Throwback Thursday review: Mattel Living Baby Love 'n' Touch

As Setsu warned and we all knew, the temperature is rising.  I used that as an excuse last year to do a lot of messin' and gommin' with my dolls, and I might as well do the same this summer.  This review gets its beginning from Baby Love 'n' Touch.  Indeed, she IS Baby Love 'n' Touch, but with a different gimmick.

As is often the case, the African-American variant of a popular or semi-popular doll tends to be more expensive than the original.  That was the case with "Elsie" here.  I don't know where I came up with the name "Elsie," by the way.  But unlike the original Baby Love 'n' Touch, this new doll is capable of grasping fingers when her belly is squeezed, hence the addition of "Living" to her title.  Elsie is one of two dolls I have that squeezes fingers; the second one, after a long search, will get her review later on in the month.  For the record, I love it when tiny babies squeeze fingers.  They're so small, and yet they've got a heckuva grip!  This grasping is a reflex, by the way.  Stroke the baby's palm, and those fingers clamp down.  They do that on up to the age of six months.  Pretty cool!  Elsie looks like a pretty young baby, so she should have that reflex down pat.  

To be completely truthful, I fell a little silly reviewing Elsie since she's from the same brand as Carrie, but I'm gonna do it anyway because she is a little different.  Elsie came with her box, but the only thing worth photographing was here on the back, where it talks about the rest of the Love 'n' Touch family.

One of the bottom images shows a doll Elsie's size cuddling a doll Carrie's size, and sure enuff Elsie is bigger than Carrie by quite a hair.  She's bigger than Bedsie Beans too.  I never can get Carrie properly posed, by the way; sometimes being soft and floppy is NOT a good thing.

Both Elsie and Bedsie fit nicely in the arms of a My Twinn, as I found out last summer.  Salome is a natural with babies.

Because I wanna drag Baby See 'n' Say into the fray, here she is with Elsie.  Elmyra is a little funny-looking, but Elsie is a sweet baby and doesn't care what her friend looks like.  Pity we can't all (myself included) be like Elsie.

Poor Elmyra, I wanted her and Tam went to a lot of trouble to get her for me, and yet I don't do a lot with her!  I'll have to see what I can do about that.  I'm curious to see how Bitty Baby clothes will fit her, so I'll try that out and get back to y'all.  That said, Elsie is on the small side for a baby doll, but perfect to fit in the arms of a child.

Now, of course, let's talk about hair.  Elsie has black hair that is short and curly, a lot like ImaniImani's and NOTHING like Carrie's!  For a refresher, Carrie's hair is straight and patchy in places, while Elsie's is very curly.

She's got bangs...sort of.  They've got more curls than eleven-year-old me's bangs did, and that's saying a lot because eleven-year-old me had very curly bangs!

The rooting isn't so bad, though.  Either that or Elsie's curls keep the roots covered.  Curly hair can hide a multitude of sins.

Interestingly, Elsie's bonnet is sewn in place.  I'm not sure if it's supposed to STAY sewn to her head, but there's a teeny-weeny little stitch holding fabric to vinyl.

Baby hair is usually too short to style, so onto the face we go.  I really like this face; it's not missing paint like Carrie's is.

Unlike some of my other baby dolls, Elsie is not highly caricatured.  Her eyes are brown with HUGE pupils and teeny-weeny light clusters.  They also have sparse eyelashes and painted shadows that look...well, like eyeshadow!

Blick, both Elsie and Carrie attract dust better than a Swiffer does.  Soft vinyl will do that, unfortunately, and it's nothing a wet wipe can't fix.

That flash makes Elsie's mouth look brighter than it is.  In truth it's a nice ruddy tone that jives well with her complexion.  I also see some creases, but I think those may be brushstrokes since they're all going in the same direction.

Like Carrie, Elsie is a glorified rag doll, though her body is pink fleece.  She looks like she's wearing long pajamas.

Elsie is not as floppy as Bedsie and Carrie are.  If she's propped up from the back, she can sit.

