Throwback Thursday review: My Way Kids

Today I'm committing my biggest rip-off job yet.  Miss Emily, former Toy Box Philosopher and seller of repaired and customized My Twinns, featured a handful of My Way Kids on her new blog back in April.  I fell in love with their little faces and...<sigh>...bought one.  Meet Leah Evonne Castor, who isn't this dark in real life. 

Ah, Leah, is it ever gonna end?  LOL, as many references as I make to music I could make this into a music blog.  Anyway, what information I could find regarding this line can be found here, with Miss Emily's awesome review of this line, and here, with one of the sources she utilized for her own post.  According to Just Magic these dolls came in two versions, baby and kid.  I found more babies on eBay than I did kids, making me wonder if the babies were popular at some point.  Anyway, the dolls were available at mall kiosks during the holiday season.  They were semi-customizable, as the shopper could choose skin color, eye color, hair color/style, and clothing.  They also had at least three face molds (Miss Emily hypothesizes that there may have been a fourth head at one point), and their poseable bodies are made of cloth and vinyl (the earliest dolls were all-vinyl).  The doll would then be assembled while the shopper went on shopping.  Pretty cute idea, I think!  The holding company is Geppeddo, a company that I'm familiar with, though I'm more familiar with their porcelain dolls.  My favorite one is this one, deliriously happy Baby Makayla.

Makayla doesn't favor Leah too closely, but she does look like some of the My Way Babies, many of whom have similarly contagious smiles.  Anyway, given the size of the My Way Kids, it's easy to assume that they were created to compete with American Girl, as Leah is similar in height to American Girls (Zoe, left) and My Life (Natalie, right).  In fact, she's a little taller than both of them, at nineteen inches.

Though Leah may be taller than the average playline doll she's far from the tallest, as Salome shows.

Leah has a tag tied to her wrist, and it has some basic information about what she looks like.

The all-vinyl My Way Kids are a little shorter than the cloth-bodied ones and have some important differences that Miss Emily touches on.  The vinyl-bodied dolls are harder to find and I can't say that I'm too sad about that, but let's look closer at Leah and see if I regret sinking thirty bucks on this poppet.  She is wigged with what the tag calls a "long blonde kinky" wig, and it's not the nicest quality.

That's Hermione Granger hair if I ever saw it!  The color is natural, and the rooting looks nice enough at first glance...

...but I can't control it!  I tried braiding it back, and while this looked semi-cute from the front...

...it looked raggy and unkept from the back.

Tying the wig into a ponytail didn't work either, as that style made the rooting on top show more.

To top it all off, the more I handled the wig the more I realized how dry it is.  So Leah's wig isn't as bad as Walda's was (I don't think I'll ever see another wig that bad), but I don't want it hanging around, and I sure as shootin' don't want Leah wearing it.  Pulling the wig off proved to be an easy feat since it was only lightly glued around the hairline.  This will allow me to get a better look at Leah's head.  Leah's two-tone head, three-tone if you count the glue.

Even though the dolls themselves came in three skin tones, the tops of their heads always seem to be the same shade (medium).  As a result the heads of the darker and lighter dolls can look a little funny at times, especially if they're not wearing a wig!  Anyway, since one could pick and choose eyes on-site at the mall these dolls had to have open heads.  Once the eyes were in place the top of the head could be screwed on...but it didn't screw on too well.  All of Miss Emily's dolls have enormous gaps between their pates and the rest of their heads, and so does Leah.

No wonder most of these dolls have wigs with big, shaggy bangs!  Looking at that pate, one might think that it would be easy to take it off and switch out the eyes, but Miss Emily states that the pate does NOT come off easily (she admits to breaking the pate on one of her dolls, though she was able to repair it easily).  That's kind of a bummer for a collector like me, but since these dolls were meant to be toys and not collector's items I can see why the heads are intentionally hard to open.  If the head were easy to open the eyes would be easy to access, and voila!  Instant choking hazard!  Besides, I'm not as keen to change out Leah's eyes as I was some of my other dolls.  And if I do decide to go that route it's not thunderously hard to get the head open.  Whatever, here's what the pate looks like; it's smooth on the very top and textured around the sides, like so.

