Jakks Pacific Disney Princess and Me Rapunzel Doll Review

As I mentioned in Saturday night's post, I was able to find this lovely little gal on eBay for a good price, but...

...her hair left much to be desired. ;)  I was aware of this fact when I purchased her, by the way, so the seller was in no way dishonest.  Still, I hoped that I'd be able to salvage her hair without losing my sanity in the process. ;)

I noticed that her crown had never been removed; it still had the original rubber bands attaching it to her head. 

One rubber band came down underneath her chin.  

I knew there would be no way to detangle her hair with the crown in it, so I had to cut the rubber bands and remove her crown, for now at least. :)

So, after over an hour of spritz and careful brushing, and a trash can full of discarded hair (I hated seeing that much hair come out of her head!)...

...this was the result.  It was really a shame that I had to brush it out, because there was still a lot of the original wave in her hair.  I had to get it looking a little more presentable, though, and I knew that I couldn't just finger comb it.  Still, I think it turned out all right. :)

There were several thin spots on her scalp (most of them could be covered by simply moving her hair).  I think part of this may be a result of the brushing and the hair loss during the process. :(

When I was all done brushing, since I NEVER wanted to go through that again, I decided to braid her hair.  I tried to make it look as much like her movie braid as I could.  What do you think?  [Side note:  I took enough pictures of the process to be able to do a tutorial post of sorts later.  I didn't include those pics in this post because I knew it would be pretty long already. ;)  And just a warning, the pics aren't the best, because I was sitting in my living room at the time, which doesn't have the best lighting. :{  I hope you'll be able to enjoy it anyway, though.]

Here she is, all dressed and detangled. :)

She has really pretty eyes and a sweet face, at least in my opinion. ;)

Alternate views:

A few close-ups of her braid:

I really love all of the detail in this doll.  

Her dress is absolutely beautiful.

She has delicate gauzy sleeves with ribbon and lace trim.

Here's a closer look at her striped, puffy upper sleeves.

There's also amazing detail on the skirt:

I would stay away if you're not a fan of glitter, though. ;)

Rapunzel's crown is very pretty.  It has comb teeth behind it to help keep it in her hair.

Rapunzel modeling her crown. :)

Golden earrings.

For the next portion, Rapunzel will be undressed.  While her figure is not very fully developed, I still wanted to let everyone know in case this is offensive to you.  If you don't care to see naked dolls, you can skip to the end of the post. 

Rapunzel's body reminds me of a cross between a BFC Ink and a Jakks Pacific Fancy Nancy doll (which makes sense, since these dolls are also made by Jakks Pacific).  Her arms and legs are a lot like Fancy Nancy's, but her torso is similar to a BFC Ink's.  Her head is entirely different.

Her arms can go up and down and also slightly out, as shown in the picture above.  Her legs can also spread apart a bit, but I didn't make this discovery until after I'd taken all of the pictures. :}

Her chest moves in a very similar fashion to the BFC Inks.

Her head is also articulated, which is great for posing.

(sorry that this one blurred) :{

A close-up of her lovely eyes.

Back view

She has to sit with her legs far apart, similar to an American Girl.

Her left foot has the Disney Princess and Me logo...

...and her right foot has some sort of identifying number.

She has identifying marks on the back of her head...

...and also on the back of her torso.

UNDRESSED PICTURES ARE DONE NOW! :)

I knew that this doll was on her way, and I knew that her hair would require a braid, so I thought that it would be fun to put flowers in her braid, just like in the movie.  It just so happened that on Saturday afternoon I was in my local Goodwill and found some really pretty fake flowers that looked like the perfect size.  I got a whole bouquet for 99 cents. :D  It was great to have all of these flowers ready to go as soon as her braid was done. :)

I don't know that I did a perfect job, but it definitely reminds me of the movie. :)

Rapunzel seems very pleased with her new fancy braid. :)

I took some comparison photos of Rapunzel next to one of my American Girl dolls and also next to one of my BFC Inks.  They decided to dress up for the occasion since Rapunzel looked so fancy. ;)  As you can see, Rapunzel is actually just slightly taller than both of the other two, and while her proportions are the closest to the BFC Ink doll, her head is so much bigger that to me, she almost looks more compatible with the American Girl doll. 

