Oh, there are so many things wrong with this doll's name. Good thing names are easy to change. Greetings, readers, it's the Moon Girl, and Christmas is just around the corner! The #FailFix dolls have already been around a couple'a months and have made the rounds on YouTube, with just about everyone saying that these dolls will make great Christmas gifts, so I'm going to review mine too. Moose Toys is the juggernaut driving these dolls, and the tagline is "take over the makeover," which is a pretty good tagline for what the owner has to do with these dolls. Basically the doll has tried to give herself a makeover, the makeover has failed miserably, and it's our job to turn the "fail" into a "win." There are five six of these dolls as of writing, each one with a mystery face and a mystery outfit, and for once I jumped on the bandwagon and picked the most popular doll of the bunch.
I admit that @Kawaii.Qtee ties with @Dance.Stylz as my favorite of these, because Dance has minibraids. I'd been hoping that minibraids would start appearing on dolls, and to my delight, they are. Barbie has them, at least one of the L.O.L. O.M.G.s has them, and now Dance.Stylz does too. But ugh, THESE NAMES!!! I know they're supposed to simulate handle names like the ones we all use on certain social media platforms, but I hate forced trendiness! Even when I was the target age of these dolls I was eschewing cutesy consonants and dumb misspellings of words...but then again, social media wasn't a thing when I was the target age of these dolls. Beanie Babies were a thing then, and everyone was afraid of Y2K instead of coronavirus. Anyway, since I'm in no hurry to start battling with this box, I'm gonna stall some and show y'all what the back of it looks like.
On the back Kawaii-whatever-her-name-is exclaims that her kawaii look is "ka-WHAT," specifying that her cutie buns are "BOTCHED" and her makeup is "a FLOP." The box also gives some rudimentary ideas of what the doll should look like when she's flipped, but the bottom right corner is what most collectors pay attention to.
According to this there are three possible makeup designs underneath her mask (mask? yeah, we'll get to that), and three possible dresses underneath her robe. The evening styles are the ones that everyone seems to want, and I'll admit that it would please me to get that look. As an aside, Monkfish noted that the artwork on this doll's dress looks eerily like the artwork of Miss Kika, who does indeed do artwork very similar to the figures on these dresses. I can see the similarities between the dolls and the art, but I'm on the fence as to whether the doll is a direct ripoff of Miss Kika's work. It definitely looks that way, but...well, we'll see. I understand that Miss Kika has called Moose Toys out on this, so we'll just have to see where that goes. It should be noted that Miss Kika herself copied Hello Kitty, but maybe she had permission to do so. I dunno. EDIT, 5/10/21: see the comments section for an elaboration on this issue. Apparently Miss Kika designed that art for Sanrio, meaning that Moose stole from both of them! That should get interesting! End edit.
One last thing before I attack this box. I know that the face the doll is wearing is supposed to have messed-up makeup, but when I saw her lips I thought she had a paint gaffe. See the line on her left upper lip?
Turns out that's intentional! That's pretty clever.
Alright, time to quit bazooing and try to get this box open. I am not looking forward to this. Before I do open her, I'll point out that her robe...
...is naught but a piece of plastic and will probably come off with the packaging. I wish the robe was a real garment, and everyone else and their dog seems to think the same thing. NOW let's start tearing this open.
I actually didn't have a hard time getting this box open, though I admit that I cheated and used scissors. If I hadn't used scissors it would've been the worst experience I'd ever had, as the back of the box was solidly glued to the plastic front. Parents, if you're planning on getting one of these for your kids, be prepared to step in for the box opening, because I doubt a child could do that part on their own. Now...let's take a moment to embrace the doll's mayhem before I start flipping her.
Indeed, I had to reveal her dress in order to get her all the way out of the box. It's the day variant.
I was kind of hoping I'd get the sparkle variant since I've only seen examples of day wear and a few elusive night styles as well. Regarding the hair, I wonder how much gel went into that outrageous hairstyle? And if you're wondering, yeah, I'm gonna have to comb all that crap out. I may just take the quitter's way out and stick her under the faucet, but let's look at this first. Her earrings are caught in her hair, and so are her shoes.
She also has three clips in her hair, plus the earrings, which are the little do-dads stuck in the hair beside the clips...
...and a necklace!
I've gotten my earrings and necklaces tangled in my hair before (and in other peoples' hair too, LOL), and I've hit myself in the face with a shoe before, in a moment of record-breaking clumsiness, but I've never gotten a shoe caught in my hair. So yeah, this doll is pretty fail, at least in the hairdo. I have to admit, though: her fail face is pretty cute, screwed up makeup and all.