The top of the head has these blueish marks all over it, suggesting that at one time there was glue on this part of Leah's head, but if it WAS glue it wasn't enough to hold the top of the wig in place!  The edges of the pate have the most glue, and the back part of the pate appears to have...a production number of some stripe???  Looks like WR 2006/ to me.

The front of the pate is incised with an arrow, I assume to make finding the front of the pate a little easier.

Moving down from the pate, the back of Leah's neck has her identifying mark, though nothing about the holding company (which has a cute logo that I've seen on many of my porcelain dolls).

My Way faces are a little more interesting, as there are at least three known head molds for these dolls.  Miss Emily lists Cutie, Tender, and Mischievous, with my Leah being the last of the three.  I don't know about y'all, but to me Leah definitely looks like she's got a dirty little secret.  There's just something a little too innocent about those eyes.

Cutie looks similar to Mischievous, but the outer corners of her eyes are angled downwards and look a little too sad for my taste.  Tender has full, pouty lips and looks more like a baby doll than a doll of Leah's size.  Miss Emily presents evidence for a fourth head mold named "Innocent," but neither she nor I have found concrete proof that Innocent was ever produced as a doll.  Before I get to nitty gritties, does this face remind y'all of another doll, or is it just me?  Maybe it's just my mind working in weird ways, but I can't help thinking there's a bit of a resemblance between My Way's Mischievous head and My Twinn's Ariel head.  Do y'all see it?

Maybe it's just me, or maybe I'm thinking of another My Twinn face (Denika or Tasha, maybe).  Anyway, let's do eyes now.  I tried to avoid blue-eyed versions of these dolls because they look bug-eyed (kinda like the My Twinns did), and in Leah's case I did pretty well.  I've seen blue, green, and gray eyes on these dolls, and Leah's eyes are amber brown.  I think these eyes came in more than one shade of brown, but I can't say for certain.

In one of my less-than-bright moves I cropped the eyebrows out, so behold!  Another take!  The eyebrows are multi-stroke and unobtrusive...and pretty generic.  At least they're not woolly worms like Xenia's! 

The eyes proper have painted lower lashes that match the eyebrows, and applied upper lashes that thankfully don't need replacing at this time.  In one of her later posts Miss Emily works on a doll that looks almost exactly like Leah, eyes and all, and she wasn't a huge fan of these eyes.  She thought they made Raye look vacant, and I'll admit that my Leah does have her vacuous moments.  But I like the color so these eyes are staying for now.  As a quick aside, Raye's makeover was interesting as she started out looking like my Leah, only with a shorter (nicer?) wig.  But by the end she looked completely different, eyes and all.  Anyway, the only other dolls I have with amber eyes are my newest American Girl, Zoe, and the younger of my two large My Twinns, Salome.  Leah's eyes are brighter and more detailed than Zoe's...

...and way darker than Salome's.

I daresay that Salome's eyes are downright golden rather than amber.  Both Salome and Leah have more detail in their eyes than Zoe does, but that's not saying much since American Girl eyes often aren't detailed.  Seriously, I wish more AG eyes had iris detail in them, like Felicity's and Justine-Marie's and Samantha's do.  See Felicity's eyes, and the lines in her irises?  Zoe's eyes don't have that, and Leah's eyes do. 

But then again, a lot of people HATE Felicity's eyes due to that vivid green shade.  I'll admit that maybe that bright green is unnatural, but it's certainly a more interesting shade than the dark green American Girl uses now.  I've seen a lot of folks complain that green-eyed Kira Bailey looks dead in the eye, for example, because her shade of green is so dark.  Anyway, the handful of My Way Kids that I've seen have naturally colored irises, meaning that Leah has better-quality eyes than the eighteen-inch My Twinns (like Xenia) and some Hearts for Hearts Girls.  My Hearts for Hearts Girl's eyes have not changed, so let's compare Mosi's eyes to Leah's.

