Barbie Extra Minis #4 review

Another week has begun, but since it's my day off I care naught.  Well...take that back, I care some, but only because I'm tired of staying home.  Granted, it was week before last that I had to stay in, but it threw my whole rhythm off and I'm only now getting back into a routine.  Having to miss last Thursday due to the ice didn't help much.  Anyway, before I got sick I paid a visit to the local Wal-Mart and the shelves of the toy section were as bare as a hippie's feet, with just the same old Fashionistas and Rainbow High characters in the same old spots they were in before Christmas.  I like some of the new Rainbow High characters enuff to buy one of them, but in keeping with MGA Entertainment's theme they are EXPENSIVE!!!  Robin Sterling is my favorite of the new ones, with her deep skin providing an interesting contrast to her pale blue signature color.  But since I just bought Justin and Rosemary I'm holding off on the Wal-Mart stuff...sort of.  This young lady attracted my attention with her short size and and joints.  

This line is apparently fairly new and is a companion line to the larger Barbie Extra dolls.  Like the Extras, the Minis are numbered.  My Extra doll is #5 ("Tano," as I call her), the Mini is #4 ("Hyacinth"), and pardon the terrible lighting, as #5 is hard to photograph.

Oh, the Extras are fun!  When I saw #5 and her cronies in stores I feared they'd be a one-off, but they're not and I'm glad.  One YouTuber stated that these dolls are like the ones of the early and mid-nineties, with their elaborate outfits and accessories, but I'll add that their hair and faces offer more diversity.  My doll Tano is from the first wave, and I don't know how many waves there have been since then, but I know there have been a few.  My favorites so far have been these two, #5 and #9.

Both rainbow-themed, what a shock.  If y'all know me then y'all know that I love rainbows.  The Minis are significantly smaller, as seen above, and it might've been cute if they'd been smaller versions of the larger dolls, but...they're not.  As far as I know, none of the Extra dolls look like Hyacinth.  If the local Wal-Mart had had Mini #3 I'd have gotten her instead since she has blue hair and would've made a good companion for Iota, who has exuberant blue hair.

But #4 is all Wally World had.  #4 with the Mattel standard look (blonde hair and blue eyes).  Tano's box had some basic information on the back about the Barbie Extra line, but Hyacinth's box didn't.

Out of that box, now!  Hyacinth is taller than my Dolly Darlings doll Camilla, and closer in size to Chelsea.

As with Camilla I ended up with the blue-eyed blonde, and for a little doll Hyacinth has a lot of hair.  It falls to the floor.

It's light blonde with darker blonde lowlights, sorta like the hair one might find on a beach-themed doll.  It has minimal styling, no bangs, and a center part.  The rooting is about what one might expect for a Mattel doll.  In other words, meant to hold the style it's designed for, and maybe a ponytail, but definitely NOT pigtails!  And WHY is this doll's scalp brown???  Not that it shows terribly, but I'd think a light yellow scalp would've been more fitting.  Yeah, pigtails are definitely out for Hyacinth.

Awww, who needs pigtails anyway?  Overall that hair is par for the course for Mattel dolls and kinda boring for a Barbie Extra doll.  See Tano's rainbow braids?

Sheesh, I'm glad I don't have hair like that!  I'll bet Tano spends plenty of time and money at the beauty shop getting her hair done like that!  By the way, Tano does have pigtails, and her part looks okay.

Just for the record, the Chelsea doll also has pigtails, and her part is okay.

Basically if your doll's hair is meant to be parted in back, it'll be rooted as such.  It took me years to learn that, believe it or not.  Tano's hair isn't perfect, by the way; it has a few gaps here and there, nothing super-glaring, but they're there.

Through one gap it's possible to see Tano's scalp, and hers is even more goofy than Hyacinth's.  

I think I'll stick with Hyacinth's brown scalp, thank y'all too much.  Regarding the face, Hyacinth has the cartoonish face common to a good many small Mattel dolls, both past and present.

I'm not the only one to notice these similarities.  Recently Miss Emily reviewed the Cave Club and noted that a lot of Mattel's dolls have a face like those.  Having looked over some of my reviews (and a couple'a hers) I can see what she means.  See how Jessa Jellyfish, Hyacinth, and Fernessa all have somewhat elfin faces?

Princess Malucia has a face like this too (strange, since she's supposed to be a villain), as do Ever After High's Pixies.  They all have Bratz-esque eyes and small, sweetly smiling mouths, with wide cheeks and narrow jaws thrown into the mix.  The Cave Club dolls have more personality in their faces than Jessa and Hyacinth do, and given that Mattel is playing with more and more heads for the main Barbie line, the lack of diversity in the Extra Minis line is a bummer.  Hyacinth appears to have dodged the sloppy paint bullet, though (remember that Jessa did not), and she has the Mattel blue eyes that we're all growing familiar with.

Big and oblong, with dark eyeliner and copious lashes, and surprisingly thick, bushy eyebrows.  These eyebrows are kinda like Cave Club eyebrows, only minus the stripes.  I'm not in love with the tiger stripes in Tella's eyebrows, but I prefer them greatly over Hyacinth's minimalist paint blocks.

