LUV Dolls by Far Out Toys

Life has been even more hectic than usual for me these last few weeks, so my productivity has declined further.  Sorry.  I blame it mostly on the fact that I have eight foster animals in the house right now (yes, eight), and four of them are kittens with underdeveloped brains who make a huge mess and have to be hand-fed.  They're really cute though.  

I've been stealing moments in between my work and feeding kittens to investigate a new brand of fashion doll.  This brand has been on my mind since an anonymous reader mentioned it in the comments section of the Unicorn Academy review.  That was way back in June, which I find slightly hard to wrap my head around.  It feels like last week.

The new brand is called LUV (which reminds me of LIV!) and has been around for about a half a year.  These nine-inch dolls are made by Far Out Toys, which is the company responsible for the Glo-Up Girls.  I couldn't think of any other dolls that this company has produced, so I poked around on their website for a little while.  Apparently there are also a few surprise doll brands, like Squadz Place and Love, Diana under the Far Out Toys umbrella.  The Love, Diana dolls look pretty cute and come in little ice cream cone packages, but I absolutely cannot add anything else to my review queue right now!  So I'll try my best to stay focused on the LUV girls.  Here's Brooke:  

L.U.V. doll, Brooke, by Far Out Toys, $29.97.

Junior High, Littles, and Basic Dolls from Rainbow High

I hope everyone is doing okay with the heat of summer so far.  Here in New Jersey, we've been facing excessive and unrelenting heat for weeks.  It's not a lot of fun, especially because my air conditioner decided to give up the ghost last weekend.  We've rigged a temporary solution (a few window units), and the cats seem to think this is fine, but the dogs and I are not happy.  The nice thing is that I've been uplifted throughout this unpleasantness by the bright and colorful company of a few Rainbow High dolls.

I haven't talked about Rainbow High in quite a while.  I actually figured that the couple of reviews I did over the last few years would cover the brand adequately, but MGA has come up with several new products that forced me to re-think.

I've known about the nine-inch Junior High dolls for a few years now, of course, and I've even bought a few of them, but I never quite found the motivation to do a full review.  Lately, the release of the low-cost Swim & Style line and the six-inch Littles got me curious enough that I made some space in my review queue for the Rainbow High kids once again:

Rainbow High Littles Indigo Bailey ($9.99) and Junior High Krystal Bailey ($24.99) by Rainbow High.

Unicorn Academy Dolls by Spin Master

I've been excitedly waiting for the Unicorn Academy merchandise to hit the shelves for several months now.  Not because I'm an avid reader of the original book series by Julie Sykes (although I recently read and enjoyed the first volume), but because I tend to be interested in everything Spin Master does.

I'm a fan of Spin Master primarily because of their Liv line, which came out way back in 2009 and jump-started my enthusiasm for dolls and doll reviewing.  I was also amused by the flamboyant La Dee Da dolls, despite their minimal articulation, and kind of wish I'd kept a few of those girls in my collection.  Most recently, I reviewed Spin Master's Mermaid High dolls and found them to be versatile and whimsical little play companions.

Based on that history, I tend to have a high level of enthusiasm when I learn about a new Spin Master doll line.  And with the Unicorn Academy release I was doubly excited because not only are there a bunch of new dolls, in two different scales, but there's a wonderful selection of unicorn characters to accompany them:

4.5" Sophia and Wildstar by Spin Master, $14.99

LULUPOP Dolls by SAMG Entertainment

Spring has definitely sprung here in New Jersey, with temperatures creeping into the 80s and lots of flowers everywhere.  The beautiful weather makes me eager to get back outside with my dolls, and that's on the agenda for next time, but today I want to share a review that I've been meaning to write since September of last year.

During one of my random browsing sessions on Amazon, I found a big-eyed fashion doll that I'd never seen before, from a South Korean brand called LULUPOP (also written "Lulu Pop").  The LULUPOP dolls are based on virtual K-pop idols, so there are a few full-length songs and music videos featuring the animated idols.  From what I understand, the dolls used to be available exclusively in Korea, but they made the jump to Amazon about a year and a half ago.

