Doll-A-Day 2023 #149: Naturalistas

   Today's doll is three, and, in fact, more. But we're only looking at three of them. They're Naturalistas.

 Naturalistas is a line of dolls celebrating 'natural hair. In other words, natural hair of people of colour. Unstraightened hair.

  There are five dolls in the line, but I only saw three of them at Target. All of the dolls have a back story.  This is Paige. I'm guessing she's sort of the leader.

The actual doll's hair doesn't look like the picture. The curls are much bigger, but the hair style isn't.

  While Paige is a chemist and has developed products for natural hair, Liya was an engineering student until becoming a natural hair model.

Now that hair lives up to the box photo.

Kelsey is a fashion designer.

  I thought the dolls were pretty. I think Kelsey is my favourite. They aren't very articulated, just the standard five points. but then that might help account for their good price. They were only $12.99

  There were clothes for the dolls too.

  It seems ridiculous that anybody would think they have the right to tell anybody else how they should wear their hair. It seems even more ridiculous that some schools and other institutions have rules saying that people of colour can't wear their hair as it grows. I would be in trouble if I were African American, because I can't do anything with hair. I wear my hair as it grows out of my head. I have been known to braid it for some shape, and when I was young I got perms because my hair was always so limp and straight. How crazy would it seem for someone like me to be told that they aren't allowed to change their straight hair to wavy or curly?! But that's basically what's happening with 'natural hair'.

  When my kids were in school there was a rule that nobody could dye their hair an 'unnatural' hair colour. The reasoning given was that strange hair colours would be 'distracting' to the other kids. My reaction to that was always that if a kid was distracted enough by someone's hair colour, they had more problems that that.  And how were they ever going to function in the real world? There's always something distracting in the world, and you have no control over it. And how did anybody have the right to tell anybody else what colour hair they could have? AND my kids, like me, had bright orange hair, naturally. Were they expected to dye their hair a less distracting colour so that it didn't bother anyone?

  The Naturalista dolls were available at Target, but I haven't seen them there for a month or so. Some of them, and a couple of the fashions are still available at Target.com. You can find them HERE.  The dolls are down to $9.99, and the fashion packs are $9.49, except for Coffee Casual, which is only $8.99. There is also a styling head.

  Those are the dolls for today. You would have seen these ages ago, back when Target still had them. But as you might recall, I lost my phone, and that's where the pictures were.

  Anyway, see you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #148: Majorette Skipper

   Today's doll is this one. I bet you can guess what she's called.

She's Majorette Skipper. You can tell that because she's dressed in her majorette outfit.

She's got the hat.

Chin  strap and all.

Her uniform is made to look like it has the butttons down the front.

She was produced in 1992.

She has the majorette boots with fringy pom poms on them.

And of course, since she's a majorette, she has her baton.

Thanks to that little tan coloured gizm she can even twirl it.

Her hand fits into that slot so she can hold it.

Then it can spin.

This doll was in a box that got water in it. I dried the dolls out and cleaned them up. This was one that Emma said she had always wanted, so when she was dry, and I had photographed her for the blog, Emma took her. I collect Skippers, but this one really isn't my era anyway. She is Emma's era, since this is the Skipper head svulpt from when she was little. This big eye head sculpt is either loved or hated by collectors. It's less realistic than any other Skipper head sculpt. Mattel used it for a while though, on a lot of Skipper and Skipper friend dolls.

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow for another one.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #147: Baby Trix

   Today's doll is one I found at an antique mall back before I lost my phone. (Hey! I found it! Now I have the pictures I took to show you!)

   I quite like this doll, so I looked at it more than once. I still haven't been able to justify paying $20 for it, since it's quite worn and I didn't know what doll it was so I could see what it should cost. I know who it is now though. It's Baby Trix by Uneeda. (And I'm still not sure how much she should cost!)

That's Baby Trix in Pink at the bottom right.

  Uneeda produced two Baby Trix dolls. One was sold in the 1950's, and was a drink and wet doll who 'moves without batteries'. I'm still not sure how it did that. This doll is marked 1964 on the back of it's neck, but from what I have been able to find, it was actually sold in 1965.

  This doll differs from the other Baby Trix doll in that it is not a drink and wet doll. It couldn't be, because the only way this doll 'moves' is that it has a foam covered wire armature, (with vinyl hands),making it bendy and able to be posed.

This kid is about 16 or 18 inches tall.

Baby Trix has inset brown sleep eyes.

  After finding this doll online,  I have seen versions in pink, red, red and white striped, and blue flannel pajamas, so apparently it was sold in a variety of colours. There would also have been white pom poms on the front of the jammies.

That's today's doll. Until tomorrow...

The Doll Book of the Month Club: Secrets From the Dollhouse

   I have been promising you the Doll Book of the Month Club book for May for a few days now. I totally lost track of the end of the month once again, and then I was busy with preparations for Emma's birthday, which was Saturday. I spent ages wrapping birthday presents, tidying the room we are staying in, doing some cleanup of the apartment, (I even scrubbed the toilet), so Emma could have a nice relaxing birthday. On Friday, we went to the ice cream place to check on an ice cream cake, because that's what Emma said she wanted. They had them, but they were regular flavours, like Oreo. But the place she wanted an ice cream cake from was the place that sells Indian ice cream flavours, and that's what Emma wanted. So in the end, I bought two flavours of ice cream, (rose, which Emma likes, and the flavour I thought most likely to pair well with rose and not overpower it, green tea), and layered them with lady fingers myself. It worked. Today Emma asked me to help her with a project I'll explain soon, so we worked on that. But now I am getting this book post done. It's a book that was Emma's when she was a kid, so I guess it's a fitting book to post around her birthday. It's "Secrets from the Dollhouse" by Ann Turner. You may have read my review of another Ann Turner book about dolls, "Finding Walter". If not, you can go HERE.

  See that melted spot on the cover just under the 'house' in 'dollhouse? I had been planning to do this book as the book of the month at some point, so I had taken it out of Emma's room and left it on the landing. Well, we all know what happened to the landing, don't we boys and girls? That's a melt mark! I don't know how only that little spot melted, but the workings of that fire still have me baffled. The inside of the covers were speckled with ash too.

  The illustrations are by Raúl Colón. They're very soft and pretty. Google Raúl Colón and look at some of the other  stuff he's done. It's gorgeous.

  When I opened the book I remembered why I would have bought this book for Emma.

The character telling the story is a doll named Emma. Emma always loved books with characters named Emma, and we bought her quite a few. This Emma reiterates the standard law of dolls: they can move, but not when anyone is watching.

They don't trust the cat and are kept awake by mice. Foreshadowing!

Also in the story are Emma's sister and Mama and Papa, and baby sister.

  Emma tells of a few events, like being taken outside by 'Girl'.

Emma ventures outside in Girl's pocket.

The family is gathered together, but for how long?

The baby is discovered to be missing! The family immediately blames the cat. This part may actually be a bit frightening for small children.

  But just when the dolls think the mouse is going to eat the baby, she is rescued by none other than...the cat! I guess they shouldn't judge a book by it's cover! The cat has only been curious about the family because it likes them.

  And in the end the family cozies up together, just the way I loved to do when the kids were small.

  But there's one more event to be told about.

  It's a sweet book with lovely illustrations. The age recommendation is for ages 5 to 8.