Dollieh Sanctuary

http://www.kenyasworld.com/
http://store.kenyasworld.com/ I bought the one in the black and white spots and blue hat.

Just found these girls for the first time at our Family Dollar. Clothing isn't bad, facial screening is about what you expect from a less expensive fashion doll. Head is hard, she'll take some serious heating before it'll come off without damage to the body. QC is a little shaky, the joint on one of her wrists is missing a bit of plastic.

But they have several skintones, and they're *articulated*!! Knees are the single joint of the V.1 Fashionistas and they lack the upper torso joint. Still, they have the jointed wrists, knees and elbows so if you're seeking posable girls with a wider range of skin tones these might be be worth a shot.

What a coincidence, I was just looking at those as a possible match for a floating head. This blog has some comparison pics:http://limbedolls.blogspot.se/2012/11/fashion-madness.html Looks interesting, I hope they show up on ebay at some point.

If they're by Mattel I'm going to guess they're using their general light-medium-dark AA skin tones. I have several and might be able to help with a skin match.

DollyKim wrote:If they're by Mattel I'm going to guess they're using their general light-medium-dark AA skin tones. I have several and might be able to help with a skin match.

As usual I'm stuck trying to guess the shade from various online photos, so any help is appreciated! It's a 1980s Rockers DeeDee like this one. Fashionistas Nikki is my back-up solution, but I think she might be too light. (Also I'm not crazy about the fashionista body, so a little variation would be nice.)

I had a Dee Dee and loved her to death. I will go out on a limb and say she's medium, like Disney Princess Tiana, which is what most of the AA dolls are. Check her against a Tiana to make sure.

The Fashionista is light, and the dark one is very dark like a chocolate bar.

I rather like the Kenya that has the closed mouth in that review and I'd love to have that really dark articulated body for several of my older AA girls but at $20 I'm not too sure I'd go there to be honest. I barely buy $12 Fashionistas or MH dolls these days. The climbing prices on most playline level dolls have me really rethinking my small doll purchases lately. It's one thing to spend $20 for a limited low end collector's doll once in a while and another to have practically every doll on the shelf that I'd like to have priced at $20-30. At $10 I might have bought 2 or 3 of them so I'd have dark bodies but as with the SIS dolls I think that they're basically making people pay who can't necessarily afford it a premium just to get AA dolls. I mean we're talking a dollar store here. Not all but most of the people who regularly go to a dollar store are not exactly affluent. If they could afford $20 fashion dolls for their kids they probably wouldn't be shopping there. $5-10 for a Barbie type doll is pretty normal there. $20 is really pushing it.

I have to say I'm loving the AA guys. I might have to pick a couple of these up!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41591060@N04/8456662205/

There are also articulated SIS dolls and people are finding them for $13 which is much more reasonable. Sadly the price of plastic keeps going up (along with everything else except paychecks) because plastic is actually made from oil. And dollar stores seem to be trying to have better quality dolls than the hollow blow molded dolls of yesteryear.

DollyKim wrote:I had a Dee Dee and loved her to death. I will go out on a limb and say she's medium, like Disney Princess Tiana, which is what most of the AA dolls are. Check her against a Tiana to make sure.

The Fashionista is light, and the dark one is very dark like a chocolate bar.

I can see why you did, she really has a beautiful face. I like her more for each time I look at her. Tiana would be great if she were a match, I'll see if I can find one. Thanks!

Still would like to get my hands on a Kenya, if only to break up the Mattel monopoly in this house and get a bit of variation of body types, but I guess they would have to sell really well to ever expand their market all the way here...

[insert: my usual complaining about the price and availability of dolls in general and AA dolls in particular in my little corner of the world ]

There are some lovely SiS dolls, with jointed elbows and wrists. I have the dark and medium ones, the dark one is a ballerina and one of the loveliest dolls I've ever seen.

Disney stores have made jointed Tiana but I would always recommend taking the head in to the store with you. I have a Mattel head on a Bratz body because the match was close enough.