I have megabrows myself so I appreciate this.  It makes the dolls look less sleek and polished and more...well, more relatable, I guess.  No one, but no one, has perfect eyebrows unless they put a lot of work into them...like Barbie apparently does...or doesn't.  Now that I look at Tano and Iota, both of them have sizeable eyebrows.  I can dig that.

Hyacinth's lips are bubblegum pink and are painted in a calm, Mona Lisa-style smile, kinda like those of the last My Twinn I brought in, Rosemary.

I tend to think of smiles like this as a variant of the "Pan Am smile," the kind that people give when they're trying to be polite but aren't genuinely happy.  But, as I noted above, the paint is applied straight.  Remember that Jessa's lips shifted in between stampings, giving her a slight case of double lips.

Hyacinth avoided that, thankfully.  Overall she's got average-good face paint.  Nothing sloppy, but nothing fancy either.  She avoids the pixels that plagued Jessa...and Tano and Iota as well, now that I'm looking closely.

It's easier to see the pixels in the closeups that I shared a few paragraphs back.  Drat, why am I just now noticing those???  Oh yeah, Purple Monkfish pointed it out in a recent review.  Her Barbie Signature Looks doll has this very natural, very precise paint, free of pixels and free of lipstick that looks like paint.  Tano and Iota have attractive faces and colorful makeup, and admittedly the pixels are only visible up close, but they're definitely there.  Anyway, Hyacinth avoids the pixels, but her makeup still looks...well, like paint.  I guess that's to be expected since Tano, Iota, and Hyacinth are all toys, while the Barbie Looks dolls are more for collectors.  I noticed that when the Barbie Basics were a thing; they're intended for collectors, and their paint is a smidge nicer than the paint of the toy dolls.

Regarding clothes, these Extra dolls have some outrageous garb, not unlike some styles one might encounter on the streets of Tokyo.  Some of them look very well put-together, and then some of them look ridiculous.  My doll looks better than most, for example, but no way would I pair shorts that short with a fringed jacket and high-heeled boots.

Frankly, I wouldn't pair shorts with anything, but that's because I've got battleship hips (LOL).  Anyway, Hyacinth looks to me like she's not quite dressed fully.  She wears a fluffy hooded minidress and matching boots.

When I put my American Girls in a fluffy top like that I usually pair it with jeans or leggings, mainly because fluffy tops are usually worn during winter.  I guess Hyacinth didn't think that way; she IS a blonde, after all.  Anyway, this style is not unlike Japanese street style, as I noted above, with the addition of a cutesy belt and some accessories.  But let's break this down.  The main dress is a fluffy lavender dress...my bad, the belt had me fooled into thinking this was a dress.  It's actually a top and a matching skirt.

Why on Earth wasn't the skirt a different fabric?  That would be more in tune with the mix-and-match style that these Extras have.  Oh well, can't have everything, I guess.  Hyacinth's jacket has full sleeves and a partial hood.

I say a partial hood because it doesn't cover Hyacinth's whole head.  I know that toy companies design hoods like this to accommodate hairstyles, but it still seems counterproductive to have a hood like this, particularly when the point of a hood is to cover one's head, hairstyles be danged.  The hood does have little ears though, and that's cute.

The interior of the sweater looks like it's lined, but I don't know if that's an actual lining or just the back of this fabric.  The sweater does have little knitted cuffs on the sleeves, giving them more of a finished look.

The skirt is a trapezoid of the same fabric.  It's...a skirt.  No more, no less.

Both the skirt and the sweater fasten in back with what else?  Velcro.

On her feet Hyacinth wears high-heeled lace-up boots.  These are lavender like her dress and have painted laces.

Painted laces!!!  Imagine that!  Mattel isn't big on doing that for their dolls nowadays, as Tano shows.

I get it, I get it, laces are tricky to paint, but Hyacinth's shoes show that it can be done.  Not that the laces serve any purpose, since these shoes slip on and off.  Like many doll shoes, these have slits in the back for the ease of removal.

Sometimes slits don't help at all.  I forget how many times I've popped myself in the face while trying to pull off Mosi's boots, for example, and her boots have slits.  In Hyacinth's case I don't think the slits are necessary, since her shoes are rubbery enuff to pop off without much effort.

In many cases the accessories are what pull an outfit together.  In Hyacinth's case the accessories serve a different purpose; since her sweater and skirt match the accessories help break up the monotony.  Perched on her head (and plastic-tacked to her head) are these big black sunglasses.  They have hearts on the lenses!  I'd wear something like that in a heartbeat.

Like many but not all good Barbie dolls Hyacinth wears earrings.  I think these are permanently attached, though I didn't pull too hard to find out for certain.  These are made of silver plastic and have the word "queen" in script.  These earrings look like they'd weigh a ton in real life.

Hyacinth's hair clip was attached to her hood, and it comes on and off with ease.  It's a simple plastic bumble bee.  I can live with that, since I love bees.  The plastic is pretty flexible, but don't push it!

Indeed, the bee clip made me wish that Hyacinth's glasses had a bee theme, but then I took a closer look at her belt.  It appears to be a belt/purse hybrid, and it's got a teddy bear on it.

