Throwback Thursday review: Bleeding Edge Goths

The ice storm came and went on Tuesday night, leaving a thin coating of ice on the grass and the trees but (praise God) nothing else, so no pictures of ice or destruction for y'all this week.  Take that back:  my dried up bushes got a decent coating.

Nothing huge, but I thought it was neat.  Now that that's out of the way, it's been a few months since I've delved into the darker side of doll collecting, a side that I touched on with a Living Dead Doll review and a Little Apple Doll review.  For this week's Throwback Thursday I've chosen to cross over to the dark side again, with two dolls that I've had a couple of years but never reviewed.  These are Bleeding Edge Goths by a company called Varner Studios.  These are also called BEGs or Begoths.  This line went the way of the dodo back in 2011, and I had to pay a fairly hefty sum to get the two that I've got.  My two are Infinity A. Byss (left) and Ivanna Scream.

I'll start with Infinity, whom I wanted from the get-go.  Bleeding Edge Goths often had names that were puns or plays on popular phrases, and Infinity is no exception.  Her first name is pretty straightforward, while her middle initial and last name combine to form the word "abyss."

Like many doll lines that have come and gone, the characters in this line each had different personalities, with lists of likes, dislikes, favorite colors, and pets.  I think the pet thing is a bit odd since these dolls didn't come with any, but that was listed on their personality pages anyway.  The pet bit is even more unusual for Infinity because she apparently doesn't believe in having pets.  She likes the following:
*The colors magenta and blue (her favorites)
*New York (whether she means the city or the state is not specified)
*Hardcore punk
*Visiting CBGB (a now-defunct NYC music club) and other clubs
*Bondage gear and spiked bracelets (!!!)
*The straight-edge movement
*Movies like SLC Punk! and Sid and Nancy
*Moshing at local music gigs
*Collecting band memorabilia
*Dyeing her hair various colors (except pink)

Infinity's dislikes are
*Punk pop
*Anything named Brittany
*Petal pink
*Opera
*Fancy restaurants
*Valet parking
*Alcohol and meat (straight-edgers are often vegans and teetotalers)
*Coffee houses
*Conformity
*Censorship
*Government conspiracies

In other words, she's a straight-edge punk with a fondness for the subculture's music and a vitriol for anything mainstream.  Sounds like an interesting person, though I think she'd think differently of "anything Brittany" if she met my best friend, a punky young woman with tattoos and piercings who also happens to be named Brittany.  I wonder if Infinity thinks Sid Vicious was innocent or guilty of Nancy's murder (I have my doubts about his guilt, but the evidence seems to point solidly to him)?  Anywho, Miss Infinity came in three different color combinations:  black hair/red dress, dark green hair/black dress, and red hair/black dress.  All three dolls have stark white heads and bodies, and their paint is the same.  Mine is the one with the dark green hair, though in photographs it's very hard to tell what color her hair truly is.

See?  It looks black in the pictures, but trust me:  it's green.  I like that.  Green is not a hair color one sees too often; I only own three other dolls with green hair (Lime Chiffon, Emerald the Enchanting Witch, and Peppa Mint, plus a couple of My Little Ponies).  In keeping with her punk theme Infinity has a portion of her hair slicked up in a mohawk.

The rest is normal length and is pulled back into a ponytail.

The mohawk has a fair amount of product in it to keep it sticking up, but it doesn't need a ton of gel because the fibers are fairly coarse.  Infinity's hair is not as bad as Meygana Broomstix's hair, but it definitely feels like low-end nylon.  I love the color, though.  It's not every day that one finds a doll with green hair, particularly this shade.  These dolls all have rooted hair, by the way, but some of them have differing hairlines.  Infinity's is rounded, and as you'll soon see, Ivanna's is not.

The back of Infinity's head is marked with the Bleeding Edge trademark and with (I assume) her year of production.  Also visible is a bit of her scalp, which is painted forest green.

Moving downward, Infinity's face has the typical Bleeding Edge Goth aesthetic.

Her eyebrows are decidedly devious, and one of them has four (count 'em) FOUR piercings!  Her eyes are set at a slant and are highlighted with sickly brownish eye shadow and thick black eyeliner

These irises are something else!  Instead of the traditional pupils each eye has a different insignia, not unlike the novelty contact lenses that were once so popular.  The right eye has an anarchy symbol and fittingly, the left eye has an infinity symbol.  They're creative eyes and they fit Infinity's personality to a T, but they make her gaze a little blank. 

