Blume: a new take on blind bags

Oh Moon Girl, you've been blocked from Facebook for exhibiting your First Amendment rights again!  Oh yes, I forgot that the First Amendment only applies to the shameless leftists who run Facebook.  Sometimes I'd give anything to just haul off and slug Mark Zuckerberg for making his product so shamelessly biased and so addictive at the same time.  Seriously...I'm blocked for a week now, over something that I posted weeks or months or YEARS AGO???  So with a thunderstorm raging outside and John Lydon blaring on the radio I threw this review together.  I got officially blocked on the 22nd (it was a Wednesday, but that doesn't matter), and today is...the 24th?  <glances at calendar> Yes, it's the glorious 24th, so I've killed all of two days, but but on the bright side it's the end of a long dry spell here at the blog, one that I'll discuss further with Monday's post.  Now that my spleen is vented, <puts on happy face> this fall looks to be an interesting time for dolls.  On the same Wednesday that I learned of Facebook's nonsense I saw these in Malden's Wal-Mart.

These are two members of the much-anticipated Wild Hearts Crew, and oh, was I tempted!  The two pictured are Jacy Masters (left) and Cori Cruize.  They've got nice, thick bodies, extra clothes, and two of them have BLUE HAIR!!!  Of course my favorite one (Kenna Roswell) wasn't there, but as over-the-top as Cori is I may pick her instead!  I really wanted one of these dolls, and I may ask for one for my birthday.  But today I'm going to go the blind bag route again, and before y'all run screaming into the night let me say that blind bag dolls are getting steadily more interesting.  Indeed, the three dolls that have caught my eye this summer/early fall (besides Barbie) have all been blind bag-themed.  There have been the Capsule Chix and a spin-off of the L.O.L. Surprises called O.M.G., and then there's these creatures called Blume.

"Where Outrageous Grows" is the tagline.  Rather cute!  Blume dolls come in little plastic pots instead of boxes or bags, and when watered they "grow" out of the pots.  They have squishy hair that can be mixed and matched, plus a few accessories that also serve as blind bag surprises.  The pot also doubles as a house for the doll, a much better house than the round pods that the earliest L.O.L. Surprises came in.  As an aside, I'm noticing that fewer and fewer L.O.L. Surprises come in those pods.  Their abodes are more commonly reusable, like the Confetti Pop pod and the Under Wraps pod.  Indeed, I'd seen a few comments and complaints that L.O.L. pods were terribly likely to end up in the trash heap, meaning a lot of waste for one little toy.  Blume appears to be attempting to combat that with her reusable home, which is more than I can say for the O.M.G. dolls.

'Nuff stalling, let's make my Blume doll bloom.  Opening these dolls is a little more complicated than just popping open a box or ripping open a bag, though it's no more difficult.  Yes, complicated and difficult are different things.  Anywho, here's a list of the surprises (sort of), plus the instruction to "just add water!" to make Blume grow.

The back of the plastic had this to be seen...

...plus these two, with "wild hair that WOWS!"  Well...the blue-haired one isn't THAT wild, but the gal with the crystallized hair is another story!  I dig that!

The packaging attests that this watering can is one of the surprises, but it isn't much of a surprise when I can see it through the plastic on the top.

Just for the heck of it, here's the sticker on the bottom, with the company's logo and some of the trademark info.  Can't say that I'm all that familiar with Skyrocket, but it's a fitting name for these little toys since their hair shoots up like rockets.

Remove the exterior plastic and that cute heart-shaped cap on the top, and I've got the collector's guide.  One side shows the characters and their rarity (super rares Cleo and Skye are my favorites)...

...and thank goodness, the other side has opening instructions.

Right then, step 1.  Peel off this foil, just like opening a cup of yoghurt.  The foil has some vague illustrations that (I assume) warn the user not to add water to this part or to try opening the pot.

Peeling off the foil reveals a sheet of stickers that cover the paper layer.  These are for decorating the inside of the pot...or the outside, take your pick.

