#GirlsLife 18 inch Harper Doll by Jaks Pacific from Kohl's

Greetings Doll Friends!!

Guess who came in the mail on Thursday?? 

That's right!? Harper! The #GirlsLife Doll I bought the other day online out of pure curiosity because I ran across her on a total lark and she was on sale... And she was pretty... and she was on sale... and and and... Well, it had to happen. 

Here she is in her box. 

With the little description of her personality! 

Here is the back of the box. 

With close up of the little story about her. 

A closeup photo of the dolls on the back. 

The top of the box. It wasn't all that difficult to open once you realize that the side is supposed to open. I didn't realize that immediately and I kind of had to take box apart.... Teehee... 

She is really cute!!

Here is the ties and stuff on the back of her cardboard insert. 

Look at those eyes!! Gorgeous!!

One thing I loved about the packaging is that instead of cable ties and plastic bits, they used this twisted paper string and real thread. 

This was a bit disturbing, I wont lie. One of the paper strings went right thru her head!?! Ouch! Poor dolly!

Then she had the somewhat customary plastic strips sewn to her hair in the back so it'll stay nice in the box when she's on display. Reminds me of the 1990's when they had those 'Glamour Shots' and they'd pile all your hair forward so it looked like 'big hair' but the back of your head looked ridiculous with nothing but bobbie pins holding it foward! 

Her hair in front was pony tail tied to her arm. 

Now this I didn't like... Look at the bottom of her shirt. I'd say "Look at the hem of her shirt" but that's just it, there is no hem! No hem! Just a rough raw edge of fabric that is bound to unravel and not look very nice for long at all. Not cool. For a doll that's regular price point is $49.99, that's pretty bad. Otherwise the shirt is made well but... That's pretty bad. 

"Aaaaaand she's outta the box!!" (Imagine Gracie and Mommy show... Have you seen them? No? Oh, do go check them out: Mommy and Gracie Show because they do great doll reviews!!

She reminds me a lot of the Disney Princess and Me Dolls. That could be because I think they're made by the same company, Jax Pacific. They also made the Fancy Nancy Doll and make quite a few other kinds of dolls and toys too. 

Look how long her hair is. The hair quality is so-so... I suspect unless I braid it and treat it well, it'll be a tangled mess before too long. 

Here she is as compared to some more familiar dolls, an Our Generation 18" doll and a Famosa Nancy 16" doll. 

Upon removing her little shoes, I noted some small dots on her feet from ink transfer. Bummer. 

And again with the poorly made clothes! Look at the top of those tights?! No finishing on the top and elastic on the outside and not long enough to cover her 'panties'. Ugh. Not cool. 

Then just when I thought I couldn't dislike the pants more, I nearly had to rip them to get them off her feet. No child could do this without a lot of help from a parent. A patient parent. Toy makers, hand these dolls to a child to review before you set the prototype as good, ok? *sigh* 

Then there was this. So weird!! Her legs were literally wrapped in shrink wrap plastic. I am pretty sure it was so she wouldn't end up with stains on her legs from her cheap leggings so I have to give them points for that. Still, it's different than anything I've ever seen before!

The plastic goes clear up into her leg joints.

Her body isn't like the Disney Princess and Me dolls afterall. She doesn't have the joint in her chest like they do. Which is good because as you can tell with Belle, that doesn't always hold up too well. 

So I like her body design better than the Disney Princess and Me Dolls. 

Here is the stamp on her back. 

And on her head. I think I stumbled on these dolls the same year they were produced... Because they are stamped 2015. 

The plastic on her legs was NOT easy to remove. They had these little perforations in them that I think were supposed to make it easier but they didn't work at all. You have to literally peel it off in strips and it's this hard plastic! Glad that they made an effort to keep her stain free but... Well... I am not sure how I feel about it. I mean, I guess if you don't mind a doll that takes you nearly 30mins to get ready before you can actually play with her, it's fine. 

This is one feature I LOVE. They designed her legs to go forward when she sits down. That is nice. Most 18" dolls have to sit in the unfortunate spread eagle in order to sit down. 

I don't think I've seen leg joints like hers before. One drawback is that can't make her leg go backwards, like to make the splits. It simply won't move backwards at all. 

She stands really well on her own to feet though, even on carpet!!

All in all I think she's a pretty good doll. For the $39.99 I paid, she was worth it to have her in the Doll House. I am not sure if I'll end up getting my 2nd favorite from this doll line or not. I am getting to where I have quite a few dolls and so I need to REALLY LOVE a certain kind of doll a LOT to have more than one. Like my Tolly Tot dolls or my Our Generation dolls or my Journey Girl dolls... Oh... Wait... 