The Disney Princess and Me dolls are much thinner than the American Girl dolls, so there's no way they would be able to share clothing.

On the other hand, Rapunzel's body size is almost identical to the BFC Ink bodies, and they can share clothing.  The BFC Ink dolls fit into the cloth shoes that come with the DP&M dolls.  Rapunzel technically fit into some BFC Ink shoes, but it was a tight squeeze and she had a hard time standing up in them.

I thought I'd just share these pics, hiding somewhere in my draft posts. :}  I purchased the Disney Princess and Me Belle winter dress a while back on a good sale, and took some pictures of my rewigged Kaitlin (now off to a different home in a different wig) wearing the dress.

She very easily fit into the cloth shoes that came with the dress.

As some of you may remember from a previous post, I recently let go of my 12" Tiana doll because I decided that I only wanted to have dolls in my collection from movies that my kiddos could watch (which is the same reason why I returned my Merida doll from "Brave").  Dolls are something that my daughters and I enjoy together, and it's really confusing for my girls when Mommy has a doll they can enjoy but they're not allowed to enjoy the movie that the doll is from.  That may seem like overkill to some, but as much as possible, I want to try to be consistent with my girls, especially with the dolls that are technically marketed towards them.  Of course, there are going to be movies that I can watch as an adult that they aren't ready for yet, but when it comes to Disney Princesses, I'd like to stick to the ones that they can watch at least a large majority of the movie and the movie doesn't have obviously objectionable content.  

Anyway, all that to say that I recently decided that I am only going to collect princess dolls from the two movies that I really love:  "Beauty and the Beast" and "Tangled".  If another movie comes along as amazing as these two, I might possibly add it to the list, but for now, Rapunzel and Belle are the two dolls I'm collecting.  It's actually kind of a relief to limit oneself in this way.  There's so much out there...it's easy to get overwhelmed wanting everything. ;)  And actually, I won't be doing a lot of active collecting for a while now (unless I find something amazing at a thrift store).  I'm running out of room and needing to focus on keeping to my budget again. :}

Here are a few of the Rapunzels I've collected.  I thought it would be fun to show them all together for size comparisons.  

As you can see, the Singing Rapunzel from the Disney Store is not that much shorter than my newest Rapunzel.  

Here's another gal with a review in draft:  Mattel's "Pose and Style Rapunzel".  I really wanted to compare her to the new fully poseable Disney Store Rapunzel.

Speaking of which...here she is!  I wasn't sure what I thought about this one when she was first released, but she's grown on me.  I actually purchased her during one of Disney's summer sales with the intention of using her for my blog giveaway.  Sadly, she didn't arrive in time.  Not to mention that I kind of got a bit attached to her, and then discovered that she had a leg that was not working properly.  Since she's a display-only doll, the leg problem doesn't bother me too much (and she and Robby should have a bit in common), ;) but I wouldn't have felt comfortable giving away a "broken" doll.  I'm thinking I'll do a Disney doll giveaway for 200 followers or for my 3 Year Blogoversary, whichever comes first. ;)  Oh, and she also has a review post in draft. :}

Here are two of my mini Rapunzels.  The larger one is from the Disney Store mini princess set, and the smaller one is from Mattel.  

So, back to the subject of this post.  Overall, I love this doll.  She's got a sweet face, a beautifully detailed outfit, and is nice and sturdy for little hands.  Her hair is lovely but extremely high maintenance.  I would recommend this doll to collectors or careful older children.  Honestly, though, even my 8 1/2 year old, who can be gentle with things when she needs to be, would have a hard time with this hair.  The only way I would give it to her or either of my other two daughters would be if I braided her hair (without the flowers!) and did not allow them to unbraid it.  And really, where's the fun in that?  The whole point of having a doll with gloriously long hair is to be able to do millions of hairstyles.  I can guarantee that if I gave this doll to them to play with, even brand new from the package, and even though the older 2 are within the recommended age group, it would be a short-haired Rapunzel within a week...maybe even sooner than that!  However, for collectors, teenagers into dolls, or older children whose dolls will see more display than play time, this doll is an excellent addition to a collection.

More reviews to come, so stay tuned!  And thank you so much for 147 followers! :D