Remove these stickers and you've got your "dirt," made out of the paper.  This is where the blooming fun will transpire.  The process is a little messy and will definitely require the assistance of an adult, largely because our old friend water is involved.  Yep, you've actually got to water this top here...

...with the tiny watering can provided.  The can itself is made of soft, squishy vinyl and can be filled with water via full immersion.  Filling this can counts as step 2, and actually watering the "dirt" counts as step 3.

Step 4:  watch your doll blume, and if you're nuts like I am then you may try to sing as well.  I wish you'd open up for me, 'cause I wanna know you...Amaryllis!!!  LOL, Brent Smith I am not, but my Blume doll sprouted with no fuss and only a little amount of water.  I suspect that her springy hair is what allowed her to bust through the moistened paper.

Ooooo, blue hair!  I like the looks of this, y'all.  She's not Cleo or Noni, but I do like what I see so far!  Judging from the colors and the shape of this hair I'm assuming I've got either May or Nori.  As an aside, the protruding hair reminds me of the tiniest Zelfs, which were concealed in tiny flower pots like the Blume dolls are.  Y'all remember Zelfs???  Moose Toys made them, before they moved on to Shopkins and Capsule Chix.  I've got a Zelf myself, but her review was so long ago that I've even forgotten it!

LOL, I admit that I'd forgotten what a cute little goomer Elfa was, and I was the one who reviewed her!  I thought the Zelfs were adorable and would've liked to have had more of them, but after I saw Elfa and her first-wave friends I never saw any more Zelfs in this area.  Rather sad, especially considering one of the later Zelfs was a red panda Zelf.  If y'all hearken back to my Calico Critters post you'll recall that I love red pandas.  Oh well, Elfa can be on the welcoming committee for whoever is in that pot.  Step 5:  remove the doll all the way.

Good grief, she's wearing a cone of shame!  Unlike being banned from Facebook, a doll in an Elizabethan collar is a new one for me, though I suspect this is supposed to protect the doll from any drips...I guess?  I didn't use enough water to make the paper drip, so go figure there.  Having matched the colors, I've discovered that my doll is indeed May.

May falls under the "adorable" category, meaning that she's not rare.  Also notice that in the illustration May is dressed, but my doll is not.  Never fear, for I still have to crack this pot open (crack pot, LOL).  Here's what you're left with after bluming your doll.

Step 6:  Push in and turn.  This pot has a little indention on the seam that makes pushing easier.

Inside is the doll's "home," so to speak, plus the mechanism that allows the doll to blume.  It looks a little like a robotic cow's udder.  Removing that thing is step 7.

The "udder" is spring-loaded, like so.  These springs, along with May's hair, allow her to "blume."

Now, at first I thought this was meant to be thrown away, and I started railing about how wasteful that is.  This mechanism is next to impossible to dismantle for recycling (not that I usually bother with that), but luckily it is reusable.  It can come apart and more paper can be loaded, so the bluming process can be done all over again if one knows what they're doing.  So so far there's not a lot of waste here.  I pulled out the paper, the foil, and the plastic and pitched that, but so far that's all.

And if y'all can believe it, I've completed the listed steps!  I've still got items concealed, but those were the steps!  LOL, not as hard as I thought it would be!  Anywho, one side of May's pot has a closet and a basket that conceal her outfit and pet...

...and the other side has her mirror.  This is taped in place because it detaches and doubles as a stand for the doll.

I undid the paper covering the closet, revealing May's jumpsuit and shoes (having seen her illustration, these weren't much of a surprise anymore).

The basket contains this little chap.  He is...a scallop with arms and legs???  Mmmkay...that's not biologically accurate.  He's cute, though.  I wonder what his name is?

When I undid the tape holding the stand in place I found a little purse concealed in there.  That WAS a surprise!

Alrighty, here's May all put together!

Time to review her now!  Blume dolls are not terribly big.  I thought they'd be roughly the height of a Shopkins Shoppie or a Strawberry Shortcake doll or a Hairdorables doll (notice that I've added Psycho JoJo Siwa to my Hairdorables collection), but they're actually quite a bit smaller.  May's hair makes her look taller than she really is, just like Lime Chiffon's hat does.

