Funville Sparkle Girlz review

This is for y'all out there, those of you who wanted to know more about these dolls!  When I published this post earlier in the week I got a lot of hits, but I had no pictures to show for it!  Now the post is complete, and I hope y'all will enjoy it!  That being said, I know precious little about the company known as Funville, other than that they produce a line of Barbie alternatives known as the Sparkle Girlz.  Yes, "Girlz."  Here we go with cutesy consonants again.  Anyway, these dolls are the same height and size as an original-bodied Barbie, but their heads are bigger.  Most Barbie collectors value the Sparkle Girlz solely for their extensive wardrobes, but this particular Barbie lover also happens to have two of the Girlz themselves.  Kayleigh (left) was a freebie that I received from the daughter of a friend, and I bought Larkspur (right) on my own free will.

Here's Kayleigh's full body shot.

I'm not sure how old Kayleigh is, but since she once belonged to a child she's seen some fairly rough treatment.  Vestiges of her old life are still visible if one looks closely, mainly in the few scruffy hairs that stick out of her ponytail. 

Kayleigh's hair was so matted that I ended up having to cut it.  Not even THE PLASTIC BAG OF DOOM could save it, and indeed cutting it didn't stop it from tangling again either.  Hence the Barbie-esque ponytail.  Notice the root job; it's thick, but notice that the hairline is missing quite a few plugs.  I'm not sure who pulled those out, the child during play or me during detangling, but they certainly didn't FALL out like Mirari's hair did.  Also note that Kayleigh has no earrings.  Larkspur doesn't either.  As far as I know, no Sparkle Girl does.

Kayleigh has a large head, close in size to a My Scene Barbie's head...

...and thus her facial features are inflated as well.  She's got brown eyebrows and big blue eyes, not as big as Nolee's, but big enough.  She's also got a lot of eyelashes, plus some dusky blue shadow.  She does have a few miniscule chips in the paint, nothing too obvious, but visible under close inspection.

I love the shade of blue in these eyes, and the reflecty dots look like something one might see on a Takara doll.  The lips are pale enough that they look washed out in a lot of my pictures, and the expression of the mouth is so calm that Kayleigh almost looks bored. 

Her profile is nothing wham-bam either.  She has a bit of the "duck-lips" look going on.

Since these dolls have the same body I'm going to hop over to Larkspur.  Here's what she looks like.

Larkspur's hair feels like it would become irreparably tangled too if she were around a kid for long enough, but hopefully she won't have to face that fate.  Her hair is silky and smooth and...BLUE!

I love blue hair and blue-haired dolls, but blue is not a color I often see in the dolly world.  This color is very nice, but it's more the shade of a forget-me-not than the doll's namesake larkspur.  The style is very simple, just two twists held back with a rubber band, while the rest of the hair hangs loose, about to mid-back.

Now, the face.  I love Larkspur's face.

She has a lot more personality showing than Kayleigh does, but let's break this down.  Larkspur's eyes are a lovely shade of brown, complete with the heavy eyelashes and some dusky blue eyeshadow.  Her eyebrows are heavier than Kayleigh's, but follow the same shape.  The white reflecty bits in her eyes are little hearts, a pleasant departure from the realistic but monotonous white dots.

Larkspur's nose is both wider and longer than Kayleigh's, and her mouth is molded into an open, warm smile.  I'm not in love with the dark purple lip paint, but it shows up better in pictures than Kayleigh's pink stuff does.

When I look at this pair I see Larkspur as a self-confident, friendly otherworldly being and Kayleigh as the pretty but too-serious human who has just had her world turned upside down by Larkspur's presence.

"What do you mean fairies are real???"

Sparkle Girlz have a body that's similar to but not exactly like an original-bodied Barbie.  Here's how Kayleigh and Nolee compare visually.

Kayleigh's torso is made of shiny, hard plastic.  She has a slight hourglass figure with a small but wide bust, wide hips, and a proportionately slim waist.  She doesn't have a bellybutton like Nolee does.  Larkspur's body is the same mold but more matte, and obviously a different color.

Notice also that both the Girlz have molded-on underpants, though the designs aren't painted.  I've often wondered why these companies bother to give their dolls molded drawers but don't bother to paint them.  Why bother with molding on britches at all if one can't tell at first glance that they're wearing any?  Mattel and Funville are BOTH guilty of this, by the way.

Where was I?  I think that takes me to limbs.  Kayleigh and Larkspur differ from Nolee (and favor the more current Barbie dolls) by having limbs that are made of the same plastic as their torsos.  Their arms and hands aren't as shapely as Nolee's are...

