Ever After High: Briar Beauty

One of my favourite fairy tales of all time is the story of Sleeping Beauty. I love all versions from the darker Grimm version to the gorgeous Disney movie, to the less common versions like the Old Norse story of Brynhildr. I don't know what it is about the story that I like so much, but I always have. It should be no surprise then that Briar Beauty was one of the dolls on my shortlist when Ever After High started catching my eye.

I'll admit that I started out wanting the doll simply because she was the daughter of Sleeping Beauty. Her very pink outfit was well...VERY pink. However, the more I looked at her every time I saw her in a store, the more I noticed the beautiful details of her outfit, and the more her lovely face captivated me. And it didn't hurt that when I finally decided to take the plunge, I got her for 30% off!

Let's have a closer look before she falls asleep on us!

 

She comes in the standard EAH box, with all the standard stuff. Briar is a bit of a party girl, because she knows it's in her destiny to sleep for 100 years, so she's got to live while she can!

Let me tell you, all this pink made my camera freak out.

This is one of those little details I mentioned that helped win me over to Briar. Her purse is a pillow! You know, in case the urge to nap takes her over while she's out shopping.

There is definitely a lot of pink going on in this outfit! I think my biggest wish here would be for another colour thrown in just to break up the pink and black a little bit. I feel the same way about a lot of Draculaura dolls over at Monster High, and I'm glad they've started adding in some yellow every once in awhile. Hot pink and black always strikes me as a very juvenile, simplistic colour combination and while it feels silly to complain about a doll being juvenile...I still wish for something to break up the colours. Especially considering her Legacy Day and Getting Fairest dolls are both the same color combination as this. Hopefully in the future she'll get a bit of variety!

Apart from all the pink, there are a lot of really great details to be found in Briar's dress. The dress itself is cut straight across at the bust, with clear straps to hold it up. The bodice is a pale pink with a black pattern over the top. I'm not sure exactly what the pattern is meant to be, but it reminds me of chain links. The skirt is a tulip shape with two overlapping layers on each side, made in an ombre shiny pink fabric trimmed in black tulle. Along the edges of the skirt there is a printed pattern of roses and thorny vines, which is pretty perfect! On her shoulders, she wears something between a collar and epaulets. There are huge bursts of pink roses on each shoulder, connected with black beads, and a large pink medallion at the base of her throat. This piece looks really cool, but it does cause some mobility issues with her arms, and I suspect if it wasn't held on with rubber bands, lifting her arms above her head would be enough to knock it out of place. Potentially it could fall right off, since the clasp in the back isn't the sturdiest.

The tights are one of my favourite things about Ever After High in general, and Briar's are no exception. They're a soft grey with a slight shimmer, patterned all over with winding vines.

The thorns and vines continue down onto her shoes, which are of course, bright pink. There are roses bunched up at her ankles, and the rest of the straps of the shoes are all vines. For EAH these shoes are actually almost simple, but they're really effective and quite cute!

On her right hand she wears a pink rose ring, and on her left wrist, she wears a black cuff with a matching pink rose.

Her earrings are silver roses with three leaves on either side. I'm glad they aren't pink!

Shockingly, her makeup is also pink :P She has deep pink shadow around her eyes, with light pink shadow right above her lashline. Her lips are a slightly berry toned pink, with 5 reflection dots on the lower lip. It's also worth noting at this point that Briar's skin tone is a lovely tan colour, very similar to, if not exactly the same as Cerise's skin. Her eyes are kind of an odd colour actually! They're brown, but they have a distinct red tone to them, which can make them almost read as burgundy in some lighting. Interesting!

Her final accessory is kind of a two-for-one! It's a pair of pink sunglasses, but thanks to the elaborate scrolling design across the top, when the glasses are on her head, they resemble a tiara. Personally, I really prefer them on her head. Because of the shape of the EAH heads and how flat the faces are, the glasses have the tendency to sit kind of funny, and I also think they'd look better with dark lenses.

Her hair, to put it bluntly, is not great. It's a lovely sort of auburn brown colour, with really nice red highlights when the light hits it, and pink all throughout the under layer. However, the texture leaves a lot to be desired. It manages to look greasy and also feel dry and crunchy at the same time, and it's not just the hair near the ends. I'm going to try washing it and maybe giving it a good douse in baby powder and see if that helps because as it is, I don't even want to run a brush through it. I know exactly what will happen if I do, and no one wants that.

Apart from the texture, her hair is styled in curls and waves of varying sizes. It's parted on the side, and the hair just in front of her left ear is gathered into a small ponytail and woven into a knot. I can only assume this is meant to look like a flower!

And that's Ms Briar Beauty! I feel like I kind of complained about a lot of this with this doll, and she does definitely have her issues. However, overall she is really attractive, and I appreciate all the details that tie in to the Sleeping Beauty story we know and love.

And I really, really love that her purse can be used as a pillow. Where do I get one of those? I feel like if could come in handy!

Off to go shopping with Apple or maybe to a great party. When you know you're going to sleep for 100 years, you never turn down an invite!

It's funny to me now that I was so critical of the EAH face molds back when they first came out, and how the basic dolls all used the same one, and they all looked too much alike. Now, even having all of my EAH dolls on the shelf together, I can see their personalities in their faces and they don't look the same to me anymore. It's interesting how time changes these things!

Now that I have Briar in my collection, there aren't too many EAH dolls that I'm looking to add. I still want basic Raven, and I'm thinking about Cupid, and of the new dolls we know about, I'm definitely going to need Cedar Wood with her amazing woodgrain limbs! All in all, Briar isn't a perfect doll, but she is a pretty doll, who is well-designed, that's okay by me!

What do you think of Briar and all her pink fabulousness?