She's quite a bit taller than Elfa, hair and all, and she's quite a bit shorter than the long-defunct Novi Starz (Malie Tasker is shown).

The larger L.O.L. Surprises are of a comparable height to May, but their measurements render clothes sharing out.  The L.O.L.'s in question are Spice and Li'l Babydoll.

My mini Shopkins (Coco Cookie and Sunny Meadows) are also fairly close to May in height and scale...

 ...as is Peppa Mint's pet, Minty Paws.

These Blume dolls also remind me a bit of Li'l Secrets, a blind bag doll that I was once very fond of.  Their body positions and their towering hairstyles are similar, and both lines rely on bright colors and a surprise element.  However, May doesn't store her surprises in her hair like the Li'l Secrets did.  No, as I noted above, this hair can come off, leaving this cute blue bun underneath.

 

Paint job looks good!  Now...time to delve into another of Moony's idiosyncrasies, though I know for a fact that I'm not alone with this one.  I've never mentioned this before, but I love squishies.  I probably would have a collection of these, but I need another collection of stuff "like I need another butt tacked on," as my mother would say.  Nevertheless I love squishies, and I'm delighted that May's hair doubles as a squishy.  When I took off her hair I was surprised to find that it's lined with a small strip of paper.

 Here's a better look at the hair from the front and the back.

May's hair is made out of dense foam rubber.  It's soft, but not as squishy as I had thought it would be.  I was expecting something along the lines of a Smooshy Mushy, but this hair falls between a stress ball and Little Apple Red in terms of softness (remember I said that Little Apple Red was pretty firm).  This hair is not as fun to squeeze as I thought it would be, but it's still soft and smooth and fairly pleasant to touch.  Plus, with the hair being this firm it'll be harder for some destructive little brat to pinch plugs out of it.  I voiced that concern back when the foam-headed Lala-Oopsies were a thing back in 2012 (posts are here and here).  Even though this foam is firm, I can still squeeze it pretty well.

Y'know, it's fun to go back and reread some of my old posts, just to see how the toy market has changed over the years, and to see how my writing style has evolved/devolved.  Anywho, May has an ocean/beach theme and her hair shows that.  It's sky blue and curls at the top like a wave, and it has some seaweed and a starfish molded and painted on the front.

I wish there were a little more seaweed molded all the way around, because...well...just because!  I like the way this shade of green looks with this watery blue.  I like how sandy the starfish looks too, though in truth I think this texture may be imperfections in the foam or in the paint itself, but I love how this makes the starfish look more real.  In real life starfish are spiny and rough (hence why they're classed as echinoderms like sea urchins are), and this paint does a pretty good job of showing that.  Oh, I probably should add that the wig cap is not foam at all, but rather firm, blue vinyl.

Now...I'm fairly pleased with this hair, though it's not as soft as I'd like, but unfortunately softness and firmness are not the main problem with the hair.  It's heavy...or at least it's heavy for a doll May's size.  Oh sure, May came with a stand...

...and the stand fits into the holes in her shoes just fine...

...but the fit is not a tight one, and when May is wearing her hair she just tips out of her stand like so.

I can't really think of a way for Skyrocket to remedy this except to make the foam hair a little lighter, but doing that might make it harder for these dolls to blume.  Indeed, it was largely this stiff hair that allowed May to bust through that paper in the first place!  So Skyrocket may need to think that one over a bit.  Either the stand needs to be heavier or the doll herself needs to be heavier...garn, that's a tricky one to solve.  It doesn't help that May's neck joint is wobbly, making it nearly impossible for me to get her hair properly balanced.  May's neck is a ball joint, but it largely just turns.

 The larger L.O.L. Surprises have better motion in their necks than Blume dolls do...or at least that's the case with Spice and May.

May is also jointed at the shoulders and hips, and just look at how delicate her arms and hands are!  They're not fragile, but they ARE little.