...but the molding is decent.  No big flaps of extra plastic hanging off the seams or anything like that, no scuffs or scratches...it's tough plastic with no bend at all.  The molding of the hands is interesting; the right hand has a separate pinky finger...

...while on the left hand it's the index finger that's separate. 

Like the arms, Sparkle Girlz legs are not as shapely as Barbie legs, but they too are well-molded with high-heeled feet for high-heeled shoes.

Another minor difference is movement.  Nolee comes from the era when bendy Barbie knees were commonplace, so she can flex her legs.  Sparkle Girlz, as far as I know, have never had bendy knees, which is kind of a bummer because their hips have superior mobility to Barbie hips.  Nolee can do a mediocre side split.

Larkspur and Kayleigh can't do a complete side split, but they can get lower than Nolee can.

One of the oddest things about these dolls is that some of them come with warped legs.  The plastic used for these legs has zero bend to it, and I mean ZERO.  BEND.  PERIOD.  And yet...and yet Kayleigh's legs are warped, not to the extent that some of my other dolls' legs are, but warped enough.  Notice how both of her legs curve to her right.

These dolls come packaged in cone-shaped boxes, and sometimes when they come out of these boxes their legs are lashed together in a crossed position.  Larkspur avoided this problem, but Kayleigh did not, and apparently her legs were held together long enough that she developed warped ankles.  On a more positive note, these legs are slowly but surely relaxing and straightening out; Kayleigh's legs are nowhere near as warped as they were when I first adopted her.

The rest of Sparkle Girlz motion is unremarkable.  They have heads that tilt and turn, and arms that move back, forth, and out to the sides.

The bodies are very strong.  Nothing feels like it would randomly break, unless I or some overly destructive little brat were to abuse it.  Even then I think it would take an act of congress to actually break these bodies. 

So far, these dolls aren't that different from the current or older Barbie dolls...except for the heads and faces, that is.  Funville has an important advantage over Mattel, though, with THESE!!!  This isn't even half of what Funville has available for these dolls to wear, by the way. 

Due to their similarly sized bodies, Barbie and the Girlz can share clothes.  Most of my fellow Barbie fans have raided the Sparkle Girlz clothing bins more than once, and I'm no exception.  Indeed, I've run into some folks that are more familiar with the clothes than they are the dolls!  But for the sake of completion I'm going to run over the outfits anyway.  Sparkle Girlz clothes are fun because they come in a wide variety of colors and styles.  They can be punk, gothic, bohemian, casual, glitzy, or fantasy like Larkspur's getup, and they're not stuck in a single-color rut like Barbie appears to be.  Oh yes, pink does show up a lot in these Sparkle Girlz fashions, but more often than not it shows up either as an accent color or in combination with another color.  Funville seems more willing to experiment with patterns and themes, too; check out Kayleigh's current outfit.

Presto mentioned a particular fondness for this outfit, and I have to admit that I like it quite a bit too.  Instead of something fairly mainstream like a cat or a teddy bear, the top has a zebra on it.  A ZEBRA!!!  With green lipstick and a green polka-dot hairbow, no less!

That decal is nice and smooth, too.  Sometimes one sees poorly applied decals on cheap doll clothes like this, but not here!  And when is the last time any of y'all saw a top like this???  I love it.  I wish I could find a hair bow like that for Kayleigh to wear, though!

The bottom part of the outfit is also interesting, as it's done up in a fabric and a pattern that does not match the top in any way, shape, or form.  It consists of a faux-denim skirt with stitched "seams" and a painted-on fly button, with these long, orange ruffles printed with white stars.

This whole getup is like something I'd have thrown together and worn to high school.  Nothing matches, and it's fairly clear that no attempt was even made to match, and yet the whole thing works.  I should probably point out that this is one piece, by the way; it looks like it should be a top and a skirt, but it's not.  Some Sparkle Girlz outfits are like that, but it's also possible to find outfits that have multiple pieces.  Funville strikes a good balance there instead of making everything one piece like Mattel does.  Oh yes, this skirt is also printed all the way around.  Mattel doesn't do that much anymore either.  The star-spangled material is not hemmed, though I suspect that would've been tricky on such thin material. 

Another of my favorite outfits is this one, which I think would look cute on Larkspur. 

This dress looks like something that Cloetta Spelletta would've worn.  It is part stretchy knit and part pleather with a poorly stitched belt around the waist.  Yep, pleather.  I hope that doesn't mean that this dress will start crumbling and splitting as it ages.

