WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS A FEW NUDE DOLL PICTURES. IF THIS IS OFFENSIVE TO YOU, PLEASE SKIP THIS POST.
Now that Kaitlin's hair is more presentable and I finally found her some clothes, I thought it would be fun to do an official review post! :)
Many of you mentioned the fact that the Disney Princess and Me dolls look very similar in body style and in the face to the BFC Ink dolls. Sadly, there aren't any Disney Princess and Me dolls in our house, but we do have the next best thing: my oldest daughter's toddler Rapunzel doll from Walmart.
I was curious to see if her clothes would fit Kaitlin, and they did! Doesn't Kaitlin make a lovely Rapunzel stand-in? She even has the right hair color and eye color. :)
For those of you who don't know, the toddler Disney dolls sold at Walmart are much lower quality than the Disney Princess and Me dolls, and they are only 14" tall. This explains the length of Kaitlin's Rapunzel dress. :}
As I stated in an earlier post, my local Walmart had a few BFC Ink outfits on sale. There were two bikini sets and the one I purchased, the "Bright and Beautiful" set. Ordinarily, it's not an outfit I'd choose, but I was desperate for Kaitlin to have something to wear (and I knew my oldest wouldn't want to give up her Rapunzel dress for long). ;)
Here's Kaitlin in the entire ensemble. The set included a sundress, an orange shrug, some plastic purple sandals, and a brown fake-leather purse.
The purse was cute, but didn't really go with the rest of the outfit, in my opinion. I'll probably use it as a handbag for my AGs instead. :)
Here are the sandals a little closer. Not the greatest quality, but I don't mind them.
Here's a closer look at the material of the sundress. It's not terrible, but something about the pattern makes it look like cheap material to me. Especially when you compare it to the picture on the back of the package:
I would definitely have preferred this dress!
Here is the sundress with the shrug...
...and without it.
Overall, it's a cute little outfit. I definitely wouldn't pay more than the $7 I paid for it. I would have been more comfortable with paying $5. I liked the fact that it had easy Velcro closure on the back (especially since this was marketed to younger girls). It's a cute, simple little outfit. I didn't care for the fact that it was a bit plungy in the bodice and the pattern on the material wasn't as nice as the one shown in the picture. Also, it's a little short for my taste, but I figured a short dress was better than nothing at all! :}
I must confess, even though Kaitlin looks cute in this, I don't think orange is the best color for her, especially after seeing her in Rapunzel's dress. Lavender is much more flattering for her skin tone. Maybe I'll have to take advantage of that free t-shirt pattern from Liberty Jane Clothing and find some lavender material. :) I'm seriously considering buying the jeans pattern, too.
Kaitlin is one of the earlier versions of the BFC Ink dolls, so I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison between her and Gianna. There were 2 different 18" BFC Ink doll body styles that I am aware of. The first ones to be released came in the long boxes and were sitting down. The newer releases came standing up in a tall box filled with photos and messages emphasizing their super poseability. The newest dolls I've seen appear to have the same body style as my Gianna doll, but are in smaller packages. I'm sorry I don't know the official release dates on these...that would be more professional. I figured I could at least share the little I know for now. :}
So here are some side-by-side pics of Kaitlin and Gianna. You'll notice that Kaitlin has a much simpler body. Kaitlin has movable arms, a movable chest, hip joints, knee joints, and a movable head. Gianna has all this as well as elbow, wrist, and ankle joints. You'll notice from the pics that Gianna's hip joints appear to be slightly different, presumably to give her more articulation. Her chest joint is a little different, too.
Here they are from the back. In these pics you can definitely see the difference in the chest joint, as well as the differences in the knee joints.
Here is a closer look at Kaitlin's arm. It's got very simple articulation at the shoulder, and no other joints.
Kaitlin's knee joints are rather...interesting. She looks like she had a surgery gone wrong or something. ;) The knees have to look like this for her to stand. If you try to line them up, they're in the wrong position for her to stay upright.
One big disappointment about her knee joints was their lack of poseability. The above picture shows the absolute farthest they can bend. I was expecting them to be able to bed a lot farther.
She is still poseable, though. I love how this pic turned out. ;)
It's interesting. One of the concerns I had about Gianna was the weakness of some of her joints. I wondered how long they would hold up to normal play. At the same time, I loved being able to pose her in all sorts of different positions. At the time, I wondered if one of the earlier BFC Ink body styles would be more durable.
Now that I have Kaitlin, I'm wondering the same thing. The nice thing about having fewer joints is that she's a little sturdier. However, I find myself really missing Gianna's poseability, especially since Kaitlin's knee joints are so difficult. And there are still issues with loose joints on Kaitlin. Granted, I got her used and have no idea how heavily she was played with. Still, I almost find myself preferring the possibility of worn out joints in the newer dolls because they're so much more fun to pose.
One other change I wasn't expecting is that Kaitlin's head only moves from side to side, while Gianna's could move slightly up, down, and side to side as well. Because of this, Gianna had a lot more potential for expression in photography.
So, some final thoughts. I love Kaitlin's sweet face and pretty eyes, but find myself disappointed that I can't pose her nearly as much as the newer dolls. I think there are durability issues with both body styles.
Depending on how roughly your kids play, I would recommend holding off on these dolls until your girls are at least 7 or 8, or an extremely careful younger child. If I was getting a BFC Ink doll for my oldest daughter, I'd probably go for one with the older body style, like Kaitlin, simply because with fewer joints to move, there are fewer parts to break! ;) I think my daughter would probably be frustrated with Kaitlin's knee joints though, especially since they look like they should move farther.
As a collector, I think I would prefer a Kaitlin with the newer body style. I'm not in the habit of playing roughly with my toys ;) and most of my dolls are on display for the majority of the time, so the joint durability would not be as much of an issue for me.
I'm still hanging on to Kaitlin for now despite my preferences. She was such a splendid find and she's an incredibly beautiful doll. She may eventually be a doll for my daughters...I'll just have to see. I'll keep you guys posted, though. :)
I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, feel free to leave a comment below. Please be aware, though, that tonight is my party, so I may not be able to publish or respond to comments until sometime tomorrow. :)