I'm always fascinated to explore brands from other countries, because they often have a new aesthetic or offer a window into a different culture.  In this case, the aesthetic looks very familiar, but the songs and videos definitely offer up something new and fun.  So, with high hopes, I purchased one of the girls, Tania, to see what the brand is all about:

LULUPOP Tania, by SAMG Entertainment, $25.99.

Diva Starz by Mattel

I'm excited to be sitting down to write this review for the second time!  As you might remember, last time around I realized I'd forgotten some important versions of the doll, and felt like I had to start over with a new approach.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't be concerned about creating such a thorough review of a brand, but these particular dolls hold an interesting place in the evolution of icons like Bratz and My Scene, so I felt like they warranted a more careful look.

So, who are the dolls?  They're Mattel's Diva Starz, a varied range of electronic-themed dolls that were first released in the fall of 2000.  The original dolls were designed to fit into a market that was obsessed with electronic pets.  For example, Furby, an interactive fuzzy creature made by Tiger Electronics, was at the peak of its popularity in the late 1990s, with more than 40 million units sold between 1998 and 2000.  The early Diva Starz had more in common with Furby than they did with most fashion dolls, but by the time they were discontinued in 2005, the dolls had gone through two major transformations and looked significantly different. 

In today's review, I'll look at all three main iterations of the Diva Starz, which means it's gonna be a long one!  So, settle in with your favorite beverage and take a trip down memory lane with me.

Fashion Diva Starz Nikki by Mattel, 2002.

Keeping Up With Kurhn

It's been a few weeks since I've posted anything, mostly because my job uses up a lot of energy, but also because I've been taking some actual time off to relax and do silly things like hang with my dogs or play Tears of the Kingdom.  It's been nice.

Time off gives me a chance to reflect, too, and one of the things I realized is that I've been reviewing dolls for so long, some of the brands I looked at early on have changed and expanded significantly since my last check-in.  Kurhn dolls are a great example of this.  I first reviewed the Kurhn brand way back in 2013 with a two-part mini series that featured a basic Kurhn playset and a more expensive Glamorous Kurhn girl.  I was impressed with the brand back then, and planned a few follow-up posts, but got distracted by other things.

I was reminded of Kurhn dolls as I was packing up to move from Maine to New Jersey in 2020. I found a second Glamorous Kurhn that I'd apparently purchased at one point...and then completely forgotten about.  I was surprised by how nice she looked, and so instead of selling her, I brought her with me to the new house.  Then, about a year ago, I took some time to investigate the current Kurhn market.  That research led to several more purchases (of course) not all of which will fit into today's review.  Today I'll look at the new-ish Kurhn fashion dolls that caught my eye, like this adorable panda-themed Anniversary doll:

Little Panda 17th Anniversary Edition Kurhn doll, $21.50.

Kitchen Littles by Tyco

Happy New Year!  2024 is off to a good start around here.  At work, my heart is constantly warmed by the number of wonderful people who come in looking to adopt an adult cat.  I think five long-term residents of the shelter found their forever homes the other day, which is truly remarkable.  I'm also excited about the blog, even though I have less time to write.  There are some new dolls that I'm eager to look at, plus an assortment of vintage items--some of which were inspired by your excellent suggestions.

In fact, today's review was also inspired by a suggestion.  Back in October, when I reviewed MGA's Miniverse resin food kits, Becky'sTwinn asked in a comment if I'd ever heard of Tyco's Kitchen Littles--a series of 1:6 scale kitchen appliances, accessories, and food that were released in the mid 1990s.  I hadn't heard of the brand before, and so Lena and I immediately went to eBay to browse the offerings.  I'm a sucker for kitchen-themed toys, and Lena is eager to upgrade her kitchen, so before long we'd amassed an impressive Kitchen Littles collection:

Lena with an assortment of Kitchen Littles toys by Tyco (1995).

Style Bae by Just Play

Happy New Year's Eve eve!  The December Virtual Garage Sale event was a great success, so thank you to everyone who made a purchase and helped support the blog.  Now I feel ready for 2024!  There are a few higher-priced dolls that didn't sell, understandably, and so I'll probably move those to eBay at some point.  For now, I'm enjoying a break from packing and shipping so that I can do some writing and animal wrangling.