I'll throw in Xenia's eyes before they changed, just for shizzles...

...and Abigail Witch's eyes.

Mosi and Abigail have pretty eyes, and Xenia HAD pretty eyes, but I like Leah's eyes the best.  They have more detail, and the color is a bit more camera-friendly.  Abigail is a close second since her eyes have a slightly metallic look that I love.

I think the lower half of Leah's face is where I keep drawing mental comparisons to Xenia.

Leah's smirk isn't as prominent as Xenia's or Rael's or Salome's, but it's definitely there!  The lips themselves are pretty flat, with only the smile itself and some subtle laugh lines being present.  Most dolls with this Mischievous head have thin lips, but thank God, they're brick-colored and not bubblegum-colored!  Mattel has been doing that with their otherwise pretty Barbie dolls of color again, so maybe they didn't get the memo after all.  Overall Leah's face is cute and well-painted, and I maintain that it reminds me a little of a My Twinn's face.  It's maybe not as expressive as some My Twinn heads, but it's certainly more expressive than the faces of the American Girls.  Seriously, I love my AG dolls (obviously), but they all tend to look the same after awhile.

Leah's body is...interesting to say the least.  It looks like a porcelain doll's body, but also like a 23-inch My Twinn's body.

Okay, first off, I wonder why her torso doesn't match her limbs and head???  That doesn't make an iota of sense for a black doll to have a white torso.  Granted, ALL of these dolls had a white torso regardless of their vinyl color, but it still looks weird.  Secondly, Leah has a fairly pronounced hunchback.  The upper part of her back is overstuffed, and when she's dressed this area looks even more like a hump.

Thirdly, WHYYYYY do these dolls have high-heeled feet???  Leah cannot stand on her own because of this.  Miss Emily thinks she's found a way to remedy this, but what a nuisance to have to fix!  I understood the logic behind Lalaloopsy dolls and their pointed toes, since Lalaloopsy dolls were designed to either sit or dangle from a little kid's arm...but Leah and her My Way cronies look like they were meant to stand up.  With their feet like this they can't!

Fourth, the stitches holding her limbs on appear to be quite loose.  Miss Emily finds some way to reinforce these, and I may have to do the same in the future.  Key word:  may.  The stitches look bad, but Leah's limbs don't feel loose.  Furthermore, my Gerber baby has stitches that show like this too, and she's solid as a rock.

Lastly, Leah has a cable tie showing.  I would cut Leah some slack on the visible cable tie, but she cost eighty bucks back in the day!  You'd think this would be concealed a bit better.

Luckily, that last one is an easy fix, and besides, I've got other little dolls whose cable ties show and I'm nowhere near as hard on them.  Anyway, Leah's pale torso shouldn't be a huge deal either since it'll probably be covered by clothing most of the time.  Now to posing.  My Way Kids have an internal armature like the larger My Twinns do, but their bodies are so tightly stuffed that even basic posing is a struggle for Leah.  Anything she can do, Rael and Salome can do way better.  Keep in mind that Rael is wearing tights, a garment that doesn't always allow for decent flexibility.  DollSecrets tights rock, y'all.  Anyway, here they all are doing a side bend.  Rael and Salome could've bent further, but I didn't want to push it with their joints.

Here's a basic side split.  Notice that Leah's legs bend unnaturally where her femurs would be.  Yee-ouchie!  Splits are a cinch for both Rael and Salome.  Rael's fluffy skirt makes it hard to tell that she's in a full split, but take my word for it:  she got the job done!

Lastly, the bridge.  Leah's lack of flexibility is most obvious here.

