I never thought of myself as a doll collector, although I loved dolls as a little girl and they still fascinated me as a mom. But, you know, for most people dolls are thought of as kids' toys, so till I met the Ever After High beauties, I was only buying dolls for my daughter. The excitement of a cute new one was shared by as both, though! What wasn't shared was my little amazon's love for messing up doll faces with markers, painting hair, chopping off the lot and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I get it. I understand what drives little girls to screw up beautiful brand new dolls. I used to do it too when I was a child after all... it's all part of the exploration process of playing, experimenting and trying out things. But now, it just feels like such a waste of money, and such a shame to destroy quality dolls.
When I came across the EAH dolls - it was a chance acquaintance, but a very happy at that- I immediately loved everything about them: the faces, the sheer awesomeness of their clothes, the detailed jewellery and kick-ass shoes. The artistry behind each and every one of them "spoke" to me and as an artist myself, I was simply in awe of these little plastic creatures. I had to get them, but this time I would make sure no mustaches would "magically" appear on their cherubic faces by cherubic little hands...
And like that, I decided to get me my first dolls as a mom... But there was a small issue dampening my excitement. You see, I only just discovered these dolls in early 2020, but the series had already been discontinued for some years and the dolls aren't sold in shops anymore. You can find them online, still, but usually for extortionate prices. Alas, my only option seem to be pre- loved treasures. Now, I know lots of collectors buy second hand, but I always liked my stuff brand new and shiny... This is how much I wanted to have these dolls! So much that I made peace with the idea of getting them "pre-loved" (sounds a lot better than " used", doesn't it?).
My first finds were these 3 beauties you see below. EAH Apple (the shockingly blonde daughter of Snowhite), Briar (daughter of Sleepy Beauty I believe, but I may be wrong) and last but by no means least, Cerise Hood (daughter of Little red riding hood and the Big bad wolf... how cool!). I will write more about Cerise in later posts. For the moment, I'll just focus on the state I received this doll, which was t e r r i b l e. Apart from missing all her stock, she had a freaky bad case of glue head (and I have suspicions that her hair might have had a trim too). But the worst of the worst was her two left hands! Yup, you read right. She came to me with two left hands, one was her original one and the other some random left hand from another poor EAH doll. Being that Cerise (whom I found a bit weird looking when I was pics of her online), was my absolute favourite of the three when I saw her in person, I was gutted she missed her right hand. So... ummm... Briar had to be the big person here and give a hand to her friend Cerise. A right hand, to be exact.
Here are the girls:
Apple White
Briar Beauty
Cerise Hood with the two left hands
You can't tell so much from looking at the pictures, but Cerise's and Briar's heads suffered from a bad case of glue seepage. Especially poor Cerise, she had a scalp that felt like it had been dipped in a jar of honey. Being new to this, I researched online and came up with a plan for fixing up my girls: cornstarch, dish soap, fabric softener.
1. Firstly, I sprinkled lots of cornstarch on their heads (Apple's too).
When I came across the EAH dolls - it was a chance acquaintance, but a very happy at that- I immediately loved everything about them: the faces, the sheer awesomeness of their clothes, the detailed jewellery and kick-ass shoes. The artistry behind each and every one of them "spoke" to me and as an artist myself, I was simply in awe of these little plastic creatures. I had to get them, but this time I would make sure no mustaches would "magically" appear on their cherubic faces by cherubic little hands...
And like that, I decided to get me my first dolls as a mom... But there was a small issue dampening my excitement. You see, I only just discovered these dolls in early 2020, but the series had already been discontinued for some years and the dolls aren't sold in shops anymore. You can find them online, still, but usually for extortionate prices. Alas, my only option seem to be pre- loved treasures. Now, I know lots of collectors buy second hand, but I always liked my stuff brand new and shiny... This is how much I wanted to have these dolls! So much that I made peace with the idea of getting them "pre-loved" (sounds a lot better than " used", doesn't it?).
My first finds were these 3 beauties you see below. EAH Apple (the shockingly blonde daughter of Snowhite), Briar (daughter of Sleepy Beauty I believe, but I may be wrong) and last but by no means least, Cerise Hood (daughter of Little red riding hood and the Big bad wolf... how cool!). I will write more about Cerise in later posts. For the moment, I'll just focus on the state I received this doll, which was t e r r i b l e. Apart from missing all her stock, she had a freaky bad case of glue head (and I have suspicions that her hair might have had a trim too). But the worst of the worst was her two left hands! Yup, you read right. She came to me with two left hands, one was her original one and the other some random left hand from another poor EAH doll. Being that Cerise (whom I found a bit weird looking when I was pics of her online), was my absolute favourite of the three when I saw her in person, I was gutted she missed her right hand. So... ummm... Briar had to be the big person here and give a hand to her friend Cerise. A right hand, to be exact.
Here are the girls:
Apple White
Briar Beauty
Cerise Hood with the two left hands
You can't tell so much from looking at the pictures, but Cerise's and Briar's heads suffered from a bad case of glue seepage. Especially poor Cerise, she had a scalp that felt like it had been dipped in a jar of honey. Being new to this, I researched online and came up with a plan for fixing up my girls: cornstarch, dish soap, fabric softener.
1. Firstly, I sprinkled lots of cornstarch on their heads (Apple's too).
2. Secondly, I cleaned their bodies with dish soap and water (using a sponge, not immersing in water) and washed their hair, again with dish soap.
To my disappointment, Cerise's glue head was still horribly greasy so I applied cornstarch again and left her like this overnight.
However, when I checked her hair in the morning, the sticky feeling close to her scalp was not gone! The lengths of her hair were wonderfully fluffy after brushing it, but the plastic and hair near the scalp was still greasy as hell. Darn, I really liked this doll and was quite sad about it, till I remembered reading somewhere about treating the problem with tea tree oil. The only tea tree oil I could readily find at home was actually a hair conditioner that I had once "spiked" with some essential oil (I've read you are not supposed to use human hair conditioner in dolls' hair, but I had no other form of tea tree oil in the house). I sprayed the conditioner on Cerise's scalp and hair, rubbed it well and left it on for about an hour.
3. The other two girls were in a better state so I moved on to the next step, dipping their hair in fabric conditioner. Initially I used a mixture of water and conditioner, but I think it was too diluted and when I tried to comb their hair after a few hours, I didn't see much difference to their initial state. So I used plain fabric conditioner, next time around, and left it overnight. And, lo and behold, the next morning their hair were so much more manageable! Now I had to let them dry naturally and wait for the results...
For the results of the "makeover" and photos, read Part II
Comments
Post a Comment