This will be my last review of 2023, and I had a hard time figuring out which doll should hold that special place.  I contemplated some rarer, more expensive goodies, but in the end opted for a relatively simple and affordable playline doll.  It's been a month since I've written a review, so I figured this would be a good way to ease back into things.  Also, the doll I'm going to talk about today is unlike anything I've ever owned.  She's from a line called Style Bae, and is made by Just Play:

Style Bae Harper by Just Play, $19.99.

More Sale Dolls

My Priority Mail boxes finally arrived (both sets!) and I found a few more dolls to add to the sale.  However, I realized that I have to be careful: if I create a huge inventory, I'll never get back to writing reviews!  So this batch is much smaller than the previous one.

I also finalized the timing for the sale itself.  I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off work, so I'll list all of the dolls for sale next Monday, December 11th, with the idea that maybe I'll have time to pack and ship any sold items on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I know that I won't have time to ship items on any other days;  I barely have time to eat.

I had to dig deep to think about parting with a few of these next dolls, but I have only a very tiny display area, and it makes no sense to have a doll collection that's stored away in boxes.  This girl is especially beautiful and rare, and I wish I had a better place to show her off:

22-inch Princess Aurora by Robert Tonner, LE 100.

November Sale Dolls

Things are going slowly but surely with my November sales event...which will probably occur in December at this point.  The biggest problem is that I ordered tons of Priority Mail boxes on the 16th, but they still haven't arrived.  They're in Trenton, which is super-close to me, but have not made any progress since the 18th.  I ordered another batch yesterday, but don't really expect a different result.

I can't ship anything until I have boxes, but I figured I might as well get started posting some of the dolls that will be for sale eventually.  I'll probably try to collect a second batch of offerings before the sale, since I have a zillion dolls, but let's start with these!

Sybarite Couture Swallow by Superdoll.

Monster High's Day of the Dead Doll: Howliday Skelita Calaveras

I'm back, as promised, with the second Day of the Dead doll, but first I want to outline my plans for the first Virtual Garage Sale event.  At this point, nothing will happen until after Thanksgiving.  But sometime during the week of November 27th, I'll start posting dolls for sale in the shop.  These will either be dolls that I've already reviewed, dolls that I'm realizing I don't have time to review, or dolls that are kicking around my house for some random reason.  I'll probably create short blog posts with groups of dolls as I list them for sale.

At this point I have no idea which dolls will be for sale, since I've had zero time to organize all of that, but there will be a lot of bundled, loose dolls from old reviews, including Rainbow High's Maria Garcia, who we met last week, and the beauty from this review: Howliday Skelita Calaveras.

Monster High's Howliday Skelita Calaveras, $45.

Rainbow High's Day of the Dead Doll: Maria Garcia

I can't believe that a big chunk of November is already gone!  Ack!  For anyone who noticed the announcement on my Virtual Garage Sale page, my plan has been to hold two big sales events during the year: one in May and one in November.  November is looking very crowded at the moment, though, thanks to Larvie swanning in and bumping other dolls from their scheduled slots.  Also, I'll have a full house for the holidays...including a foster dog and two foster kittens, so not much will get accomplished then.  Being realistic, at this point I'll probably have to shift the sale until after Thanksgiving, but I'll keep you posted.

Today I want to rewind and pretend it's November 2nd again: the Day of the Dead.  The Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, is a multi-day celebration to remember and re-connect with those who have died.  The basic idea of this holiday can be traced back to old Aztec customs, which were adopted by Spanish settlers and merged with the Christian All Soul's Day.  Currently, the Day of the Dead is celebrated mostly in Mexico, with colorful, joyful festivities that have attracted increasing attention from tourists in recent years.  The broadening fascination with this holiday is probably also responsible for several new Day of the Dead dolls, like MGA's Maria Garcia, who is the subject of today's review:

Rainbow High's Maria Garcia, by MGA Entertainment, $124.99.

Disney's Ily 4EVER 18-inch Dolls--A Guest Review!