The belt even has molded stitching in places.  Not a detail one often sees on Mattel dolls anymore.

Now let's see Hyacinth without clothes.  For the record, she does have molded panties, but as usual they don't show very well.

For such a little doll Hyacinth has an impressive amount of joints, though her neck is not the most impressive of those joints.  It only rotates, and as it rotates it looks more up, like a great many doll necks do.

Hyacinth's hips are a little more promising, though she can't do side-to-side splits any better than I can.  She can cross her legs a little bit, though.

Hyacinth can't achieve front-to-back splits either, but that's due to the cut of her torso, not a lack of flexibility in the joint.  Hyacinth can sit with no problems, though I neglected to show that.

Despite having skinny little arms, Hyacinth's elbows are jointed.  They bend a little past ninety degrees...

...and they hyperextend a little as well.

The elbows also have some rotational movement.  Out...

...and in.

Hyacinth's dainty little wrists are not jointed, nor would I really expect them to be since there's not a lot of space there to accommodate a joint.  Her hands are similar to the "chop-chop" style of hands seen on some jointed Barbie dolls (straight wrists and straight fingers), and yee-ouchie!  Those fingertips look sharp!

Hyacinth's shoulders are your typical Barbie shoulders with the ball joints.  Back and forth...

...and out to the side.  Field goal is no good!

Hyacinth's knees are jointed like her elbows, with both bending and rotating motion.  Her knees don't bend as sharply as her elbows do, but they do rotate.  In...

...and out.  Ouch, twisted knees!

Hyacinth's feet are little and dainty, like her hands.  Thankfully her toes don't look as sharp as her fingers.

I have my doubts about clothes sharing since Hyacinth is a small doll, but a little bit of sharing can be done between her and the Chelsea doll.  Hyacinth's skirt is tight on Chelsea, and her jacket didn't fit over Chelsea's larger hands.  Chelsea's skirt fits Hyacinth almost perfectly.

This is what I mean when I said I wished the skirt was different from the top.  Since Chelsea's skirt has a heart print it coordinates well with the sunglasses, while Hyacinth's boots and sweater match.  Mattel could've played around with Hyacinth's ensemble more instead of making it all matchy-matchy, and I think that's a shame.

On the good side, all four of these Minis come with rather large stands, stands that both hold them up and elevate them about half an inch.  I don't know if all of these dolls have stands in this color, but Hyacinth's is a bright, deep pink, almost red.

This is kinda like the stands the Monster High dolls came with!  It came in three pieces that snap together with no problems.  The stand is labeled "Barbie Extra Minis" on both the base...

...and just above the waist grip.

The grip holds Hyacinth right were her sweater and skirt divide, so it doesn't interfere with her clothes.  That was sometimes a problem with Monster High stands, especially when the doll in question was wearing a full skirt.  It also grasps Hyacinth tightly, not so tight that taking her off the stand is a pain, but tight enuff that she doesn't fall off all the time, like the La Dee Da dolls did.  Mercy, has it been almost ten years since I reviewed Cyanne???  How time does fly!

That about covers it!  Time to wrap it up!

BAD
*Blonde, blue-eyed, boring, though that's my fault for choosing a blonde, blue-eyed boring.
*Hair can't be styled much, especially in any style that requires a part.
*Expression is a little blank, just like the other three Minis.
*Clothes are too matchy!  This source claims that these dolls come with "two detailed fashions," but that's not the case!  If Hyacinth HAD come with two I could've broken up all that purple a bit.  But again, that's the fault of false advertising, not the doll herself.
*Can't share clothes with many other dolls.  Chelsea couldn't wear Hyacinth's sweater.

GOOD
*Hair is the right length to play with, but can still be combed and tamed if it tangles.
*Joints feel sturdy.  Joints are always a gamble on a doll, but this time they paid off.
*Furthermore, the joints hold a pose well.  I didn't show this above, but Hyacinth can touch her face and her hair.
*Clothes feel well-made.  Clothes aren't the easiest thing to make for a doll this size, but Mattel got it done.
*Face paint is clear, free of foibles, and is only minimally pixelated.
*Came with a stand!  More dolls need those!
*Can share some skirts with Chelsea, though Hyacinth's skirt was tight on my Chelsea doll.

Of the four Minis, I had the misfortune to grab the weakest one.  Oh, don't get me wrong, Hyacinth is a nice little addition to my collection.  But when compared to her other Minis, all of whom had more mix-and-match options to their outfits, and one of whom had blue hair and purple lips, Hyacinth kinda fades into the background.  That being said, among my own collection of small dolls Hyacinth stands out.  She can strike poses that the others can't, and while she can't stand on her own she has a stand to help with that.  So Hyacinth isn't a bad little doll, but I recommend discretion with her as I do almost all my dolls.  If you can, pick the one that stands out the most to you, not the one that the store happens to have.  Don't be like me and grab the first thing you see, LOL.  And if you or anyone you know happens to be a seamstress, whip up some skirts for Hyacinth and Chelsea to share.  That's what I plan on doing!

Happy Monday,
RagingMoon1987