Infinity's lips are painted black with a beauty mark, two snakebite hoops, a vertical labret stud...and stitched up Glasgow smile marks!

I have a weird fixation on the Glasgow smile, also referred to as the Chelsea grin.  I don't wish the injuries that cause it on anyone, but the scar it leaves is very interesting.  That's not a scar often seen on dolls; indeed, I've only seen it on three other dolls, Living Dead Dolls named Misery, Dahlia, and Tina Pink.  I've also seen a handful of ball-jointed dolls with these scars, but they were modified to have them and not cast that way.  So Infinity's scars are a treat, even if they are a bit gruesome. 

Lastly, ears.  I think all Bleeding Edge Goths have ear piercings of some sort, and Infinity does not disappoint.  Both of her ears are triple-pierced (like mine) and are adorned with silver hoops.

Some Begoths are elaborately dressed and some are not, with Infinity falling under the "not" category, though what she does have is extremely fitting for her personality.  Starting at the top, Infinity wears a permanently attached dog collar, which is fitting given her fondness for bondage gear.

Usually the submissive wears a collar in an S&M relationship, but the dominant can wear one too.  Jeez, the things I look up for the sake of reference!  Anyway, the rest of Infinity's getup doesn't scream S&M, but the aesthetic is there.  Her dress is made out of black pleather and is very fitted.

I hate pleather doll clothes.  Pleather NEVER ages well, no matter how well it's cared for.  Infinity won't be undressed much after this review so this material has a fighting chance of staying nice, but I do not like pleather doll clothes at all.  The dress itself is simply made, but it's got a few cute details that make it more than just your average little black dress.  The right sleeve is full length and very tight, enough so that I had a hard time getting the cuff over Infinity's wrist (this material has no stretch).

The left sleeve is more of a strap than a sleeve.  It can be worn on Infinity's shoulder, but it usually slips off and clings to her upper arm instead.  That's fine too.

To even out the asymmetry a bit Infinity wears a small cuff on her left wrist...but strangely, even though she admits in her biography that she likes spiked bracelets, she wears none.  That would've been a cute detail, one that I may have to add myself in the future.

The hem of the skirt would fall to Infinity's calves, but it's got a wedge-shaped cutout in the front that goes up to her knees.  The edges of this are rounded.

Actually I shouldn't say that this skirt has a hem, because it doesn't.  This material is firmly woven and doesn't look like it will ravel.  The interior of this dress looks nice, with no raggy seams or loose threads.

The back fastens with a zipper, something that I don't often see on doll dresses.

On her feet Infinity wears big, stompy, plastic boots.  These have a lot of molded detail but unfortunately aren't painted anywhere.  I may have to change that too.

The boots have platform soles, and the soles are huge.  When Infinity is wearing them she's a teensy bit taller than Mara here...

...but when the shoes are off she's quite a teensy bit shorter than Mara, or she would be if her head weren't so big.

Getting these shoes off was a living nightmare, by the way.  I've battled with doll shoes before but this is the worst experience I've ever had.  After the review they are going back on and never coming off again.

You may have seen in the images above that Infinity has a few tattoos, but I'm going to save those for the body review and move on to Ivanna Scream.  In keeping with the pun theme, Ivanna's name is a play on the statement "I want to/wanna scream."  I can't seem to find Ivanna's bio online like I could Infinity's; all I know about this one is that she loves to dye her hair and she's a horror movie junkie.  Jeez, I hope it's the cheesy MST3K kind of horror or the psychological Stephen King kind of horror, and not the gory "Final Destination" kind.  Here's what Ivanna looks like.

Ivanna's acquisition story is about the same as Infinity's, with one exception thrown in.  When I placed the order for Infinity I was allowed to choose another doll of equal price and get the second one half-off, or something like that.  I originally chose Lolita Sun, who would've made a tongue-in-cheek companion for Infinity due to her pink hair and her smart-aleck expression.  Lo and behold, Lolita was already sold out and I was allowed to choose another doll of a similar price.  I was torn between Ivanna and Julia Doom, but for reasons I've long since forgotten Ivanna won me over.  My particular doll is the common version; like Infinity, Ivanna had a chase version in a lovely shade of purple.  My doll's hair isn't purple or green, or any funky color, which is surprising given Ivanna's fondness for dyeing her hair.  But no, my girl's hair is black.

Heck, maybe Ivanna dyed it black!  The style is more elaborate than Infinity's, though way less punky.  The top part is a French braid, while the tail of the braid is gathered together and braided some more.