Dear Toy Box Philosopher blog readers, I’m Hannah, an adult doll collector from London, United Kingdom, and the author of The Toy Gems blog site. I have been collecting dolls since I can remember - which dates back to the age of two when my happiest photographs are with my dolls. I am also a writer/screenwriter and an English graduate who loves collecting dolls and figurines to surround my writing desk. My favourite toy brands growing up included these doll lines: MyScene, Liv dolls, Monster High, Moxie Teenz and of course the popular brands - Barbie and Bratz. 

I also hold American Girl close to my heart and as a British child I was always flicking through their digital catalogue and like any young American Girl, I grew up loving the doll brand. Before AG, other 18-inch dolls lines that made a big impact on me involved the BFC Ink Club dolls which were my favourite along with Journey Girls, My London Girl and Gotz. In recent years, I have enjoyed expanding my doll collection with dolls of varying heights including, the Ruby Red Fashion Friends/Siblies and the British brand A Girl For All Time.

Thank you to Emily for providing me with the opportunity to share a review of the 18-inch ily 4EVER dolls on this iconic site. Growing up, I read every single blog post from The Toy Box Philosopher and spent hours scrolling through images and reading reviews. It was especially exciting reading about doll lines that did not have a Europe/UK release and accessing this knowledge was only viable through this blog.

I am a huge fan and have been reading for more than ten years now. And so it may continue… It’s also great to see what the future holds as ten years ago I would never have guessed that I would be writing and publishing a guest review here of my very own.

Ily 4EVER Minnie (left) and Tinker Bell (right).

The Miniverse Make It Mini Kitchen by MGA Entertainment

I've always loved miniature food, and have gotten even more interested in this type of thing since Lena moved into the Rainbow High House and started her own series of reviews: Tea With Lena.  After all, if Lena is going to be inviting guests over to her place for a chat and a snack, she's going to need a well-stocked kitchen, right?

Way back in the first Tea With Lena post, Ryleigh left a comment that mentioned MGA's Miniverse food. The Miniverse toys are primarily little surprise ball kits that include everything you need to make a tiny fake food dish.  I was immediately excited about Ryleigh's suggestion, but of course it took me almost nine months to act on it.

I'm happy that I was so slow in pulling this review together, though, because MGA has released several new Miniverse products during the last few months.  The most interesting thing to me is the Make It Mini Kitchen.  I love kitchen-themed toys, and I suspect this particular one will be popular during the holidays.  So, today I'll explore several of the Miniverse options that are currently available, including the kitchen set, and I'll keep my eye on how useful each item might be to Lena and her 1:6 friends.

Lena with a Miniverse Make It pizza.

Na! Na! Na! Surprise Mini Dolls by MGA Entertainment

I was touched by all of the kind comments in the last review!  Kit is doing great and life has calmed down.  I also really enjoyed hearing about your school mascots.  There's such a fun (and occasionally shocking!) variety out there.  Several of you used the comments to help me out, too, which I appreciate.  You identified bodies and showed me how to unlock Addison's full singing feature.  I'm always grateful for your help...and your humor.  Black Kitty's admission that "for the longest time I thought cheerleaders, like zombies, only existed in movies" had me in stitches.  Thank you so much for your contributions.  They are a hugely precious and important part of the blog to me.

This week, as the weather turned a bit colder and it started to feel like fall might actually be on its way, my thoughts returned to the fall of 2021, when I decided to re-start this blog.  The first review I did back then was a Sunday Surprise post featuring a few Na Na Na Surprise dolls.  Now, two years later, MGA has miniature versions of some of their Na Na Na characters!  I love miniature things, and so I was very eager to get my hands on these little dolls.

Today's post was intended to be a Sunday Surprise, but I didn't work quite fast enough to make that happen.  Still, I'll try to retain some of the surprise elements in this review as I de-box dolls from both the first wave and the newly-released second wave of the Na Na Na Surprise Mini lineup:

Na! Na! Na! Surprise Mini dolls by MGA Entertainment, $9.99 each.