Leah is further hindered by a lack of ankle joints.  Some My Twinns have issues with loose ankles, but Miss Emily has found a few ways to remedy that.  Neither Rael nor Salome have this issue, but I'm watchin' 'em closely.  In the long run I think loose ankles are better than no joints there at all, as Rael and Salome can stand on their own, though again y'all will have to take my word for it. 

Leah has to be propped up in order to stand.  Please ignore Adam in the background, LOL.

One similarity that I note between Leah and her My Twinn friends is the length of their vinyl arms.  Both dolls have vinyl arms that end above the elbow.

WHYYYY did doll companies do that???  Strangely it doesn't matter much in Leah's case, since her posing is already poor to begin with.  Seriously, you'd think that Leah would have posing ability similar to that of Rael and Salome, but she doesn't.  Her body is very tightly stuffed with this material that packs together with time, and as a result she is very, VERY stiff.  Even a basic sitting position is a struggle with these dolls, so I guess it's a good thing they came dressed in something comfy.  All the ones I've seen come in this nightie set.

Pajamas make everything better!  So do teddy bears.

Here's the nightie.  It's what I like to call a waffle knit, and it's pink and white.

The collar and sleeves are trimmed with bubblegum pink jersey knit.  The collar is trimmed with dainty white lace, and the cuffs are plain.

One of the snaps shows in that last photo.  The front does have three white plastic flower buttons, but they're just for decoration. 

Here's the snaps.  They're plain, flat plastic snaps.  Two are hidden and the top one shows.

Here's the sleeve.  As I noted, there's no lace.

The sleeves have some small gathers at the shoulders that add a little detail to a simple garment.

The bottom hem is also nicely done, with a bit of a ruffle.

On her feet Leah wears fluffy little bunny slippers.  These are elasticized and slip easily on (and off) of Leah's feet.

The bunnies have embroidered faces, and the insides of their ears are pink.

The bottoms of these shoes have no soles or treads, just fabric.  I know from bitter experience that shoes like this are not fun to walk with!

Underneath her pajamas Leah is wearing a quilted camisole and matching panties.

Both items are decorated with a bubblegum-colored embroidered butterfly.

The back of the camisole snaps shut, and the panties have an elastic waist.

To my chagrin one of the snaps broke when I took the camisole off Leah.  It's the third one down.

I also found a small hole on the back of the nightie when I put it back on Leah, which is a mega-bummer since the nightie is knitted.  I don't know yet how to repair that, but...I'll find a way.  I suspect that the problems may be age-related, so I don't guess I'll say much else.  The construction of these pieces is good, especially at the hems.

Here's a better look at the teddy bear.

Ewwww, maybe not!  She looks like she's been hanged.  The bear is jointed and is clad in pajamas similar to Leah's. 

Her nose is stitched, but to my great surprise her eyes are inset and brown.  She's also got a cute pink bow on her head.

Her slippers are sewn on and are fuzzy like Leah's...

...but I think the nightie is removable.  I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know for sure.

I have a few other dolls accompanied by teddy bears (Carrie Anne and Allison) and I always love it when one is included.  Leah's bear isn't Steiff-quality, but then neither is Flaxie, LOL.  I'm glad Leah has her.

Miss Emily had little to say about clothes sharing, as she has no more American Girl dolls or Maru and Friends dolls, and thus no more clothing.  That can only mean that she parted with Keira and Eliza when she sold off her stuff.  Rather sad; I always love rereading those reviews, but we can't keep everything we own!  God forbid that I'll have to sell my own collection, because a lot of my stuff is WORTHLESS!!!  LOL, but seriously, I hope that Keira and Eliza got a good home like Maru's friend Savannah did (Tam owns Savannah now).  The good news is that I have plenty of AG stuff to try on Leah.  Indeed, I have more dresses than I have dolls!  I have my doubts about a lot of it since Leah is taller and slimmer than the American Girls are, but can't hurt to try.  First, something easy:  Z's red star dress.