Carrie and Bedsie both need to be braced from the back and from the side...take that back: Bedsie can sit up if he's balanced carefully, but he's a tremendous slouch.  Carrie WAS sitting right before I took this picture, but y'all see what happened. 

I guess if my insides were made of pellets I'd slouch too, and if my name were "Bedsie" I KNOW I'd slouch!  Any reference to bed makes me wanna take a nap, LOL.  The downside of Elsie's ability to sit is her INability to lounge.  Oh, she can do it, but she looks like a corpse.

No lie, she's posed like some burn victims were when they were found after being caught and killed in a BLEVE (google the Meldrim train disaster if you have a strong stomach).  Not that Carrie doesn't have her dead moments too!

Elsie's arms are relatively immobile due to her hand-squeezing gimmick, which I presume consists of tubing connecting the hands to a bellow in the stomach.  Elsie's hands are shiny, super-soft, flexible vinyl.

Since this vinyl is flexible and thinner than the vinyl on Elsie's face, it didn't take too well to the mold.  Elsie's fingertips have little dents to suggest fingernails, but not much else.

Compare that to Carrie's hand, which is firmer (but still soft) vinyl.
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Elsie's gripping mechanism is activated by squeezing her tummy.  The grip only lasts a fraction of a second, and Elsie's left hand doesn't work at all anymore.  I'm just holding up my finger to show y'all how it fits.

Since Elsie's hands are a bit fragile I figure that left hand has developed a hole somewhere.  No biggie, she's right-handed like I am and like the majority of the populace is.

As I noted in Carrie's review, these Love 'n' Touch dolls haven't proper feet, and that's a bummer because I love baby feet.  That said, Elsie's cloth feet are at least stylized to look like booties.  Mattel even threw in a bit of lace.  But these "booties" are indeed part of Elsie's body.

Elsie's legs are curved like Carries and are gusseted at the knee to enable sitting.  Elsie also appears to be...well, peeing stuffing!

I was able to trim that off, but seeing that stuffing poking out was quite the surprise!  Less of a surprise was this zip tie that holds Elsie's head in place.  Those always look ugly, but it's good to know that I can get Elsie's head off if I need to.

Most of the cloth doll bodies I've seen are closed with a ladder stitch (if their closing seam is visible at all), but Elsie's back is closed with a whip stitch.  I guess that was necessary for this thick fabric, but it kinda reminds me of a surgical scar.

For the most part this fabric has withstood the test of time beautifully, but I do see an area where (I think) some little brat used a pen on Elsie's leg.  If that is indeed the case it either washed out nicely or has faded nicely.

For me the biggest thing Carrie has that Elsie doesn't is that cute vinyl tushie.

Elsie doesn't have that attribute, and I'm probably the only one who wishes this, but I wish she had it.  She IS a Baby Love 'n' Touch, after all, and I really like Carrie's squishy tushie. 

I've since learned that some of Bedsie's beanie brothers and sisters also had vinyl keysters, but Bedsie doesn't have that (nor was I really looking for it at the time).  Nevertheless, I kinda wish Elsie had a rubber butt like Carrie does.  Oh well, Elsie makes up for it by looking like she wants a hug.

I can dig that.  I love hugs.  Also notice that Elsie's sewn sleeves are a very good match for her sleeper.  Indeed, I wish that the sleeper were made of that fleece, the way Carrie's sleeper is.  For the record, Elsie's sleeper is a romper-style sleeper, kinda like the ones that my smaller Cabbage patch Kids sleep in.

I saw rompers advertised for teenagers in Seventeen one time.  The designs were cute, but I remember cringing because they were all so short (my legs have never been fit for viewing, LOL).  I shook my head and wondered aloud what teenager would wear such a getup, and indeed most of the dolls I've seen in rompers are babies or small children.  I will note though that Elsie's "Love 'n' Touch" initials are in the right order:  L first, then T.  Remember that Carrie's were not.  The neck and sleeves of this romper are trimmed with lace...