Ivanna's whole hairstyle is off-center and there are loose hairs sticking out everywhere, but I lack the ability to French braid so her hair will have to stay as-is for the time being.  The hair is made of the same stuff as Infinity's, but it's longer so it's harder to control.  Thus I appreciate the elaborate style, disheveled as it may look.  Unfortunately this same style left some gaps in the hair, gaps that leave bits of Ivanna's scalp peeking through.

Ivanna has the same mark on her neck as Infinity, though it's not as distinct.

As a last hair bit, Ivanna's hairline is a widow's peak.

I normally don't comment on hairlines, but Ivanna has a widow's peak and Infinity does not so I thought I'd just throw that in there.

Like Infinity, Ivanna is heavily pierced and made up, and for some reason her makeup is heavily influenced by lightning.

Ivanna has black lightning bolt-shaped eyebrows and vivid blue eyes with thick blue liner.  Both eyes have lightning shooting from the irises.  I've heard of folks glaring daggers, but not lightning!  Anywho, between her eyebrows Ivanna sports what I think are three...oh Lordy, I forgot what those piercings are called!  I thought it was something more fancy than "surface piercing."  Either way, Ivanna has three of those.  She also has two piercings in each ear, hoop and stud.

Rounding out the face are a nostril piercing and a vertical labret piercing, plus the prerequisite black lips.

Here Ivanna and Infinity differ slightly in another way.  Infinity's lips are a glossy black, while Ivanna's have more of a frosty finish.

Regarding clothes, Ivanna is more elaborately dressed than Infinity is.  The most noticeable piece of her attire is her coat...or maybe it's a sleeved cape, long as it is.  This bad boy goes to the floor, covering Ivanna from shoulder to shoe.

It's made of pleather again, but this pleather looks nicer and more robust than the stuff Infinity's dress is made of.  It has a scalloped collar that sticks up and frames Ivanna's face, one that looks like the collar on your stereotypical villain's cape.

The coat has long, fitted sleeves, though these aren't as fitted as the sleeve on Infinity's dress was.  Ivanna can thus take this coat off at will.

It doesn't fasten in any way, but the front left edge does have a couple of black "buttons" sewn on.

The opposing side has two fake buttonholes.

Since the coat is made of pleather I doubt it would need hemming, but the edges are indeed hemmed.  The hems are large and a little clunky looking, but the stitches are smooth.

Underneath her coat Ivanna wears a black jersey minidress.

The dress falls to the knee and has a low but not revealing neckline.  My favorite part of this dress (and indeed, Ivanna's whole outfit) is this design painted on the front.  The green guy is an obvious reference to both Ivanna's name and to Edvard Munch's The Scream, but with the addition of a mohawk on the screamer's head.  The screamer glows in the dark, which surprised and pleased me since I wasn't aware that any of these dolls glowed in the dark.  Glow-in-the-dark dolls and attire are fairly common among the Living Dead Dolls, but I had no idea that Begoths occasionally had bits that glow too.  I've always loved things that glow in the dark so this was a pleasant surprise.

The rest of Ivanna's garb is appropriately gothic.  She wears black fishnet tights...

...and the same boots that Infinity wears, the ones that are so blankety-blank hard to get off.

Now that I've wrested those boots off and not wounded myself OR the doll, let's look at these bodies.  Both dolls have the same body, though Infinity is a bit more yellowed in places.

First off, let me point out that these dolls are stained, which isn't terribly surprising considering that these are ghostly pale dolls with black clothes.  The staining is not as extensive on my BEGs as it is on some of my Living Dead Dolls but it IS there, mostly on the underarm region.

This kind of thing is par for the course when one is a dolly lover.  I'm not thrilled by this staining, but I'm more willing to forgive it because it's easily covered, unlike the staining on my little Ashton Drake doll, Red.  Plus, I don't know how preventable this staining is.  Red's staining WAS preventable, and that was the fault of the company!

Where was I?  Oh yes, these bodies are a very, VERY strange shape!  Folks are constantly wanting to harp on Barbie for her unusual body, but Infinity and Ivanna take the same shape to a whole new level.  Their upper bodies are very wide and moderately buxom, while their waists and hips are narrow.  They have molded rib margins...

...and clavicles.

These underpants gave me a tremendous LOL.  They appear to be the G-string kind and they're painted as well as molded, which is a step up from what Barbie has (they're molded but not painted).

