, I think the dress looks better without the beads:

The yellow sundress doesn't look great with bright blue hair, and the triangular barrettes don't stay in place very well:

What a mess.

The outfit looks scruffy in that last picture because as I was pulling the sundress on over the pink gown, both of the ribbon straps broke:

Epic fail.

Fortunately, I'd played around with the other version of Winnie for a while before the dress broke, so I have a few more photos of her wearing it:

The problem with this dress on its own, though, is that it's transparent.  So Winnie's yellow underwear is exposed:

Not ideal for a kids toy.

As for the other accessories, the pink bow headband is superfluous next to the braided bow in Winnie's hair:

Double hairbow.  All the way.

The tiara works better, but again, it's not really necessary with that big braided bow:

The ponytail holders are nice to have for this head, since the hair looks good tied back:

But I like Winnie best with her hair down, in the pink dress:

It wasn't necessary to have an extra head for this review, since these dolls come with a second head and we already know how the swapping feature works.  However, I'm always interested in seeing more variety, so I bought a third head for Winnie:

This one is quite different from the other two heads I have, with neon peach hair and angular bangs:

Surprise Swap extra head, $7.99.

The back of the box has the same head chart that we looked at earlier:

Still confusing.

The extra heads come mounted on backdrops with a comb and two barrettes:

I had a horrible time getting the head off the backdrop:

Why can't you make anything easy, MGA?

But I finally extracted everything:

I didn't mention this before, but the head and bust can be removed from the suction cup base, however the bottom of the bust isn't flat, so it can't stand up without that base:

This face is different from the other two in that it has turquoise blue eyes instead of brown:

The eye makeup is a lot more elaborate, with hot pink and purple spikes.  And the eyebrows are the same intense purple shade as the lips:

Punk rock Winnie.

I especially like the star-shaped reflective dots in these eyes.  However, as you can see, the face has several small defects.  The paint on the upper lip is sloppy, and there are smudges in the eyelashes of the right eye.

The color of this hair doesn't go super well with Winnie's pink dress, but I suspect it looks better than the broken yellow sundress would:

Most of the peach hair is pulled back into a single high ponytail:

But there's an elaborate twist feature that uses strands from the sides of Winnie's bangs.  These twists are pulled back and wrapped around the base of the ponytail:

The twists are messy, though, so I don't think this hairstyle looks very good.

The tendrils of hair that hang down on either side of Winnie's face don't look good, either.  They're heavily gelled, but bent at odd angles.  I tried combing those areas, but it only made matters worse:

I tucked the tendrils behind Winnie's shoulders, which looks better, but it's still not a very good hairstyle right out of the box:

So, I did another boil wash!

The hair came out nice and silky smooth:

And I think Winnie looks better without the messy twists and crooked tendrils:

I pulled all of Winnie's heads together for a group shot:

One thing I noticed when I was looking at these three heads is that the extra head (the one in the middle) is paler than the other two.  The difference is more obvious in person, but I think you can see it in photographs, too.  

Here's another angle:

Subtle difference.

I wondered if I'd gotten a pale head by accident?  

I happened to have a pale Billie head on hand (thanks to the randomness of online shopping) and it's definitely lighter than Winnie's extra head:

So I'm sure that this extra head is meant for Winnie, and it looks fine on her, but the skin tones in this line are not consistent.  Different dye lots or something.

Anyway, the packaging on the extra head wants me to style Winnie's hair...

So I tried.

I thought she'd look cute in ponytails, which she does!

She can't fit through doors anymore, though.

Unfortunately, the hair is a mess in back, with way too much exposed scalp:

Anaphase.

This is even worse than the blue-haired head.  Is it poorly rooted because it was originally in a ponytail?  These heads are meant to be styled and changed!  They should have versatile hair.

A single low ponytail looks much better, especially with the tiara:

And the big pink bow works with this hair, too, if you ignore the clashing colors:

Hard to ignore.

After all of that head-swapping, I still prefer the very first Winnie, with her braided bow and a hair color that coordinates with both of the outfits...and looks cute even without a boil wash:

Can't beat the original.

Okay, so before I found out about the Surprise Swap Tots, the review was going to end here.  That would have been a nice length, right?  But I figured that if I didn't look at the Tots now, I'd get distracted by other things and never circle back.

So, I'll take a few minutes to open one of the Tot balls and briefly look at the contents.  I was particularly curious about the face plate and how it might work. 

