"Adopt a Friend" Dolls by My Twinn

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said that the chances of my doing a My Twinn review were next to zero.  I’ve never been very interested in the My Twinn dolls.  My Twinn is known for selling 23" play dolls that are custom made to resemble a specific child.  I guess it has always seemed like such a hassle and a gamble to have a doll custom made. The catalogue pictures of girls with their matching dolls are pretty amazing, but the faces of My Twinn dolls are dangerously hit or miss—some are wonderful, some are not.  The bodies also look funny to me in some pictures, but I always assumed these shots were the result of a tall doll in a bad camera angle.  In the end, the price has simply been too high to take a chance that I might not like the end product.

So why am I writing a My Twinn review now?  It’s a bit of a convoluted story.  It all started because I have been getting serious about the purchase of an American Girl.  It would be very helpful to have one for comparisons to dolls like Karito Kids and Carpatina.  Last week, I was debating which American Girl I should choose.  Saige, the Girl of the Year for 2013, seems perfect.  She loves horses (just like me) and has red hair (like I wish I had).  I stumbled across this amazingly helpful post on Never Grow Up, though, and it convinced me that I actually prefer Josephina’s face mold and might want her (or Rebecca) instead.  Hmm.  So, I was looking at Saige’s horse and being massively indecisive, and then I remembered that My Twinn horses are better than American Girl horses and that got me wondering if My Twinn was still in business.  Last time I checked (in 2009) there were rumors of bankruptcy.  So…I headed over to the My Twinn website to scope things out.

That was the last my family saw of me all weekend.

My Twinn takes over the house.

Monster High "Catrine DeMew"

There are a lot of new Monster High dolls on the shelves in Maine.  So far, I've seen all of the Scaris dolls, some of the Picture Day line and two of the Power Ghouls. Many of them look great, but Catastrophe Toralei Stripe and the lovely Catrine DeMew made the top of my wish list.  These two stand out to me--maybe because they're both cats.  Toralei has not made her debut here yet, but Catrine was at my Walmart last week so I thought I would do a quick review of her:

Scaris "Catrine DeMew" Monster High doll.

The Merida Talking Doll from The Disney Store

I have already reviewed the original 12" Merida doll from the Disney store (love her) and took an in-box look at the first 17" collector's edition Merida doll, but I couldn't resist ordering a third Merida--the 17" talking play doll version ($29.50).  Having never owned a singing Disney doll before, I wondered if these princesses might offer a nice middle ground between the small inexpensive play dolls and the larger limited editions.

Even before I got her out of the box, I could tell that this doll has struck another important balance.  She is not quite as serious as the limited edition doll, and not quite as goofy as the play doll.  She has her own look:

Merida talking doll from the Disney Store.

Integrity Toys Doll Comparison Review

I have wanted to write this review for a long time.  It is probably too ambitious, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyway.  Last year, during the Jason Wu Integrity Toys pre-ordering frenzy (which I have no skill at whatsoever) I had a vision of doing a comparative review between Integrity dolls across different price points.  In particular, I have always been curious about the differences between a Fashion Royalty doll and a Dynamite Girl.  I wanted the dolls I compared to look similar and I wanted to like all of them enough that I would buy them even without this crazy review scheme.  The problem is, the Integrity pre-order situation is hard enough without throwing in so many other constraints.  Still, I did pretty well.  I ordered "Back to Brooklyn" Gavin, a Dynamite Girl ($65.00), and Fashion Royalty "World on a String" Eugenia Perrin ($110.00).  I also ordered the discontinued ITBE doll, Confident ($19.99).  They are all redheads.  The dolls arrived at various times over the past year.  Eugenia trailed the pack and didn't make her appearance until the end of December.  Having just gone through the Integrity pre-order for 2013, I thought that this would be a good time to de-box my 2012 girls and see what Integrity has to offer at three very different prices.

Left to right: Dynamite Girl ($65), Fashion Royalty ($110), ITBE ($20).

Welcome Home, Sophie

I am up to my ears writing my next (really long--sorry) review, but I had to share this piece of news with all of you instantly.  You know I love Liv dolls, and maybe you remember that I have this strange desire to own all of the Liv Sophie dolls.  This obsession started when Spin Master released their second wave of Liv dolls, and I didn't think I should buy all of the characters again so soon.  I mean, the dolls look pretty similar from one wave to the next and they aren't free.  So, I decided to buy just Sophie from every wave, and then maybe other dolls now and again if there was one that really appealed to me.  That sounds almost reasonable, right?  Except that for some reason I decided that all of my Sophies should stay in their boxes.  This is edging towards the loony side of things, I realize, but once I embark on something, I find it difficult to stop.  So, I bought a Sophie from every wave and am keeping my Sophie army carefully stored in their boxes.  

Spin Master has made a lot of Sophie dolls.  Seventeen, to be precise (including the huge Sophie styling head).  I'll admit to feeling a little tiny bit relieved when the Liv line was discontinued, simply because there's not much room left in my house for more Sophies.

Some Sophies were harder for me to find than others, but really, none of the dolls posed much of a challenge except for one.  Girls Getaway Sophie evaded my searches and haunted my mind for over a year:

"Girls Getaway" Sophie with Sophie as Alice.

Bratzillaz "Magic Night Out" Meygana

I reviewed Midnight Beach Meygana Broomstix very recently, so you might think that I'd take a break from the Bratzillaz line for a while.  The thing is, at the end of the Midnight Beach review I said, "If MGA produces another wave of dolls with normal skin and nice hair, I'd be very interested." Well.  It's almost like MGA read my mind.  I am very interested in this new doll:

New "Magic Night Out" Meygana (boxed) with original Meygana (left)
and Midnight Beach Meygana (right).

Cabbage Patch Kid Babyland Mini Dolls by Jakks Pacific

I found the most wonderful little toy at Toys R Us the other day!  It's a tiny little Cabbage Patch doll.   To me, this is the perfect miniature doll.  It has so many elements that I find irresistibly fun, it's almost like it was made for me.  

First of all, this doll costs under $5.00 ($3.99 at the moment), which is practically unheard of these days.  Most of the mini dolls on the market (Lalaloopsy, Cutie Pops, LPS Blythe) cost closer to $10.  Second of all, the gender of the doll is a secret.  I love surprises!  To me, waiting to learn the gender of a real child is one of life's greatest and most exciting secrets.  Any doll that can re-create even a tiny fraction of that anticipation is instantly appealing to me.  Third, this doll has a hidden name.  As a little girl, I named everything in sight, including all of my dolls and a massive collection of Breyer model horses.  I still love naming things and thinking about names and I am always excited to learn what friends and relatives (and even celebrities) name their babies.  

Full size Cabbage Patch Kids all come with a unique name (a first and a middle name), and I used to lurk in the toy aisles, trying to get a peek at what the names of all the Kids were without giving away what I was doing.  I still do that, actually.  Having a secret name for a doll is a brilliant marketing strategy, because I have to buy the doll in order to learn the name.  Luckily, for $3.99, this isn't a huge burden.  So...here's my cute baby who could be a boy OR a girl and who has a secret mystery name!  Eeee!  Are you excited?

Cabbage Patch mini doll: blonde hair, blue eyes.