Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Blorange! A brief look at one of Barbie's new heads

RagingMoon1987 will now waste fifteen minutes of your time with random dolly observations.  It's rare when one has an example of every doll released with one face mold...but when a mold only has three dolls to its name that simplifies things a bit.  I'm referring to the new Asian mold, referred to by Katti's Dolls as the "blorange" head.  From left, I've got #60 "Patchwork Denim," #73 "Rosey Romper," and #90 "Rainbow Bright."
Here's how they look up close.
Suika (#60) and Duckie (#90) are mine, while "Rosey" in the middle is supposed to belong to Talolili.  Thus I won't have all three of these girls together forever.  One thing Katti noted (and I subsequently discovered) is that the earliest of these dolls almost never have straight eyes.  Poor Suika's left eye is higher than her right.
"Rosey's" eyes are more straight, showing that printing did get better as time passed.
As for Duckie...well, if her eyes are wonky I can't tell.  Thus Mattel appears to have gotten their act together with this mold.  I figure learning to print a new head might be a bit of a hairy process at first, but it's still nice to see progress being made.
Pretty Duckie is my latest doll to suffer from BLS, better known as bubblegum lip syndrome (Deb, Jova, and Bumblebee are my others).  Her eye paint is gorgeous and I wouldn't change that for the world, but that lip color...WHY, MATTEL???  Why do you do this to your pretty girls of color???  You didn't do this to Baby Phat Chandra, or to Justine Dancer, or to Hula Hair Christie, or to Rockers Dee Dee...though granted, Dee Dee belongs to a completely different era than Justine and Chandra and Duckie.  Interestingly, my Chandra has the exact same shade of pink that Duckie does, but her lips have this glorious shimmer paint on top and that helps quite a bit.  Given Mattel's penchant for playing with colors and head molds and paint, I can't help but wonder why they didn't paint Rainbow Bright like the real Duckie Thot (whom Rainbow resembles a little).  Y'all see how pretty that purple looks with Miss Duckie's skin?  Maybe I should try that with my Duckie, some shiny purple paint or something like that.  Pink lips notwithstanding, I'm glad this new mold is getting used, especially when the head Deb uses (Zig-Zag) appears to have only been used once.  I'm looking forward to see what else Mattel does with this head.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

8 comments:

  1. Maybe the bubblegum lip color is in style? I did a brief check at colourpop.com, which sells make-up for the Instagram crowd. They have dark-skinned gals modelling all kinds of colors, including green, teal, and Wedgewood blue.

    I like Rosey the best, but I'm not sure why Mattel needed to add extra painted-on hair.

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    1. LOL, I actually like the painted hair! Talolili told me that that's not really a new thing with Barbie, as they did it for Raven-Symone back in the days before Raven became an idiot. I have seen dark ladies wear some crazy colors, yes...but boy do I hate that pink!!! She's the fourth doll I've got with that shade and it just looks so flat and dull. That eye makeup is to die for, though.

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  2. I really like this face mold, on all 3 dolls. I especially like the dark skinned doll very much, but haven't seen her in our stores yet. If she appears, I definitely would like to by her!

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    1. I just started seeing the dark doll this past weekend, so keep your eyes peeled. She's slowly but surely making her way out into the world. She's so pretty in real life, much more so than in my pictures. I predict that she'll be popular, so better grab one when you see one.

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  3. Oh dang that purple on Duckie! They absolutely should have gone that route!

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  4. Thanks for sharing that these dolls have the same face mold. I didn't know that. I have Blorange. I'd like to get Duckie (the doll).

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    1. She's worth getting. She's got beautiful vinyl and her hair is super-low maintenance.

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