The balls look like other L.O.L. Surprise balls, but might be a bit larger than average:

Surprise Swap Tot, $9.99.

I can't even remember the last time I bought an L.O.L. Surprise ball.  It hasn't seemed to me like anything particularly exciting was happening with this brand.  I guess there were those cake dolls a while ago, and I got very excited about them because I thought they might involve actual cake, but when I realized there was nothing edible involved, I lost interest.

I literally never would have paid attention to the Surprise Swap Tots if it hadn't been for this review series and the Tweens.  So I'm grateful to the Tweens.

Anyway, the character advertised on the wrapping has pink hair and an extra face with closed eyes and an exposed tongue:

She's cute.

She's also making a heart sign with her hands, which is fun.  I wonder if the doll actually has arms like that?  I've certainly never seen an L.O.L doll with expressive arms, and there's been a fair amount of false advertising with the Surprise Swap packaging.

The character is saying "swap n' style my look!"

That sounds familiar.

Underneath two layers of plastic wrapping, I found a pink plastic ball with a compartment on top:

This reminds me of the early L.O.L. Surprise toys that had little compartments in the ball that would be exposed as the layers of plastic were peeled away.  There was more creative investment in the packaging back then.

I opened the compartment and found an instruction sheet and a plastic carton:

The carton has a picture of the same character who's on the outer wrap:

The instructions say that I'm supposed to leave this carton in the top of the plastic ball, and then pour water on it to expose the face plate:

I'll save that for later.  First, I want to see what's hiding in the opposite side of the ball.  This area was sealed with plastic:

Inside, I found a collectors sheet, a bright yellow paper bag with the doll, and four wrapped accessories:

I unwrapped everything and...it's the character with the heart hands!

Yay!

The doll, who's called Miss Bows, comes with two outfits, a pair of shoes, and a headband.

She's really cute, and those hands are adorable:

She has little hearts on the back of her underpants, too:

Aw.

I could see right away what the faceplate mechanism was going to be.  Miss Bows has a gap in between her forehead and her bangs, which is different from other L.O.L. Surprise dolls:

Just enough room for a faceplate.

Miss Bows can still swap heads with other L.O.L. dolls, though:

I wanted to get Miss Bows dressed, but it was hard.  First of all, the shorts are extremely tight, so it took a while to push them into place.  A little heat might have helped.  Also, as cute as those arms are, there's barely enough room between the hands and chest to fit the straps:

Removing the head helps, because there's a place on the neck where the gap between the hands and the body widens a bit:

But those straps just kept getting stuck on the tiny thumbs:

Frustrating.

I finally got everything in place, and the outfit looks good:

However, Miss Bows can't make the heart symbol quite as well with her hands once her outfit is on; the fingers don't touch anymore.

Another frustration is that removing the shorts was difficult, and actually scraped a bit of paint off the underpants:

Nobody wants clothing that tight.

The second outfit wasn't any easier to get on:

Maybe it's just too cold in my basement and the vinyl isn't soft enough?

Another problem is that the shoes cause the doll to tip so far forward that she can no longer balance on her own, so I couldn't get a picture with the shoes in place:

But the headband looks sweet.

I looked at the collector's sheet to see if the other characters have unconventional arms:

Indeed, it looks like many of them have expressive arms, but nobody else has the same heart hands as Miss Bows.

My favorites, judging only by this sheet, are Hero Honey, who has a Wonder Woman vibe and sassy hands:

And Miss Meow, with her red hair, cat ears, and scratchy hands:

Mrow.

Those characters appear to have two pairs of shoes, so it's strange that Miss Bows only has the one poorly designed pair.

Anyway, I took the face plate carton up to my kitchen so that I could pour water on it:

This worked quickly, but made a mess:

It's possible to just peel the paper lid off the carton and skip the water all together.

Here's the face plate:

Lol!

That expression cracks me up, with the little molded tongue sticking out!

The face has gripping tabs on either side that fit into grooves on the head:

To add the face plate, you slide the forehead up under the hair:

And then push the whole face upwards until it locks into place:

Much easier than putting the clothes on.

The edges of the face plate are fairly well concealed.  I can only see a tiny telltale gap above the ears:

Here's the new Miss Bows, trying in vain to make that heart symbol with her hands:

I'm kind of obsessed with her.