I love her "eff my life" smirk! As I have noted in the past, I love smirking dolls since I have a smirk myself, but this doll is not going to keep her smirk (I'll have to get
@SlayitDJ if I want one that permanently smirks). Remember when I said that these dolls have masks? This is the edge of it, seen from behind the doll. It wraps around her whole face and covers her ears.
Just looking at that thing makes me gasp for breath, the way I do after stepping out of Wal-Mart and yanking off my coronavirus mask. I feel sorry for folks who have to wear those darned things all day. Anyway, in order to get the fail face off and let this doll catch her breath I have to use this.
Cool, a bubble mask! I have to snap this on over her ears and then pull it off again, and that supposedly takes the fail face with it. This mechanism has worked well on the YouTube videos that I've watched, so hopefully it'll work for me too. Snap on the bubble mask...yeesh, Monkfish said these dolls looked like Hannibal Lecter when they were wearing these, and...well, they're not quite as scary, but my dolly does look uncomfortable.
"Mmppphzzz!!!"
Let's get that thing off her!
Hey, it worked! The fail face is attached to the inside of the bubble mask. What does she have underneath?
Awwww, she has a sweet face! It's the day look, to go with her day dress. The sparkle look has a lot of...well, sparkle, and the night look sports lavender lips. Monkfish has a nice example of the sparkle face. Now I take her hair down and she'll be ready for a name and a review!
The end result? One cute, though slightly damp, doll.
I was able to get most of the crap combed out of her hair with no fuss,
but it wouldn't lie flat so I tossed her in the sink and rubbed Dawn over her hair until it felt clean. I recommend doing that with all of these dolls, since leftover hair gel can be a magnet for dust, and it can also leach over the doll's head and cause discoloration, like it did with my poor C.A. Cupid.
Poor Cupid, I haven't tried to wash that crap off yet. To avoid this with your #FailFix doll I recommend giving her a hairwash after you're done combing the tangles out. Don't submerge her; just a few minutes with dish soap and warm water on her head is fine. Now that that's out of the way, this doll bears a passing resemblance to both Violet Willow and my unreviewed Project MC2 doll, McKeyla McAlister. The lavender hair and the inset eyes are the main similarities here.
"I'm smart. Get over it."
Don't make me slap you, sister. Ahem...the young lady who played McKeyla in the web series was named
Mika, which sounds like a good name for my #FailFix doll. In the actress's case "Mika" is short for "Mikayla," but I like just "Mika" for my doll. But enough about names, let's get back to hair. Mika's hair needed a wash, and in order to get her cutie buns properly installed I had to pull it back. Here's how it looks.
Looks a little like lavender cotton candy! The fibers feel...well, synthetic. Not soft like Skyler's hair, but not slightly wiry like Shizuka's either. Since certain kawaii fashions include a lot of hair clips, Mika has a few. She's got a blue star, a pink bow, and a yellow heart. These are plastic, and the clip part has turned white along the site where it bends, so these clips may not stand up to a lot of wear and rough play.
Mika's cutie buns clip on too, and I'm very glad they do.
Sunny Madison also sports cutie buns, and while my doll's hair is holding up nicely I predict that they could grow messy with time. Anyway, Mika's cutie buns clip in place. They're made of flocked plastic and look a little bit like fuzzy lavender blackberries.
I'll note right here and now that the rooting isn't all that great. Like Shizuka and Violet Willow she has quite a few bald spots when her hair is parted.
If Mika's hair hung loose like McKeyla's and Shizuka's did then the roots wouldn't bother me much, but her instructions say to pull the hair back, and the hair is clearly not rooted for this style to look 100% right. I left the ponytail loose to cover the roots, and Mika's dirty little secret is subsequently hidden, but the only really nice rooting areas are in the hairline and in the part, just like Shizuka's hair.
The fibers are average-good. They feel a little coarse and cheap in places, but I think that may be my own fault (I don't think all the hair gel is gone, LOL). The clean areas are smooth and manageable, with the slightest bit of wave left over from the "fail" style. For the record, the fail style was pretty easy to comb out. Start at the tips, like you would with your own hair, and gently brush until all the crap is gone. If the hair still wants to stand on end like Mika's did, wash it the way I suggested above. Not terrible hair overall, just a little on the thin side. And by the way...remember the pink hairbands that I used to tie back Shizuka's hair?
They came with Mika. There were four of them all told. The third one is holding back Mika's hair...
...and the fourth one went to my
Boxy Girl, Riley.
Mika's face is heavily stylized, sort of like other current dolls. She's not anywhere near as moon faced as Shizuka and Skyler are, though.
I've seen folks online claiming that the #FailFix dolls are Moose Toys' answer to the Rainbow High dolls, and while Mika isn't as moon faced as the RH dolls are, there are some similarities. The eyes are the most notable similarity, as both dolls have inset eyes with long inset eyelashes and heavy eye makeup.