...as are the leg holes.  Itchy!

Elsie's romper closes at the neck with a snap, just like Carrie's does.  I much prefer snaps on doll clothing, but in this case I'm surprised there's no damage to the fabric here, as the fabric is flimsy.

When turned inside out it's easy to see the raw edges of this fabric, and how prone to ravelling they are.  The seams on this garment are all holding together, but the inside just looks...blick.

In all fairness, a lot of garments look "blick" when turned inside out, but I can't help comparing Elsie's wimpy little romper to Carrie's robustly constructed sleeper.  The back of the patch has also bled onto the white yoke of the sleeper, but that's an aesthetic issue more than a problem with construction.  I need to look inside Carrie's sleeper and find out what if she's got a number there too.

I have no idea what that number is for, LOL.  Anyway, to add one las testament to the flimsiness of this outfit,  I can see daylight through both layers of this fabric.

Compare that to Carrie's fleece getup.  Warm, soft, thick.

I guess I shouldn't heap too much hate on Elsie's onesie since it keeps her covered, looks cute, and isn't coming apart at the seams.  Unfortunately Carrie's sleeper set the bar pretty high for Love 'n' Touch doll clothes, and Elsie couldn't clear that bar.  

I just bought some new clothes for one of my Cabbage Patch Kids, and Taniyah Yasmin has a small body, so I don't guess it would hurt to try the new onesies on Etsy.

There are three onesies in that layette set, and all three of 'em go heavy on the pink, but I chose the pinkest one because that tends to be the way I roll.  Gripe about pink, then turn around and choose pink.  In Elsie's case the pink worked out, because parts of her body stick out of the sleeves and they're...well, pink!  Just the same this onesie does fit Elsie, but it's a hair snug in places and the arms and legs don't cover her limbs all the way.  What can I say, Cabbage Patch Kids have stubby little limbs.  But in a pinch Elsie can wear clothes sized for Jakks Pacific Cabbie newborns.

Time to wrap this baby up...literally, LOL.

BAD

*I don't know why I can't get over the floppy bit, but I can't!  Elsie is a bit more rigid all over than Carrie.
*The gimmick hasn't aged well; one hand no longer squeezes like it should.
*Clothes are sewn on , cutting down versatility a bit.
*My doll looked like she was peeing stuffing.  Easy fix, but it freaked me out a bit.
*The onesie isn't constructed out of the best fabric.

GOOD

*While Elsie isn't floppy like I like, she can sit up for a decent picture.  Carrie and Bedsie can't.
*The gimmick is kid-friendly, and my doll can still squeeze with one hand.  One hand is better than nothing.
*Except for the gimmick, and maybe the lace, Elsie feels robust.
*While the material on her onesie looks cheap, the seams and the areas around the snap are holding strong.
*Can wear some small Cabbage Patch Kid clothes.

As crazy as it sounds, a simple, soft baby doll like Carrie set some pretty high standards, and Elsie doesn't measure up.  On her own Elsie would be your ordinary baby doll, soft and cute and easy to maintain.  No fancy clothes to tear up or dirty, no long hair to tangle.  But...it's hard for me to put into words.  Carrie is such a simple little doll, and yet she can flop around and be a little character.  Elsie cannot.

Elsie IS good for hugs and cuddles, and she can sit up for baby doll games like feeding and whatever else a little kid can come up with.  But when I'm grabbing for a soft doll to cuddle after a rough workday, Carrie is who I go for.  I just like her better.  I do like Elsie's gimmick, but I'd trade it for Carrie's squishy, floppy body.

Believe it or not, there's a third doll in the Love 'n' Touch family.  She's bigger than Elsie and she's called Love 'n' Touch Real Sister.  I haven't decided yet whether she'll come live with us.  She's got a cute face like Carrie and Elsie do, but again, she doesn't look floppy.  Time will tell.

Floppy love,

RagingMoon1987