Of course this wouldn't be a full review if I didn't go over Larkspur's stock clothes.  She's wearing a fairy costume that has a lot of pink but doesn't go overboard with the color.

The bodice is a one-shoulder job and is made out of sparkly pink stretch knit.  This is the kind of fabric that will lose its sparkle if rubbed or handled too much.

The strap is made of a piece of cobalt blue satin ribbon, and it has a yellow flower embellishment sewn on.

The wings are clear plastic wings with pink glitter glued on in a simple, wing-y pattern.  They're sewn to the back of the bodice, so whenever I take off this dress, off come the wings too.  They're decorated on the front...

...but not on the back.

That's kind of a bummer that Larkspur can't be a fairy whenever she wants, but it's also good to see that the wings aren't permanently attached like Fairytopia Elina's were/are.  Elina's wings were permanently attached for a good reason, but it still got a little annoying having permanently attached wings.

Like Kayleigh's current outfit, Larkspur's dress looks like it's two pieces at first glance, but it's not.  The skirt has this tan waistband that appears to be made of some sort of tie-dyed material.  Sticking above this waistband is a sparkly, jagged ruffle of blue tulle.

The rest of the skirt is two layers.  The topmost layer of the skirt consists of more sparkly blue tulle, cut in a rounded flower petal shape, and the lower layer is made of silky blue fabric with a jagged hem.  Both layers have glitter that likes to shed.

One thing that I forgot to show on Kayleigh's outfit is this part.  The vast majority of these Sparkle Girlz outfits have these ribbon "thongs" of sorts inside the skirt.

These are to keep the skirts from riding up too much, but they're also a pain in the butt sometimes.  The straps themselves like to slide or ride up, and they sometimes get caught in the dolls' hip joints.  There are some other issues with these outfits; most of the skirt hems are not hemmed.  I can see why these fabrics are not hemmed since most are not particularly prone to ravelling, and since a hem on this thin a fabric would be cumbersome.  I do have one outfit though that suffers because it doesn't have a hem...and surprise, surprise, I can't find it!  When I do find it I'll share it here and discuss the problem.

Another issue I have with these outfits is accessories.  Most of these outfits come with a purse OR shoes, not both.  Most of the shoes are nothing to write home about; they're just simple high-heeled pumps that come in pink, black, or silver like Kayleigh's.

Presto was fortunate enough to find two outfits that had white athletic shoes in a mold I've never seen before, so these shoes are at least starting to vary somewhat.  Most of the shoes I've got though...I can't say that I'm a huge fan.  They're usually boring and they usually don't match what my doll is wearing.  Compare Kaleigh's silver shoes to Larkspur's super-cute shoes, which look like a hybrid of a pointe shoe and Cinderella's glass slippers.

These shoes have a sort of buckling mechanism which Farrah Lily wisely notes would be difficult for little fingers to undo.  Indeed, I have a hard time with it myself!  I love Larkspur's shoes though, and I wish that the outfits came with these.  But hey, at least some of these outfits come with shoes at all!  More and more often Mattel leaves out shoes, instead adding on some sort of piece of crap like a purse that doesn't open.  In Mattel's defense though, their purses are usually cute.  Sparkle Girlz purses are rarely worth keeping.

Yep, that little hunk of plastic is a purse, and it came with that black and pink dress that I like a lot.  It's got some nice molded details, but if it were a real purse it would be pretty ineffective.  The purses are getting better, though.  See this one?  It looks like a fringed bag that I have hanging in my closet.

Bottom line, I wish Funville would drop the purses and just stick with shoes.  I much prefer a purseless doll with shoes to a doll that's accessorized to the nines but has nothing on her feet.  Sparkle Girlz CAN wear Barbie shoes and some Takara Jenny shoes, but I still wish all their own outfits came with shoes.

I think that covers it!  Time for pros and cons.

BAD
*Some of these dolls have warped legs.  Larkspur dodged that bullet, but Kayleigh didn't so keep on your guard.
*The older dolls have hair that mats like crazy.  I had to cut Kayleigh's hair.
*The older dolls can also look a little blank.  Again, Larkspur avoided that problem.
*Knees are not jointed, which is a bit of a bummer.
*Clothes are not hemmed, which can occasionally be problematic.
*Larkspur's shoe buckles might be fiddly for some kids (and adults).
*Accessories (purses in particular) are plain.