Cute as she is, there were some frustrations with this doll.  In particular, her clothing is hard to use, and she can't wear her shoes without tipping over.  Despite that, I think she's great, and the face plate gimmick is one of the more exciting things I've seen happen with this brand for a long time.  I also like the new arm shapes, even though they make dressing and undressing difficult.

Judging by the collector's sheet, not all of the dolls will be able to share face plates, at least if you care about skin tone matching.  But it looks like there are a few groups with similar complexions that might have some mix-and-match potential.  That would incentivize purchasing more dolls.

And the neat thing about L.O.L Surprise dolls is that all of them are essentially head-swappers, not just the Surprise Swap line.  But the Surprise Swap line can swap both heads and faces.  Pretty cool.

Miss Bows swapping heads with a Hair Hair Hair L.O.L. doll.

Since I just summarized my feelings about the Tots, I'll end by talking mostly about the Tweens:

Bottom line?  I like the Winnie doll with her original head.  She's cute.  In particular, I like her silky-smooth yellow and pink hair.  It brushed out nicely and didn't require a boil wash.  I appreciate the braided bow hairstyle, too, because it looked great right out of the box and isn't something that I'd be able to do on my own.  Another thing I like about the original Winnie is that her coloring goes well with both of her dresses.  So all of the different outfit combinations look good on her.  I don't feel as fond of the other two heads that I tried.  The blue-haired head that came with the set is okay, but the braided factory hairstyle was messy and the hair fiber was hard to tame without a boil wash.  Also, I don't think the blue hair looks as good with Winnie's outfit palette--especially that yellow dress.  The extra head that I bought also had a messy hairstyle that required washing.  And the peach hair color doesn't go with any of the clothing.  But perhaps most kids would swap all of these heads happily without caring about a single thing I just said.

Still, I wish there had been more of an effort to have each of the extra heads fit a specific character.  If Winnie had a color palette that persisted across all of her heads, then it would be easier to mix and match heads with her outfits.  It would also be easier to tell which heads goes with which doll.  As it is, the chart on the back of the box is confusing, and even when I felt like I'd picked the right extra head for Winnie, the skin tones didn't match perfectly.  I also wish that there were more outfits available in this series, the same way there are for the Fashionistas.  A whole collection of color-coordinated clothing for each character would have made this concept more fun.

There were some quality issues with these toys, too.  First of all, the straps on Winnie's sundress broke after only one dressing and undressing session.  And that dress doesn't look great on its own because of the transparent fabric.  Also, the hair is not rooted consistently on all of the heads.  The blonde head has good rooting, the blue-haired head has adequate rooting, and the peach-haired head has poor rooting.  For a brand that's claiming to be all about hair play, this is unfortunate.  I'm also upset that the vinyl in my Winnie's wrist was ripped--even before I started pulling her hands off.  But I'm glad that the hands are removable.  Some of the heads had minor paint defects, too, although for the most part the faces look good.  And while this is not really a quality complaint, it irks me that the box advertises 20 surprises when in fact there are none.

I'm content with the Tweens body and articulation.  The arms and head have great mobility, although it's strange that the heads can't lift up or down unless they're turned to the side.  I'm also not a fan of internal knee joints because they don't tend to bend very far--but I suppose they're better than no knee articulation.  Winnie has good posing options, and I think her peace sign hand adds to her expressiveness.  The dolls can't balance on their own, but they come with stands.

Overall, Winnie is a cute doll with nice hair and decent articulation, and the $14.99 sale price is excellent.  But the head-swapping feels limited with this brand.  Each doll has about three heads that will work for her, unless you put aside concerns about matching skin tones.  And while the hair color and makeup variety among heads is good, all of the expressions are the same.  And it doesn't look like there will be any future additions to the Surprise Swap line, so what we have is what we get.  I wish MGA had simply made head-swapping possible with all of their Tweens--just like they did with the smaller L.O.L. dolls.  That would have opened up a ton of mix and match fun.

I went into this review thinking only about the Tweens dolls, but I've come out of it thinking mostly about the Tots.  It's funny how a little doll can steal the show like that.  I certainly wish that dressing and undressing my Tot, Miss Bows, was easier, but I love her extra face plate and little heart hands.  She's a fascinating addition to the L.O.L. lineup, and one that I never would have noticed if my crazy mind hadn't somehow fixated on swappable heads.