Tattoos are commonplace on these dolls, so imagine my surprise when I discovered Ivanna had none.  By contrast, Infinity has three.  Her left arm has a cobweb with a spider dangling from it...

...her left front shoulder sports a biohazard sign...

...and her back is emblazoned with a winged heart.  The heart has a few blood drops coming from it, leaving me to guess if this is supposed to be actual blood or if it's part of the tattoo.  With these dolls anything is possible.

Infinity's back tattoo is off-center, by the way.  If my artist had done that I'd demand a discount.  Luckily for me my tattoos (both current and future) are fairly simple designs and it'll be hard to futz 'em up.

Unfortunately a futzed up tattoo is the least of Infinity's worries.  These dolls have jointed waists that twist and tilt a bit, but I'm hesitant to show their movement because Infinity's waist is missing a huge chunk!

I know that these dolls are capable of breaking in the long run, but this still surprised and disappointed me.  I don't know where that chunk went, either; it didn't come off when I took Infinity's dress off, so it had to have happened some time ago.  To make matters worse the joint crumbles a little more each time I move it, just like Emiko's neck used to do.  Looks like it's time to bust out the ol' Super Glue; I'd rather have a doll with a waist that won't move than a doll that's irreparably broken.

Treading softly now since I don't trust Infinity's plastic, the other joints.  These dolls have heads that turn and tip some in all directions...

...ball-jointed shoulders and hips that have a good bit of lateral movement and full front-to-back movement...

...and knees that bend...sort of.

Honestly, I think those knee joints could've been done without, as poor as the motion is.  As a final little gothic touch both my girls have black fingernails (Infinity is missing some paint on her unpictured left hand).

No paint on the toenails though.

According to this review of Olivia O'Lantern these dolls have strung waists and hips.  <headdesk>  Great...just what I need, more dolls to restring.  I've got Shirley Temple and Peaches waiting in my bedroom, and my great-aunt has a bunch that she wants restrung.  Luckily for me my BEG duo is still pretty tight, and I plan on keeping it that way.  I'll be moving their legs and waists as little as possible.

Regarding redressing, I don't think these dolls were meant to be redressed, and the only Etsy shop that offered extra clothes for these dolls is a shop that I absolutely refuse to shop at now.  So I'm just going to redress my dolls in their old threads and wrap this up as well.

BAD
*Lightly stained, though this isn't a tremendous deal
*Hairstyles are elaborate and hard to recreate if they get messed up
*Infinity's waist is crumbling.  NOT a good sign.
*Pleather clothes
*Shoes are VERY hard to get off
*I do not advise redressing
*A little on the scary side, and some are a bit risque as well.  These are definitely NOT for children

GOOD
*Only lightly stained, unlike some of my other dolls
*Faces are unique and detailed; each of these dolls is a character all her own.
*Hair is easy to comb and keep tidy
*Clothes are well-made for the most part; the shoes are lousy, but the rest of these clothes are okay
*Body has a bit of bone structure molded in, which is always nice
*Creative!  These make good companions for Living Dead Dolls, but they're different enough to stand out.

Well!  These certainly are interesting dolls, especially for someone who admires Gothic subculture from afar.  I can't be a Goth myself because I love colors too much, but I've always harbored a special respect for those who aren't afraid to be so different in public, and that respect extends to dolls with the aesthetic.  I also applaud Varner Studios for going out of their way to make so many of these dolls, each one with her own appearance and personality.  For the most part these dolls are great products, but they do have a few shortcomings that one should be wary of.  Firstly and most importantly, my Infinity's waist is badly cracked, and I've heard tell of other dolls breaking over time as well.  My Ivanna shows no signs of wear but I'd prefer to keep it that way.  Furthermore, the waist joint and the hips are apparently strung with elastic, not my favorite way of jointing for this type of doll as it likes to get loose and break with time.  I know how to repair a doll like this, but hopefully I won't have to.  Infinity's dress is also pleather (the kind that likes to stretch and tear), and Ivanna's hairstyle is messy, though I'm not horribly bothered by that.  Lastly, keep an eye out for stains or bad paint, the latter of which I didn't mention above.  As detailed as some of these dolls are there's a possibility for painting gaffes.  So I advise caution when seeking out a Bleeding Edge Goth, but I also say that this caution shouldn't deter y'all from hunting one up if your curiosity has been piqued.  They're interesting dolls.

Hugs and kisses,
RagingMoon1987