GOOD
*Faces are cute, not overly vampy or sexualized.  Some of the older dolls can look blank or haughty, but not all of them.
*The newer dolls have soft, smooth hair, and the hair comes in cute colors.  I figure that hair would mat too if in the hands of a child, though.
*Molding on the body is good, much more so than the bodies of other cheap clones that I've seen.
*Body is also very sturdy.  Kayleigh's hair may not have fared well, but her body is not even scuffed.
*Can share clothes with Barbie, not that these dolls need to for the reason listed below.
*Lots of clothes available!  Funville has kept these poppets well endowed with clothes.
*Cost-efficient.  The outfits are affordable and so are the dolls, and yet they're not constructed cheaply...well, most of the items are well-constructed.  The purses suck, as I said above, but the rest of the items are okay.

Sparkle Girlz clothes are popular among Barbie fans for the reasons I noted above, but as far as I'm concerned the dolls are worth the effort too.  They have cute faces and sturdy bodies that can share clothes with their brand-name competitors.  The hair has gotten better over the years; Larkspur's hair is a little coarse but I doubt it'll tangle to the extent that Kayleigh's did.  Most, but not all, of their clothes are well-made and colorful, and the wardrobe isn't drowning in pink like Barbie's clothes tend to do.  Lastly, these dolls don't cost much; they're more expensive than a Dollar Store clone, but they don't cost as much as a fully-dressed Barbie does nowadays.  The clothes are affordable too; I once bought four Sparkle Girlz outfits for the price of one Barbie dress.  So if these dolls have caught your interest, I recommend them.  They're affordable, more so than most Barbie dolls nowadays, and they don't have molded-on or painted-on clothes that a lot of Barbie dolls do.  They come in a good range of ethnicities and hair colors, and their clothes are colorful and cute as well.  They also break up the monotony that can sometimes pervade an all-Barbie collection.  Barbie has gotten more diverse over the past few years, but it's still pretty obvious that she's Barbie.  Sparkle Girlz break that up a bit.

Speaking of new stuff, I had the presence of mind to take pictures of the other Sparkle Girlz the last couple of times I went into Wal-Mart, and let me just say that I think Funville is really starting to step up their game.  The first time there was a pink-haired, green-eyed genie and a blonde doll that reminds me of a young Brittany Spears (only cute).

Larkspur's orange-haired companion was still there, though the one with black and navy hair was not.

The last doll that I photographed was next to the orange-haired fairy.  Her hair is ordinary and her face is the same as Larkspur's, but look at that cute dress!

A few days after I took the above pictures we got the new stock in, and I was surprised by the sheer amount of stuff that Funville had released.  The Sparkle Girlz now come in a huge range of sizes, with this group being about the size of Mega Bloks figures.

Then there were these slightly bigger but still little dolls, which have been around for awhile.  These come in the little individual packages that look like ice cream cones, or in bulk.  These smaller dolls are also beginning to appear with fantasy hair, mostly in soft pastel shades.

These little dolls are about the same size as Barbie's disowned sister Kelly, by the way.  Kelly, not Chelsea.  Chelsea and her cronies are taller than the little Sparkle Girlz by a smidge. 

The next group was only available in the six-pack seen below.  They are rainbow-colored and are called Sparkle Tots.  I'm not sure what other doll they could compare to in size.

The biggest Sparkle Girl is this one, who apparently talks.  She looks suspiciously like Rapunzel from Tangled.

I have no idea how that talking mech works or how it sounds, and of all the Sparkle Girlz available I think I like this one the least.  She's probably not a bad toy, though.

Lastly there's this horse, complete with long hair for styling and brushing.  I can only assume that one of the dolls can ride it.

Y'all, that's a lot of nifty stuff to choose from.  When I first noticed the Sparkle Girlz on store shelves (a few years back) I assumed they'd be here and gone in no time.  Boy, was I wrong!  I also wasn't expecting to fall for these dolls as heavily as I have, and if they all still looked like Kayleigh I probably wouldn't have.  But the new faces and hair colors have succeeded in drawing me in; after I had the bulk of this review typed up, I found a little genie that wanted to come home with me.  Very quickly, let's say hello to Larissa...and to the subject of my next review!

Yep, I've jumped on the Little Outrageous Littles bandwagon, but as I said, that's for next time.  Interestingly, Larissa's plastic is different from both Kayleigh's and Larkspur's...I think.  She looks like she may be paler than Kayleigh, but I can't tell for sure.

I was hoping that being a genie would mean that Larissa had a different pair of shoes, but she doesn't.  They're the same pink pointe shoes that Larkspur wears.

Given the diversity of these Sparkle Girlz, I doubt Larissa will be the last one I bring home.  I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a redhead in a cute outfit.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987