And yet her right hand is molded in a grasping position so she can hold that cute purse.

Not solidly; it doesn't take a lot of jarring to knock that purse free, but May CAN hold it.  That's more than I can say for Peppa Mint, who just dangles her purse over her stiff little arm like this.

Yeah...Shoppies have gotten better since Peppa was available, but I wasn't impressed enough by Peppa to buy any more of them.  However, I will note that Peppa's stand keeps her on her feet.

But then again, Peppa's hair isn't as heavy as May's is.  Oh well, I'm supposed to be talking about joints, not Shoppies.  May's dainty little arms have rotational movement, meaning that she can wave them around a little.  She cannot move them out to the side, nor would I expect her to with arms this little.

Look at these fingers!  When's the last time y'all saw fingers on a doll hand this tiny?

May's hips are a bit more robustly constructed, and I was hoping that they would have some side-to-side motion, but they don't.  May can do splits and sit, but only when she's in her skivvies.  Her clothes restrict her leg movement.  She DOES have joints there, though.  See?

Dig these feet!  At least those dinky little hands have individual fingers!

I reckon those would classify as nubbin feet, just like the Lalaloopsy dolls used to have!  No nail polish or anything to even suggest toes!

Y'all know what?  I forgot to do May's face!  Here's a closeup of what she looks like in the face.  Her features are a little catlike.

Everything is rather simply painted, devoid of the layers of color that other toys have, but simple does not mean boring.  Dig these eyes!

I would've expected deep blue eyes, but May's eyes and eyeshadow are mint green.  Her eyelashes are very heavy and very black, and her pupils are huge with three little light clusters that thankfully face in the same direction.  Her eyeshadow is leafy, but because it's a different shade from the leaves in her hair it looks more like celery tops (yucko, I hate celery) than seaweed.  Her rather crude eyebrows are brown which is a hair disappointing.  I wish they were blue or dark green like her hair.  I make that complaint a lot, and I know that blue eyebrows are a bit bizarre-sounding, but look how cohesive Peppa and Rayne are with their exotic eyebrows.

Oh yeah, I also added Rayne (Rayne Coat, to be exact) to my Hairdorables collection.  I'm patiently waiting for the boys to start appearing around here, as they're mega-cute.  Anyway, the lower half of May's face is pretty sparse, with just this mouth.

Coral lips with a black line to suggest the mouth itself.  While I wouldn't have picked this color (I probably would've gone for something a little louder, LOL), the paint edges are very clean here and do a good job of suggesting lips.  And also, that soft pink flatters May's skin pretty well (she's fairly pale) and doesn't look washed out like the lips of some of my other dolls do.  So this face is pretty good, but it unfortunately doesn't convey a lot of personality.  May's eyes convey a little sauciness, but her mouth and eyebrows don't follow that.  Furthermore, I've already run into a couple of comments deriding the heavily made-up eyes as creepy, though they're probably the ones that think ALL dolls have the Annabelle factor.

Clothes now.  It probably should be obvious that May can't wear a thing that I've got on hand, so I'm thankful that she had something hidden in her flowerpot home.  In addition to the purse, May wears a dusty rose-colored jumpsuit and neon yellow shoes.

I love how unabashedly these items clash, but I wish May had a necklace or something to tie the shoes in with the jumpsuit.  That's one of the few things I CAN do for this tiny doll (sewing is out of the question for that dinky little body).  Anyway, all of these items are made of soft, flexible vinyl.  They have no painted details, kind of a bummer, but they fit May well and cover her painted little undies.  Unfortunately the jumpsuit is too stiff for May to sit.  If I do try to seat her in these, this happens.

Yep, these gap open, just like the clothes on L.O.L. Surprises.  I don't like this method of putting clothes on the dolls, but I can see no other easy way on a body this little.  Plus, May does have painted skivvies.  Most of my L.O.L.'s do not, and their bare butt cheeks show when their clothes gap open, so May and her Blume cronies have that much on them.  The shoes are cute little strappy numbers that fit a little loosely but do not fall off at the drop of a hat.

