Doll-A-Day 2023 #135: Make Up Tressy

   Recently we looked at Mary Make Up.  The impetus for that post was the doll we're looking at today. Why? Because when I pulled this doll out of the bunch of dolls brought from The Room of Water, I thought she was Mary Make Up. I thought she was a lot more attractive than the Mary Make Up dolls I'd seen, but she had the same face. And another thing was, I had never heard of the doll she actually is. She's Make Up Tressy.

She's wearing what is probably a homemade outfit.

  Tressy was made by American Character, beginning in 1963. Make-Up Tressy and Mary Make-Up premiered in 1964. They share a face sculpt, so I thought this unmade up doll was Mary. I was used to regular Tressy dolls, like the one we had as kids...

Our Tressy on the left with our childhood Glamour Misty.

...and the ones I've gotten as an adult.

See her 'Day' HERE.

  Make-Up Tressy was made with what I guess American Character considered very little make-up, (But she is still wearing blue eye shadow!), so that kids could make her up, using the make up that came with her. 

She had an eyeliner marker, eyebrow marker, and eye shadow and lipstick markers. 

Her face could be washed afterward, and she could be made up all over again. This girl had had her face washed when I got her.

    I'm not sure what markers could be used to make her up now. I'd suggest trying dry erase markers on a doll past worrying about, but they do eventually even stain the dry erase boards, so maybe not. (And, can I do a rant here? When they built the new schools in our town several years ago, they put in all dry erase boards. When school started, all the kids and the teachers had headaches for ages from the markers. And the boards themselves were getting hard to read fairly quickly, as they began to turn a nasty purple. What was wrong with chalk boards? The ones they had in the kids' old school had been there for decades, and still worked fine. Chalk is cheap, and nobody ever got a headache from chalk. I don't know about breathing chalk dust. Okay. I just looked. Chalk dust can cause asthma in some people, and inhaling large amounts over a long period of time can give you a long term lung disease called silicosis. But I still say there are dangers to breathing the markers too. The main problem with the chalk would be the dreaded eraser cleaning. I say dreaded, but didn't everybody want to be chosen to go out and clap erasers so they could get out of class?) 

  Make-Up Tressy also came with markers to colour her hair. I don't think this doll could have had the hair colouring feature, because her hair is already a colour. The hair colour dolls had pale blonde hair, so it could be coloured with the hair dye markers.

  Why there was a need for a Mary Make Up and a Make Up Tressy? They have the same face and body. But while Mary stole everything else from Tressy, her face, her body, her clothes, her make up, her hair colouring markers, there is one thing Mary didn't get: Tressy's grow hair feature.

  Tressy had growing hair. Make-Up Tressy has long flowing locks. They come out of a hole in the top of her head.

The hair can be lengthened by pulling the hair as you press the button on Tressy's belly...

...and retracted by using the T shaped key that came with Tressy, (Or you can use your fingernail. Trust me.), in the 'keyhole' in her back.

  I didn't event think to take a picture of Tressy with her hair draw up short. Forgive me. I was more concerned with making sure the pictures I was taking were in focus. I knocked my camera in the floor a week or so ago, and once again, ruined my lens! My autofocus isn't working, and I have found that I need it a lot more these days. Plus the lens isn't moving smoothly when I zoom or focus, so it's a lot harder to get the lens where I want it anyway. So these pictures, and tomorrows, were a challenge. I spent time taking the pictures, but couldn't really be sure they were sharply in focus until I came back and put them on the computer where I could see them in larger form. And believe, me, there were a lot of deleted pictures from these shoots! 

I did, however, think to show some of the things that could be done with Tressy's long hank of hair.

For one thing, she made an attempt to cover up the unattractive plug holes in the front of her hairline. They have hair in them, but they are also a bit black, which makes them very noticeable. I washed this doll, and conditioned her hair, but those plug holes could maybe do with some more cleaning, and her face could use some more careful cleaning in the low spots, like around her mouth. 

You cold call this a comb over.

Hair dos aren't my thing. i can't even do them on myself.

  This Tressy also had a feature that I know our Tressy we had as kids didn't. Her legs are bendy.

They don't bend in the most realistic or attractive way, but at least she can sit down in a fairly normal fashion, and not have her legs sticking out like she has rigor mortis.

  You can watch a commercial for Make-Up Tressy HERE.

  That's today's doll. She'll be going on the sales page, but without her cute outfit. I'm keeping that. Tomorrow we'll see a rarely seen vintage doll. See you then.