Magic Mixies Pixlings by Moose Toys

As a habit, I try not to disrupt my review queue for a brand-new doll line.  That's mostly because the frequency (and length!) of my reviews is not compatible with keeping up-to-speed with the ever-changing doll market.  But also, there are so many video reviewers out there these days who deliver quickly on all of the hot new releases, I don't need to fill that niche.

However, I made an exception this week because so many of you emailed or messaged me asking about Moose Toys' brand new Magic Mixies Pixlings!  I had one of the dolls sitting on a shelf waiting to be added to the queue, but your enthusiasm inspired me to buy two more dolls and move the review to the top of my list!  So let's see what these popular little Pixlings are all about:

Magic Mixies Pixlings by Moose Toys, $17.99 each.

Monster High's G3 Abbey Bominable--A Guest Review!

In an attempt to balance out the novella-like Enchantimals post from last week, this week I'm going to feature two short and sweet posts, one of which is a guest review!  I've been getting a lot of guest review requests recently, and I love guest reviews!  I feel like it's refreshing to have new voices and opinions here on the blog.  But for my own time management reasons, I have to limit the number of guest authors.  So at least for now, I'm only accepting guest reviews from my Patrons, with the exception of anyone who has already contacted me (you know who you are).  My wonderful Patrons don't get enough thanks for their support, so this is another small thing I can do.

Today's author, Morgan, is a long-time TBP reader and Monster High enthusiast.  Morgan offered to do a quick review of G3 Abbey Bominable, which was music to my ears!  Abbey has been super-popular and very hard to find at retail price, and so she feels like a doll that I should feature.  But I have so many other dolls that I want to talk about, I don't have much time for another G3 Monster High character.  I will say, for anyone who's interested in purchasing Abbey, that she can be pre-ordered at Entertainment Earth for $24.99, so don't get sucked into the sky-high prices on eBay and Amazon.

Morgan needed some de-boxing photos for this review, so I took my own Abbey out of her box, which was really fun.  I'll chime in at the end with a few quick thoughts and pictures, but for the most part this review is all in Morgan's hands.  Take it away, Morgan!

Monster High G3 Abbey Bominable, $24.99.

Barbie's Expanding Inclusivity

Writing two smaller reviews in one week didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.  Some family stuff came up, and everything always takes longer than I expect.  Another part of the problem was that I kept adding dolls to this review, and the dolls were too much fun!  I had a really great time with them and didn't want to stop playing.  That's been a bit of a theme for Barbie Month as a whole, though, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise.  But I managed to get everything ready for you before the opening night of the Barbie movie, and that was my goal, so it's all good.  Once I've seen the movie, I can start talking about the dolls that it inspired.

The idea for today's post was not to review anything in-depth, but rather to showcase and celebrate Barbie's growing acknowledgement of diversity, equity, and inclusivity over the years.  And for this, I decided to focus most of my attention on the Fashionistas--a group of dolls that I seldom talk about on this blog.  It's a pretty wonderful group:

A collection of inclusive Barbie dolls.

My First Barbie by Mattel

Happy July!  I decided that since the movie, Barbie, is coming out on the 21st of this month (I can hardly wait!!), I would make this Barbie Month here on the blog!  I'm not sure if every single review in July will be Barbie-themed (that'll depend on how fast I work), but I'll definitely have a few Barbie features and will round out the month with a look at some of the dolls that are specifically based on the movie.

To start things off, I figured that on the first day of the month, the first Barbie that I review should be My First Barbie!  Makes sense, right?  Besides, I teased a review of this doll during a Tea With Lena post way back in January, so it's high time we finally get to meet her:

My First Barbie by Mattel, $19.99.

G3 Draculaura and a Mini History--a Guest Review!

Hello everyone!  My name is Ariel and I'm a toy and figure collector/enthusiast and an avid reader of this blog.  I'm here today thanks to Emily giving me the opportunity to talk all about my favourite ghoul, Draculaura.  While I don't have the most extensive collection of her, I still have several dolls that represent interesting points in Monster High's history.  I'll introduce Draculaura and go through some of her pre-reboot dolls so that you guys can get a feel for her before I show you the newest Drac.  So, without further ado, here we go!

A decade of Draculaura!