Doll-A-Day 75: Review Week: Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse Raquelle

  This week we're having a look at my birthday presents from last week. Today's doll is Raquelle from the Life in the Dreamhouse series.Here she is in her box.

I have wanted Raquelle for ages. Ken was going to buy her for me for Christmas, but we didn't get much chance to shop, and I was always with him. He prefers to surprise me, so he doesn't like to get my presents while I'm with him. He gave up and bought her for me while I was with him the week before my birthday because she is getting harder to find and he wanted to make sure I got her.I think these dolls are on their way out because there is a new series of Life in the Dreamhouse dolls coming out.

The dolls wear these outfits from the back of the box.

 The box is super easy to open. You just pull out these tabs and the front lifts up, and the plastic lifts off.

Then the cardboard insert with Raquelle attached just lifts out...

...which leaves you with this to deal with:

 Everything can be removed from the insert by pushing tabs through the slots, or untwisting some elastics, except the  things around Raquelle's feet...

...and the rectangular piece of cardboard near the middle.It has two of those plastic things with the t-shaped ends.

Once you have eliminated all of those you are left with this:

 A piece of clear plastic,which has two of those annoying plastic things they always staple into dolls heads to hold them in place.

"Eww! Get this thing off of me!"

 As usual you have to be very careful cutting the things so you don't cut any hair. I had to get my glasses for this job!

Here you can see the plastic do-hinkeys in her head.

"I'm free!!"

Her hair was pretty nice right out of the box...

 ...but it got VERY static-y very quickly. It could just be because my house is so dry from all the winter heating.

Fly away, fly away, fly away home...

This shirt is a bit too see through. If she were a real person I think she'd end up in one of those 'wardrobe malfunction' articles.

 I didn't know she was supposed to be the 'villian' on the show because I had never seen it until Emma had me watch it on my birthday. I just loved that smirky face. I started calling her 'Smirky Raquelle'. I think Ken thinks that's what she's actually called now.

She's so pretty...and smirky.

 She's also articulated. She has jointed elbows,wrists, and knees,as well as the usual shoulder, hip and neck joints.She also has a jointed midriff.Here are some pictures to show her posability, and her clothing options.

Without her gold jacket and leggings. The dress is one single piece that closes in back with velcro.The jacket was not stitched on and was easily removeable.

This is something of an optical illusion because her arms aren't really able to touch the back of her head.

Her legs don't really quite cross either.

See? By the way, those shoes don't stay on very well.

Her skirt tends to creep up embarrassingly when she sits.Which brings me to another problem. They didn't even paint underwear on her.

In the outfit she comes dressed in, minus her gold jacket.This is called the "Oh my aching back." pose.

In her extra dress.It's a bit short. I do like the fact that they include the extra dress though. It makes her a better value for the money. But would they have charged any less without the extra dress? 

In her extra dress, plus the leggings and belt.That looks better. The belt hooks in back with a button and hole type closure. The necklace has a space in the back and just slips off. 

And with the leggings, but without the belt. And in those shoes she can't really stand on her own. She has high heel feet, so she's not going to stand alone without the shoes either.

  

She does look very alive sitting there.

Gad!! There's that one hair again! She looks less smirky and much nicer from this angle. The hair isn't rooted very well around that front hairline.It looks kind of gappy. I did comb her hair when she was fresh out of the box, and she continued to shed for a while.Her hair is smooth and silky, but I think it might tend to fall out with continued brushing.

 So, the box? Easy to open. Kids will need minimal help removing her from her box. I also like how there is not so much waste with this sort of box. The doll? A simple hair do that will be impossible for kids to mess up, but might thin out with continued hair play. Nice mix and match clothing options, which could have been extended a bit if the blouse had been a separate piece from the skirt.Still,it's nice that there is an extra outfit.If they had thrown in another pair of shoes in another colour that coordinated with the pieces,(black or gold),it would have extended it more too. Her price varies from store to store. I saw her from $13.99 to $16.99. Of course, I couldn't remember where I had seen her for $13.99, so I had to compromise and get her when I found her for $14.99! I think that was K-Mart. (There have been so many doll purchases in the last week my head is spinning, and so is Ken's bank account!I'll fill you in on all those purchases this coming week.)
  In any case, I'm very happy with Raquelle. She's different, with her smirky face,and so pretty.
The "Life in the Dreamhouse" show is actually kind of fun. I like that they seem to know they're dolls.(The Muppets always 'knew' they were Muppets, and that was funny.) When Barbie's car breaks down, Ken opens the hood and removes a huge battery, half the size of himself and goes to get a new one. Midge shows up, straight from Wisconsin, in black and white, and wearing the 60's Barbie dress from Friday Night Date. I told Emma, I can see me watching this show with the kids when they were little.She said, "Whatta ya mean when we were little?!" Ivy's a smart mouth. She said, "Yeah Mommy. You're watching it now." But Emma made me!  Tomorrow we'll check out another present doll.