I think she will fit right in when we move and can get into the Doll House again!! What do you think of her? 

That's it for now. Till next time!

xxoo

A Re-Visit of Belle's Make-Over -OR- How to De-tangle Doll Hair!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

As I mentioned in a recent post, I rescued a Belle Princess and Me doll last year from a second hand source. She was quite a mess. You can read about when she came home to the Doll House here. She's been well played with and loved since that post. She hasn't been featured in the Doll House since I've started posting again this year, in fact, because she was so mortified by the state of her hair.

As you can see, she had a bit of a cause for concern. I am not trying to be all Judgy-Judge-McJudgerson here but, well, it's a bit of a frizzy and uncontrollable mess! We never were able to get it tamed too much and she lives most of her life in pony tails. When she came from the box, she had pony tail in the top of her head and while it made for a cute style in the box, with a crown around the pony tail, it made for pretty messy hair on a doll after she's been played with at all. 

You can see how we try to pin her strange little pony tail into her hair, attempting to look like a 'bump' beehive type hair-do. 

Still, her hair always look like cotton candy or something. Brown cotton candy. 

So, given that I had just planned a re-wig of Liberty I wondered if I shouldn't just shear off her hair and give her a whole new hair as well. So I asked my friends at My Dolls House group on Facebook what they thought. More than one of them recommended 'the hot water dip'. The what? Hot water dip is exactly what it is. You boil water, wait for five minutes for it to cool off slightly, dip in the dolls hair, let it stay in for 30 seconds, pull out, carefully because it was just in boiling water wring it out with towels. Then, working from bottom, you work out all the tangles and make it lay as strait as possible. You can find a tutorial here.

Hot water!! Here she is, all ready to go in the water. Note that I've brushed her hair as tangle free as possible and have her hair above her head and ready to dip. I probably should've covered her eyes with something, like band-aids, to protect her eyes, but I think I mentioned I am a fly-by-seat-of-pants type. 

So I dipped her. Then started brushing. It didn't look good, look at how sparse her hair is. I suspect that harsh brushing, prior to us owning her, resulted in her having lost a lot of hair out of those hair plugs. I have compared her to our other Disney Princess and Me Dolls and she her hair volume is down by at least half. So... She looked rather dreadful in the comb out. 

Just kept brushing it strait and brushing it strait. With a doll wig brush!!

She still has that strange pony tail in the top of her head. 

But she is looking lots better already, even with her hair wet. 

So... Just a matter of letting it dry now and see how it comes out.

Meanwhile, we needed to re-visit her chest joint issue. She came to us with a bit of a hunch-back. I think she must've lived in a toy box and that is murder on dolls like this. So, unless she had tape to help her stand strait, she was a hunchback. When we first got her, we used blue electrical tape to mend her. It didn't stand up very well over the last year because she also got played with here. The tape had slipped and wasn't really doing it's job anymore. So it was time for a new 'bandage'!

We'd recently acquired a roll of fancy duct tape and I decided it would make a perfect fix. Duct tape is more durable than electrical tape and I just held her strait and taped around her. I used several different lengths, rather than one long length, to navigate around so it would lay right. Worked like a charm. 

Another problem she came to us with was someone had painted her face. You can still kind of see, in her right eye, the red around the very edge of her eye. I got most of the paint out of it but that bit is impossible. Her lips are also a bit stained and I plan a total repaint of them. Will update blog when I get them done but for now, I wanted to get her teeth painted back to their original white. As you can see, her white teeth paint had worn off and so she had a pink line in her teeth area.

So I fixed her teeth and they look so much better! I plan to repaint her lips because right now they look chapped! 

So... Her hair dried and I think it looks about 100% better. It's still thin and I may very well re-wig her at some point. In the meantime though, at least she can show her face in the Doll House without feeling embarrassed about her hair!

So here she is, for the first time in over a year, in the Doll House! She's decided to have wear a knit hat because then you can't even see her strange little pony tail at all. She looks like her hair is straitened and pretty!

Here she is in the Doll House with all the other Disney Princess and Me Dolls we have. We've gotten them all second hand and I love them all to bits! They are so pretty! Each one has it's on unique face mold so they really do look like their namesakes in the movies. 

As Liberty found out, make-overs make you have a large appetite! She even ordered the same breakfast that Liberty had with her make-over!

That's it for today at the Doll's House. See you next time!