Ooop, my mistake, Mika's eyelashes are NOT inset, nor are they mere strips of paint. They appear to have been molded onto her eyelids! Never have I seen that before!
Mika's eyes are well-set, and I love the soft colors of her eye makeup, but her eyes are not as clear as those belonging to the Rainbow High dolls (Violet Willow's eyes are shown).
Mika's eyes have these weird concentric ridges, rather like ripples on a pond.
Up close it's also possible to see some cracks and chips in the eye paint. It's not visible from a normal distance, but it's definitely there. I hope that doesn't mean the paint will chip up and flake off as Mika ages.
Mika's mouth is two shades of pink, plus some darker pink areas that act as shadowing. She has a few teeth visible as well.
Up close the paint on Mika's mouth looks a little grainy, but in real life it reminds me a little of the paint on a ball-jointed doll's mouth. This paint job doesn't have the detailing that a BJD's mouth would, but it's smooth, shiny, glossy paint that looks very becoming. As with Skyler Bradshaw, Mattel could learn a thing or two from this paint job.
The bodies are where we run into a little fun. Mika is slim and jointed (hooray for joints!), and her drawers are painted on, just like Rainbow High drawers.
Interestingly, these dolls have different body shapes. Monkfish has counted three different sizes and notes that there are two dolls with each size: two are curvy, two are slim, and two are petite, as she puts it. Mika is in the petite category and shares a body with the deluxe doll of the bunch,
@2Dreami. Lordy, I hate these names! Stupid names aside, I may have made a wise decision picking Mika; if she has the same body as 2Dreami then they can share clothes. This is significant because Dreami has two outfits instead of just one. She also has a fabric robe, which shows that it COULD have been done for all the dolls. But...it wasn't done. Anyway, Mika has joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and knees. Her neck joint is standard; it allegedly should turn and tip, but it doesn't tip much.
Her shoulders are also standard, being that ball-hinge hybrid that most dolls have nowadays. It looks funny at some angles...
...but boy, do I love this joint! When I was a little girl not all Barbie dolls had shoulder joints like that, so when I got a Barbie that did have ball-jointed shoulders I was in hog heaven. Notice Mika's little clavicles, by the way. Regarding the rest of the arms, Mika has jointed elbows like Shizuka, McKeyla, and Skyler do, and jointed wrists like Shizuka, Riley, and Skyler do.
I never have been a fan of the song "Walk Like an Egyptian," but I can't help thinking about it when I pose Mika like this! I always thought it was weird that Riley has jointed wrists but not elbows, by the way. Riley can't walk like an Egyptian very well.
Mika's wrists don't have as much motion as Riley's do, though.
Mika's hands are in an interesting position. Her thumb isn't spread wide like Skyler's is, so (spoiler alert) dressing and undressing her is fairly simple. Her pointer finger is at a strange angle, however.
It looks a little like my left index finger when I get too tired. When I overexert myself the left side of my body grows weak, weak enough that I can't straighten my left index finger. After I sit awhile I'm fine again, but...yeah. Mika's finger makes me think of that. She's got pretty little hands, though.
Mika's legs are slim and feel a little fragile. Her hips pivot back and forth and side to side, just like her shoulders do, but sideways motion isn't great.
Mika's knees hinge and rotate. They don't quite bend to ninety degrees...
...but she can sit cross-legged.
Mika doesn't have jointed ankles (few of my dolls do), but she does have pretty feet, with individual little toes and a slightly elevated heel. LOL, I feel like Josephine Lee, the lady on YouTube who fits ballet shoes to various dancers. Each time she evaluates the dancer's foot type she says "These are very pretty feet." LOL, Mika does have pretty feet, though. They remind me a little of the well-molded feet on the Boxy Girls, though Mika's feet are smaller and have mild cankles.
In fact, Riley reminds me a lot of the #FailFix dolls...except for the face, that is. In the face Mika has Riley beat by a country mile.
Like the Shibajuku Girls, Boxy Girls appear to have been here and gone in no time. In this case I can see why; blind bag "purchases" were a cute gimmick, but there was a lot of paper waste and the dolls' faces are not pretty. Anyway, since they have similarly sized feet and similar joints, let's compare these bodies. I'm just going to skim this since I just discussed Mika's body.
Oh, getting that picture taken was a nightmare. Both dolls decided that they didn't want to stand up. Riley was starting to slide again when I punched the button, in fact. Anyway, Mika is a little taller, curvier, and a little more fragile all over than Riley is, while Riley has frozen elbows and bigger hands and feet. Overall Riley has a nicely engineered body, making her unattractive face that much more of a shame. I can understand the square eyes and square heads given the "boxy" theme, but did their smiles have to be so cold and lifeless? Conversely, Mika has a nice face and a delicate body.
