Friday 14 March 2014

Life in the Dreamhouse Raquelle

After I picked up Life in the Dreamhouse Midge, it didn't take long for me to go back for this lovely lady! There was only one Raquelle left and she was on clearance, so it was meant to be, right?

What I love about these LITDH dolls, is how much personality each of them has. From Midge's sweet face, to Teresa's goofy grin, all the way to Raquelle's sassy smirk, each of this dolls is entirely their own, and that's a great thing to see! It really captures the fun atmosphere of the webisodes, and makes the dolls stand-out on the shelves.


What makes Raquelle stand out? Click through to find out!


 

Raquelle's box is the same as Midge's, except it obviously has her own picture on the front! I also love the picture of Raquelle in the disguise glasses on the back, I don't think I've seen that webisode!


She actually looks a bit mean here, as opposed to just sassy, I think. She's not really a malicious character in the webisodes, but those brows up there mean business!


And here she is, full of attitude! She comes wearing her original outfit from the webisodes, as do all the dolls in this line. However, I just recently found fashion packs for them, and man, there are some cute outfits in there! I almost want a Nikki just for her fashion pack...I did pick up a pack for Midge and for Raquelle. I posted pictures of Midge's on my tumblr, and may do the same for Raquelle, but one of her dresses is currently being borrowed by a special someone I might be sharing here soon!


But back to Raquelle! Her biggest selling point is definitely her face. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this face mold on a doll, and certainly not on a play doll! She's gorgeous of course, but I love how they've managed to get her webisode personality into her face, with the little quirk of her eyebrow and the smirk of her lips. It's subtle but it's really effective, and looks great from different angles. She definitely looks like she's up to something or giving Barbie the side-eye, a frequent pass time of hers.


Her makeup is very simple and neutral, done in shades of taupe, with a soft pink on her lips. As with Midge, she has the applied lashes, a detail I really love!

She has really gorgeous hair as well. It's a nice dark brown, and it's wonderfully thick and smooth. It's straight with just a bit of bend at the ends, with a nice amount of volume around her face. It's some of the nicest hair on a doll I own actually, and I kind of can't stop touching it.


Her outfit is made up a jacket, dress and leggings. The jacket is really nice with a lot of details. We'll get to a close-up in a bit! The dress is one piece, with a white tank-style top and a skirt made of layered black ruffles. The ruffles are sheer with sparkly trim, but once they're all laid over one another the skirt is mostly opaque. Of course, that's helped with the addition of the leggings, which are black with a red trim on the hem.


As for accessories, Raquelle wears a gold three-strand beaded necklace with a black bow on one side, and a twisted studded gold belt. It annoys me that the jacket and belt are the same shade of gold while the necklace is completely different. It just doesn't look very nice to me, especially since I hate the shade of gold that the necklace is.


And here's the jacket on its own! It's really well-made, with large lapels and ruching on the elbows. This is a really cute little piece and I feel like it really makes the doll seem more special.


And the dress without the jacket. Maybe not as cute, due to the thin fabric of the top of the dress. It's pretty sheer, and you can see Raquelle's torso articulation through it which is sort of awkward, and makes me feel like I'm seeing something I shouldn't be seeing.


She also has a simple little gold purse, again in the same gold as the belt and the jacket. That necklace just throws me off...


Her shoes are simple red pumps, and will not stay on her feet for love or money. Every time I move her, they go clattering to the floor.


So, that's Raquelle! But like Midge, she also comes with an additional outfit. I really love that these dolls come with that extra outfit, since I find it hard to find Barbie clothes that kind of "go" with their personalities and not with Barbie's.


Raquelle's second outfit is a party dress if I've ever seen one! It's mostly red with a glittery star pattern and a black bodice, with one ruffled shoulder. It's very tight and very short!


Close-up so you can see the stars, and the slight pattern on the bodice.


This is definitely a night on the town kind of look! Raquelle is the kind of character who demands a lot of attention, and this outfit is certainly going to help with that!


It does seem to have a slight fit issue however, over on the right side there. Because it doesn't have a strap, it has a tendency to slip down over her chest, which definitely happened more than once while I was posing her for these photos. Wardrobe malfunction!



She can wear the leggings underneath the dress too, which is a fun option since the dress is so short.


I also love how the jacket looks over the dress! It involves some maneuvering to get that big ruffled sleeve inside the jacket, but I think it's worth it.


Raquelle has the same great articulation that Midge does, so I had a lot of fun posing her! I think it's really neat how her smirk gives her face a different look from different angles.



She can look sassy or even a bit sneaky, or almost bashful depending on how you look at her!



But no matter which way you look at Raquelle, she's gorgeous and full of personality. I'm really glad I picked her up and added her to my collection, she really stands out for me, even on a shelf full of attention grabbing Monster High dolls! I still want to add Barbie to my collection and maybe Nikki....but if I get Nikki, I may as well get Teresa and Summer too...well, if you collect dolls, you know what a slippery slope it can be!

Have you picked up any of these Life in the Dreamhouse dolls? Has anyone else gotten dragged back into Barbie by them like I was?

2 comments:

  1. Raquelle is so awesome :D My little girl wants some of the LITDH dolls and I kinda like them too, Midge and Raquelle are my favourites :) We watch the webisodes together, we both enjoy them.
    We managed to get Slo Mo two weeks ago and that makes me super happy. (I read in your tumblr that you got him too, that's great :)) We also finally got Jane Boolittle at the same time. Our nearest shop has another Slo Mo now, he's been sitting inthe shelf several days, MH boys don't sell very well in Finland, or at least in our area they don't.
    How much do the Monster High dolls cost in Canada? In Finland they're too expensive, basics are 24-30€, budget lines about 22-26€ and some lines like Haunt the Casbah can cost up to 40 euros. Ever After High dolls cost even more, basics about 35€, Getting Fairest 36€ and Legacy Day dolls are 50 euros! That's crazy! And then we don't get many of the exclusives, it's just annoying :( So collecting dolls is expensive here, but finding dolls can be easy some times.

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    1. They're more expensive than in the US, but not quite as expensive as where you are. Depending on the store, budget like Ghoul Spirit run $19.99-$24.99, and regular lines like Picture Day run about $30. More and more we're seeing dolls at $34.99 though, like FCA and Sweet Screams. EAH is around the same price, about $30. We get the TRU exclusives just fine, usually a bit late, and now that we have Target we get Target and Wal-Mart exclusives with no issue. Where we have problems is with dolls like the new Coffin Bean, or the last two waves of Dead Tired. They're called alt-channel dolls, and they don't go to toy stores in the US, just budget stores, and Canada doesn't have any equivalent so we don't get those. That can be super frustrating if there's something you want, but luckily I live really close to the US, and I can go over if there's something I'm really looking for!

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