A little short in the hip, short enough that the cloth parts of Leah's legs show, but no biggie, it'll make a fine shirt dress.  The main beef I have with this dress is that I pulled the waist tie too tight, and that's my problem, not the problem of the dress.

Here's what Leah looks like in some of the things I got from Chloe's American Girl Doll; among the items I got are this pair of purple stretch pants and a blouse from the American Girl Place in Chicago.

Hmmm...not half-bad!  The shirt is a little tight and it shows off a fair amount of Leah's cloth torso, but that's nothing that a nice jacket wouldn't hide.  The yoga pants come up short in the leg, and they're a little snug around the waist, but since they stretch this isn't a huge issue.  A non-stretchy pair of pants might be an issue, however.  To test this I present Lark's blue jeans.  I threw Leah in Lark's Ravenclaw shirt too, just so she won't be topless.

What a pleasant surprise, both of these pieces fit reasonably well and look reasonably good.  The shirt doesn't fit as well over Leah's curvy torso, but it fits well enough that I'd put her in this again.  I'm not sure that Ravenclaw is the right house for Leah, though.  Overall I'd say that most American Girl pieces are safe for these dolls, though pants and dresses may be tight and shirts may look a little off.  And forget shoes; Leah's feet are too long and narrow for that to work.

Regarding other dolls, last Christmas I was making plans to buy my own Maru and Friends doll, but when Courtney and Justine-Marie appeared on eBay for a steal my plans changed.  Of course I love to buy clothes before buying the doll, and in anticipation of bringing home Maru/Tanya/Savannah/Raven/Jamie I bought some tights.  Maru and Friends are an inch taller than Leah, but I reckon these tights are still worth a look.  Oh, and guess who supplied the tights?  DollSecrets!

These tights have a lot of stretch, so they fit pretty well.  I wasn't able to smooth the ankles, but no biggie.  Despite their moniker, tights can have a nasty habit of bagging in places that they shouldn't, and in this case they're a little loose around Leah's ankles, hence the wrinkles.  Nonetheless I was encouraged by the nice fit of those tights and ordered another Maru and Friends outfit.  The results were...less successful.

The blue jeans fit just fine, to my great surprise.  I was expecting them to be too tight, but in truth it's the blouse that is too tight.  I was able to fasten it, but it's just...too tight.  It also shows too much of Leah's pale torso, which I'm starting to like less and less.  Miss Emily may be on to something with that paint after all.  So Maru and Friends bottoms will work, but tops probably will not, unless they're loosely cut and/or very stretchy.  I'll set this outfit aside for my Maru and Friends doll, when I finally do get to buy her.  I'm leaning towards Tanya...

Ahem, where was I???  Uh...on a whim I bought a My Life outfit for Leah, even though I was concerned that it would be too small.  Several years back I tried a few of these outfits on one of my American Girl dolls, and they didn't fit.  Since Z's dress is a little tight around Leah's chest I figured My Life outfits wouldn't work for Leah, but I turned out to be wrong.  The jacket looks a little boxy, but when it's zipped up it looks fine.

As chilly as this past April was, that jacket came in handy!  Shoes would've also helped, but so far the only decent shoes I've been able to fit to Leah have been ball-jointed doll shoes.  These came from SophieToyParadise and are sized for an SD-type.  Since they're high tops they're a little hard to get on, but they fit Leah just fine otherwise.  Just be very careful about inside measurement; 7.5 centimeters is about right.

Now, let's briefly address hair before I close this down.  Before I got Leah a new wig I was wagging her around like this, much to my mother's consternation.

"She's too pretty to be wearing that dumb thing!"  Mama declared, and I have to agree.  It's a cute hat, with a smiley face on it, but it's ill-fitting, especially without a wig.  This My Life hat fits a little better, but only because I can tie it a little tighter.  Mama wasn't in love with this look either.

Leah took all of this shuffling around in stride, of course.  Most of my dolls do.  But now Leah doesn't have to go bald-headed or wear an ill-fitting hat, because she has a beautiful head of hair.

