Crocheted by my wife 🙂

Received her today 🙂

Blouse made by a local master. The buttons on the front are decorative - it actually closes at the back 🙂

Doll: Barbie Looks #13 (Victoria mold). I named her Agnes in my collection. The top is sewn by me, the jeans and bag are made by local creators.

Bought from a local master 🙂 It's so detailed!

Even has a functional magnetic closing:

More photos on a doll:

Clothes sewn by a local master 🙂

Together with my other gals:

Today I received a 12-jointed MengF body for my Barbie Looks #15. The skintone is MengF New Brown 2021. I don't have this doll's original body - I bought only the head for rerooting, and I'm also planning to repaint her lips. There is a slight skintone mismatch, but in real life it's minimal and looks quite natural, almost like she's just wearing makeup.

Here is how she looks originally.

I love the head sculpt, but the body is not very articulated, so I ordered a third-party body from AliExpress. I just really love the ability to pose.

I ordered the MengF Black with 26 joints. Some listings include "2023" or "2022" in the title, but I think it's the same body. I ordered the one marked as "2023", but on the back of the body it says "MengF 2021". I think 2021 is the year the mold was designed. Mattel does something similar. This Simone has "Mattel 2021" on the back, but the doll was created in 2025. So as of right now the year doesn't matter, all these 26-joint bodies have only a single revision (unlike the 22-jointed ones!).

This body is not a perfect color match, but it's not very noticeable. In the photo below, you can see that the original body (3rd) is darker than the MengF (2nd).

On the far left you can also see Claudette from Barbie Basics 3. I saw some people on the Internet mention that this body fits Claudette, but I think she is too light for it. On the far right is Simone from Barbie Looks 10. She has the exact same color. These two dolls aren't mine, but maybe someone will find this information useful 🙂

Here is a close-up of the head on the new body:

And here are a few more photos just for fun:

Socks knitted by my wife 🙂

I'm not a native English speaker, so I hope I called this piece of clothing correctly. It was her first attempt. The sweater turned out to be a little big, but I think it looks nice 🙂

The skirt was made by a local maker.

The clothes are on a Barbie Dreamtopia Mermaid Odile with a human body from AliExpress called MengF.

My wife ordered a dress for a Barbie from a local tailor, but it didn't fit her well, so she gave it to me.

It was also too tight around the legs, but my wife managed to make a slit. I think it looks great now!

Today I finally received my long-awaited Brooklyn Doll.

My first impression - pure delight. I absolutely love this mold, the hairstyle, even the outfit (I know a lot of people criticized the clothes). The only thing that's really not my taste is the lipstick color. I'm not a fan of light pink lipstick. But that's just my personal preference, and if it starts to bother me in the future, I'll simply repaint it.

I consider myself one of those lucky (?) people who can't really tell whether a doll's face print is perfectly centered or not. I'm actually very happy about that, because it allows me to love all of my dolls without overanalyzing them. That said, what I especially love about this doll is the lip print - it almost perfectly matches the sculpted lip shape.

Of course, I wasn't impressed with the plastic accessories. They look cheap, and I don't really understand why they exist in this form on collector dolls. But I'll talk about that in another post.

A much more important and complicated topic is quality.

My doll unfortunately has some serious issues with her legs. There are symmetrical cracks on both legs. At first glance, it might look like a mixing issue in the plastic, but under direct light, the chip becomes visible. The defect is equally present on both legs, but the chip is more visible under light on one leg than on the other. I didn't take a photo, but there's a similar defect on the lower part of the leg as well. It's disappointing (especially on darker-skinned dolls, where this kind of defect is much more noticeable), but it doesn't affect functionality. Honestly, I was mentally prepared for this issue.

What upset me even more were the white stress marks around the ankle joints. First of all, they don't look good, and secondly, they indicate significant thinning of the plastic, which, in my opinion, could potentially affect the doll's long-term durability. I once created a similar mark myself on a buff Ken when I tried to bend the joint further than it was meant to go.

There are similar marks near both ankles.

I was genuinely surprised by the joints. After all my Basics and Looks dolls, I wasn't expecting much. Every Basics and Looks doll I own has at least one joint that's too loose and annoying. With all of my Basics dolls, the arm joints were stiff at first, and I had to gently work them until they could bend past 90 degrees. But all the joints on this girl work perfectly. None are too loose or too stiff. Even the ankle joints - which literally annoy me on every single doll I own - work perfectly here.

As someone who owns a doll where every body segment is a slightly different shade, I also want to mention that Brooklyn has almost no color mismatch between body parts. Yes, if you really nitpick, you could say there's a slight variation. But compared to my red-haired Basics - no, this is not a real color mismatch at all, just a tiny difference.

Overall thoughts.

I really love my Brooklyn. Yes, she has flaws, and I'm sure I would notice even more issues if I had more experience and a sharper eye. But I didn't have high expectations. I fully understand that Mattel, like (almost) all doll brands, isn't really about creating the highest-quality, most interesting doll possible - it's about maximizing profit while minimizing costs. So Brooklyn fully met my expectations, and in some ways even exceeded them.

I found Fairy Godmother Barbie on my local marketplace for dirt cheap. Originally, she looks like this:

But mine was in bad condition and without wings, wand, stand and shoes. However, I was only interested in her head because I had a spare body with a matching skin tone.

It's actually quite a rare doll. She was made by Mattel in collaboration with Disney. So I get lucky to get her 🙂

I wasn't sure about her initially, but once I washed her hair, swapped the body, and redressed her, I ended up liking her a lot.

I used MengF with a Super White skin tone (first photo). The head is a bit darker.

But she also fits great on Pink White. The head is a little bit lighter.

Because of this, I think the head matches both body colors.

Bought some clothes from a local master🙂

They are plastic "eggs," similar to Kinder Surprise. They contain tiny items suitable for 1/6-scale dolls. These can include anything from shoes and accessories to miniature books and food. They are usually popular among doll collectors.

The link is a database featuring their series and all the possible items included inside.

Radiant Readhead is her model name. I bought the doll used without clothes. The original body is not articulated, so I ordered a new one for a swap.

I bought the White skin tone, and it's a perfect match. As I mentioned in my previous post with Odile, the head color is always slightly different due to the different materials (vinyl vs. plastic). It's less noticeable in real life.

In this case, the color match is even better than the original. Here is her original body on the right for comparison:

I didn't make the photo of her head on her original body, but the difference with her head was more noticeable.

It's a cheap playline Barbie that originally comes with a mermaid tail. But her head is gorgeous! So I ordered a MengF body from AliExpress. It combines the articulation of the Made to Move line from Barbie and the elegance of the Fashion Royalty line from Integrity Toys. It's quite pricey, but it's my favorite. And today I received it!

I ordered the Pink White color and it's a great match for her skin tone. Here are the photos:

The body differs a little because it's made of different materials. The head is made of vinyl, while the body is made of plastic. So you will see about the same slight difference even on the original bodies. It's not noticeable in real life.