The purse does fall off easily, but again I can't think of a proper way to remedy this, and I'm just glad that May can hold something with that tiny hand.  I'm still pretty impressed with that.  I usually gripe about molding, by the way, and I'm pleased to say that everything here is well molded, with no big plastic tags anywhere.  The jumpsuit has a tie molded on the neck, plus little branches all over.

Mmmm, looks like something I'd like to wear on a hot summer day.  I do wish some of those details were painted, but I can always drag out my own paint and do that myself.  I may do that in the future with some neon yellow paint.  I may do that with the purse too, since it's got little stars molded on.  Everyone knows that stars should be yellow!

Let's look briefly at May's home before we wrap things up.  I'm sorry to report that there's no sleeping space or chair (that would've been cute to at least look at), but she does have her closet and her basket for Mr. Scallop.

I thought it might be cute for Mr. Scallop or whatever his danged name is to sit in his basket and peep out, but alas, the basket is too deep for this.

The other side, where the stand goes, is hollow.  I put the mirror inside there, but I probably should've put that on the OUTSIDE...y'know, where mirrors actually go???

Way to go, Moony (LOL).  The rest of the stickers I placed on the top, where there's a bit of a lip that simulates a shelf.

And...that's really all I can think of to say.  Good stuff/bad stuff time.

BAD
*Hair is heavy.  I make a big deal about this since Blume focuses pretty heavily on hair.  The provided stand is very little help here.
*Blind bag component is a little complicated and a smidge messy.  If you have kids, you'll want to supervise them during the bluming process.
*Doll itself is rather simple, though she does have some nice movement in a few places (see below).
*Clothes are stiff and unpainted; my particular doll can't sit down while dressed.  Clothes sharing is impossible given May's small size. 
*Surprises aren't really too surprising, though I doubt that'll bother a child terribly.
*NOT FOR SMALL CHILDREN!!!!  The package says three years and up, but I'd extend that to six years and up.  May's shoes, purse, and pet can all easily be swallowed or choked on.  And for that matter, why bother with a pet in the first place???  Monster High pets were at least substantial little figurines, while May's pet is not.

GOOD
*New spin on the blind bag thing, and a cute one!  Admittedly the smallest Zelfs also came in flowerpots, but they didn't "grow."
*Package can be reused, provided someone knows how to put it back together (that part is tricky).
*Hair is soft enough to make a nice plaything in its own right, but not so soft that some little kid could easily destroy it.
*Hair and clothes can be switched around among the dolls, making for some decent mix-and-match opportunities.
*May is surprisingly well-articulated for such a small doll, though her clothes make her hips immobile.  She can even grip her purse.
*Paint on the face is smooth, even, and colorful, and I love those eyes.
*Shoes don't fall off easily.  I hate doll shoes that fall off!

Overall I think these Blume dolls are pretty average.  A lot of the fun comes out of "bluming" them and seeing what character is inside, not terribly unlike the surprises that Li'l Secrets contained.  I remember being fond of Li'l Secrets when I was small, but after their hair was opened I didn't do much with them.  They just...stood on my nightstand and looked cute.  I can do more with May than I could have with the Li'l Secrets because May has joints, meaning that I could take her out and try to pose her in a tree or among some flowers.  But unfortunately her stiff clothes and heavy hair make that very difficult as well.  Yeah, I'm aware that I can just prop her up against the tree, but there's only so many poses that look good that way.  So at the moment May is nestled in her pot making my nightstand look cute, just as my Li'l Secrets did some twenty years ago.  Blume dolls are fine for children over the age of six, but I don't think I'll bother getting another one unless they do some tripped out gimmick like glow-in-the-dark hair.  Hey, you never know!

Since I now have nothing to do on Facebook I'll be hitting the blog pretty hard, so keep your eyes peeled for a couple more posts over the coming week.  They're old things that I bought months ago, and indeed I had rudimentary reviews cobbled together already, but they're still worth a looksie.  Sooooo...stay tuned!

Love,
RagingMoon1987