Leah's new rug is fresh from DallasDollCo.  It's sized for American Girl dolls, meaning that Leah and Justine-Marie can swap wigs if they ever want to.  There's still a lot of hair, but it's easier to control than the old wig was, and it looks more natural, and it's more fun to touch and play with.  Notice that unlike her original wig it has no bangs.  I was able to pull the cap of the wig over Leah's pate, thus the gap is hidden without heavy, shaggy bangs. 

Since I'm a glutton for punishment I bought another wig.  I actually intended this to be for one of my composition dolls, but it was too small for her so I tried it on Leah.

It has big shaggy bangs and is a little loose, and the part doesn't look great in the back, but this is a workable wig for Leah.  I don't like it as much as I like the other wig, though. 

Or rather, I don't like it as much when it's hanging loose.  It looks much better braided, and I like how the red in this wig makes Leah's eyes pop.

Thank goodness someone can use that wig, because it's too nice to just be tossed into storage!

BAD
*Original hair was HORRID!!!  This was fortunately an easy fix.
*Finding original clothes for these dolls is hard.  I was able to find that one outfit and it looks nice, but it's stiff and takes away most of the doll's play value.
*Most of the problems I ran into were with the body:
    -the torso is pale, necessitating clothes with long sleeves and relatively high necks
    -the torso is also overstuffed, making posing difficult
    -WHYYYY does this doll have high-heeled feet, especially when her shoes are flat???
    -the stitching holding the limbs in place looks bad, though that's dominantly an aesthetic problem

GOOD
*Miss Emily swapped out her dolls' eyes, but I like mine the way they are.  I love the color.
*Easy to rewig; I think this wig turned out to be American Girl-sized.
*Most of the AG clothes I have do fit, as the red dress shows, as do certain sizes of ball-jointed doll shoe.
*Poseability isn't great, but it's better than some dolls I own.

I'm just gonna be blunt.  I like Leah.  She's got a sweet face, but her body kinda kills it for me.  It looks odd, but I can get over that since I don't let Rael and Salome's long arms bother me.  No, a doll with internal armature should be able to pose rings around her porcelain counterparts, and Leah can't do that.  Her body is stuffed too tightly and too firmly for that.  I don't know what exactly these dolls are stuffed with, but when Miss Emily opened hers up the stuffing was packed in so tight that she could barely get her doll back together.  Her dissections of My Twinn dolls reveal a copious amount of...SPONGE RUBBER!!!  Sponge rubber may not be the strongest material in the world, but it made dolls like Rael and Salome soft, squishy, huggable, and poseable.  Leah's densely packed material makes her NOT soft, NOT squishy, NOT very huggable, and CERTAINLY NOT poseable!  Furthermore, why do these bodies have slanted feet???  Xenia's feet are molded at a slight slant, but she can at least stand up if I balance her right.  Miss Emily was able to get her My Way Kids to stand...somehow, but I can't get Leah to stand unless I prop her up.  Leah's infernal hair didn't help much either.  That problem was easy to rectify, but not everyone WANTS to rewig their dolls as soon as they get them!  On the positive side, Leah can wear most of my American Girl clothes.  The fit is not always perfect; some of the pants come up short and the blouses can show a lot of Leah's pale torso, but stuff like that can be hidden with jackets and proper shoes.  Shoes are tricky, as American Girl shoes do not fit.  Nor did My Twinn or My Life shoes (I didn't show that, but I did try it out).  Certain ball-jointed doll shoes do work, but pay attention to those sizes!  Based on all of that, I advise caution when seeking one of these dolls.  Be prepared to either make some shoes or cough up some money for ball-jointed doll shoes, and also be prepared to rewig the doll.  Miss Emily notes that the right wig can make these otherwise stiff dolls look very dynamic, so keep that in mind too.  Overall if you like fixer-uppers these may be the dolls for you, but for a child I'd stick to the old fallbacks, American Girl and My Life.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987