Yep, gonna talk about Mia today,
one of the ones that Setsu-P sent. I'd seen her face before (she's popular on Etsy), but I couldn't put a name to it until I googled "Nines d'Onil." By the way, Setsu: Mama REALLY likes Mia! I was expecting her to like one of the Cabbage Patch Kids the best, but she likes Mia a lot. When you've got as many dolls as I do, they all start to blur together a bit for your loved ones. So any doll that my mom points out is a special one. Anyway, here's Mia.
Given the weather when I took that picture, she looks like she's reaching out and saying "Hugs?" Despite the French sound of the company name, Nines d'Onil is a Spanish company like Famosa and Paola Reina. I don't know much about their full list of products, but I do know they make Mia and her male counterpart, Mio. Both Mia and Mio can vary in coloration, they come in two sizes, and they can have bodies with articulation or without. Their faces are...interesting-looking. They have big oval heads and teeny-weeny facial features, and my particular doll has beautiful blue eyes.
My doll is a thirty-centimeter/twelve-inch model with a basic body, and her two-toned hair tentatively identifies her as Milky Way Mia.
Drat, I wish I had her original dress! But then again, maybe she's this one, one that came in her skivvies.
Either way, I've got her now and she needs clothes, and guess what? The outfit I bought is in! It blew in on
April 2nd, hours ahead of the storms.
Blue, to accentuate her eyes and hair. This is just the first of many little outfits I plan on buying for Mia; as I said above, Etsy loves this doll. There are dresses with Snoopy and Hello Kitty and Dr. Seuss on them, so the sky is the limit for Mia. But for now she's just got this simple blue thing with bloomers underneath. This outfit came from Corning, Arkansas, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Malden.
Shoes are also available for Mia, but it's getting to be Barefoot Season again so I've left her without. Mia has cute feet.
Since Mia is so similar to my Paola Reina dolls, here's how she compares visually to my favorite one, Mar.
They're easy to distinguish, have highly different body shapes, and will NEVER be able to share clothes, but their posing is the same, as is their vinyl.
Well, their posing is almost the same. Since Mar has longer arms she looks more graceful in a lot of poses.
One of the few things that I don't like about either Mar or Mia is that their joints only rotate, rendering some poses a little robotic, like so. Mia's are a little less so since she's got short arms, and Veni Vidi Dolli notes that
some Mia dolls have joints at the knees and elbows, but mine doesn't.
Mia is also better at turning her head. It doesn't look up as it's rotated back like Mar's does.
It was storming yet again when I took those last two pictures, and I pretended that Mia and Mar were reacting to the copious lightning. The storms the evening of the third were electrical, noisy, and got severe warnings, but thank God, that was all they did.
I suspect that Mia was used as a plaything before she was thrifted, so her hair isn't as sleek as Mar's is, but it still responds well to a brushing from my dog brush. The colors are fun too, kinda like the hair on Just Like You
#88 and
#129.
Rooting is also the same as Mar's, semi-large plugs with wide spacing, but unfortunately my doll's roots show if I don't have her hair brushed just right.
I think Mia needs a hair bow. All my dolls with side parts need one, LOL. Setsu-P says she conditioned Mia's hair before she sent her to Missouri, by the way, so I can only imagine what kind of state she was in when Setsu first saw her! That conditioner made Mia smell like Heaven, by the way.
So that's Mia in a nutshell. She's a well-made doll, on an even keel with the Paola Reina dolls I own, but slightly easier to handle. Mar and Abigail are sometimes hard to pose because they're a smidge top-heavy, but Mia's short legs and thick torso help mitigate that. Also like Paola Reina dolls Mia comes in a wide range of appearances, and here's where things get fun. I've yet to run into a Paola Reina doll with green hair, but Mia has it.
I just love her! She reminds me of Lime Chiffon, and she's got a bumper crop of freckles. Dolls with two-toned hair can be found too, and unsurprisingly I like this one too. The blue and black combo adds some edginess to this one.
Now...here's where things get even more interesting! Before I knew that Mia came in two sizes I bought this outfit thinking it would fit my doll.
Guess what? It's sized for one of the nine-inch models, and my Mia is a twelve-incher. But all is not lost as these dolls can readily be found on eBay in both sizes for a reasonable price. The doll I purchased to fit the orphan outfit is this one, one with a darker complexion and teal microbraids.
The outfit isn't a perfect match for her hair, but I've never let that bother me.
Further research of Mia's holding company revealed that like Paola Reina, Nines d'Onil produces other types of doll. These babies are called Pepotes, and they look like they might be of similar size to another of my Paola Reina dolls, Imani. Note that unlike Paola Reina, Nines d'Onil is not afraid to saddle their babies with weird hair. They've also got big, funny feet like Mia does.
There's also a Halloween-themed bunch that I adore.
There's Pippa and her male equivalent Pippo. They're a smidge smaller than the large Mia dolls and have more detailed faces.
These dolls are all scented, by the way, so if you are sensitive to perfumes or stuff like that, or if you live with someone who is sensitive, then it would unfortunately be wise to skip these dolls. Otherwise they're great! Mia's variations may spell trouble ahead for my pocketbook!
Hearts,
RagingMoon1987
EDIT, LATER THAT DAY: Little Mia arrived earlier today! Here's how she looks in her new outfit.
It doesn't match her hair as well as I thought it would, but Mama says it looks alright. Here's how the two look together.
I reiterate: my pocketbook may be in serious trouble!
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