Now, clothes. Mika's outfit is pretty simple, consisting of a cute pink shirtdress, some bits of jewelry, and a pair of blue and white sneakers.
Here's the dress. As I noted, it's a short shirtdress with long sleeves and a kawaii-style image on the front.
Here's a closer look at the possibly stolen artwork. A plum-haired girl with copious hair bows is enjoying some blue ice cream.
Gross, the last time I saw blue ice cream it was cotton candy-flavored. The presence of the ice cream helps me understand the pink gloopy design on the sleeves, though. To my delight, the pattern extends all the way around to the back. The back closes with Velcro, by the way, and the Velcro unfortunately sometimes snags the fabric.
Mika's shoes are sky blue, and the right one has a cute pink bow molded and painted on.
The shoes have copious molded details, like long, loopy laces and cute shooting stars on the sides.
The soles have a cute touch, in the form of two little F's for #FailFix!
Mika's ample hair also contained some pieces of jewelry, all made of translucent yellow plastic. There's a necklace that looks like one I'd have worn at one time in my life (still would, too, LOL)...
...and matching earrings.
Mika also has a stand, which I should've used during her body review. I'm always glad when a doll like this comes with a stand.
This isn't a bad little ensemble, both in terms of construction and quality, but there's not much to it. Mika just wears a simple dress and shoes, and she has no extra pieces to make it more fun. I had hoped that Mika could share clothes with the Rainbow High squad, so there would be some new options to play with, but I don't believe that's gonna be an option. Violet Willow is a lot bigger all over than Mika is.
Yeah, no. LOL, way too big. Too bad too, because Violet's sparkly stock dress would've looked nice on Mika. Indeed, I think the only candidate in the clothes sharing department may be Riley...take that back: I also have three Minnie Mouse dresses. This one is my favorite.
It seems like every ten years or so Minnie Mouse gets rediscovered and made into a doll. When I was in my twenties she was a thing, and now she's a thing again. Minnie does not yet reside with me, but three of her dresses do, and Riley and Mika are both going to try them on. I like the colors of this one (entitled "Rosy Red") because they remind me a little of Riley's stock outfit. Cross your fingers, 'cause I'm hoping this will work!
And it does! The dress is a little big around Riley's chest, so the whole thing is hanging off-kilter. Pity I didn't stop to straighten it before I snapped the picture. The dress fits Riley fine, but Mika has a fuller chest and it fits her better. Now let's switch outfits.
Mika's cute little shirtdress is big all over on Riley, but if I push the sleeves up it's no big deal. Riley's pink princess dress looks good on Mika, but it doesn't close all the way in the back.
Like I let that stop me, LOL. I liked Mika in this so much that I tried Riley's accessories on her. Everything worked except for the earrings.
Riley's earring posts are too thick for Mika's ears, and Mika's earrings are too small for Riley's, so that's that.
I didn't think until the eleventh hour to try Bratz clothes, but Riley can't wear Bratz clothes so I think it's safe to say that Mika can't either. With that, I'm gonna wrap this up.
BAD
*Lordy, that's a lot of hair gel! It's there for a reason, but my doll needed a hairwash afterwards.
*Eyes have this weird rippling that dulls their shine a little.
*More importantly, the eye paint is chipping already! On a new doll!
*Body feels a little fragile.
*Not a lot of clothes, and the fabric snags on the Velcro.
GOOD
*I love this gimmick. It's simple and kid-friendly.
*As with Rainbow High, I love this doll's colors.
*Hair seems a little thin, but it cleaned up well and styles easily.
*Can't beat a doll with joints!
*Can share some clothes with Boxy Girls and with Minnie Mouse. I haven't tried other small fashion dolls like Pinkie Cooper yet.
As a person who spent much of her adolescence fixing up old Barbies, I have to say that I felt right in my element fixing this doll up. I like the idea of taking a failed makeover and turning it into a success, but unfortunately it's kinda a one-time thing. Once the doll's hair is fixed and the dress is revealed, that's pretty much it. I do like the idea of making the doll's face and dress a surprise, though. Overall Mika is a cute doll. I had a lot of fun flipping her and fixing her hair, and I love her face, but I can't help comparing her to my Rainbow High dolls and liking them better. Rainbow High dolls have lovely, sturdy bodies, clear eyes, makeup that isn't chipping off, and two detailed, multi-piece outfits that provide good options for mixing and matching. Though Mika is a cute doll, her simple outfit, spindly body, and single-use gimmick come up a little short for me. She's good as a display doll, as are the Rainbow High dolls, and I like her better than I do the Boxy Girls, but I wish there was...well, being the greedy a-hole that I am, I wish there was more to her!
Much love,
RagingMoon1987
