Review: Dot Dead Gorgeous 3-Pack

I bet you thought with that Dot Dead Gorgeous Spectra review I was finished covering this line. Alas, you were incorrect. Mattel decided to release three more dolls within the line, and what's more, they're all available in one handy package. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, there are a few catches. First of all, this 3-pack is only available at Wal-Mart -- yep, it's another exclusive. On top of that, these three particular dolls can only be purchased in this one pack. And there's yet a third catch -- these dolls are not created equal. To say that this is an uneven release is an understatement. They lure you in with a curly-haired, bone-shoed Ghoulia, and give you a lackluster Draculaura for your efforts.

To be fair, this pack retails for about $40. That comes to a little over $13 per doll, a reasonable price for a solo Monster High doll. Whether these particular dolls are actually worth that much is debatable. I suppose the left hand taketh what the right hand giveth; in the end these things even out (kind of). What Draculaura lacks, Abbey (in theory) makes up for. Speaking of, let's take a look at ol' bluey (I know, just go with it...)

Of the three dolls, she comes the closest to matching the solo DDG dolls in terms of design, accessories, and general quality. All of her accessories are done in a molded, blue style meant to emulate ice. This includes her earrings, choker, belt, purse, and shoes. She also has a molded piece attached to the only sleeve of her dress. Her dress fits with the solo dolls, in that it's layered and has a dot pattern. The bodice features a blue and white snowflake pattern; the snowflakes work surprisingly well as dots. The skirt has three tiers -- the top tier uses the same snowflake pattern, the middle tier is solid pink, and the bottom tier is the snowflakes again. The dress looks good and the material feels nice but I don't think it quite measures up to the solo dolls' dresses. Her last accessory is fur cuffs on each of her wrists. I like these a lot. They play into her theme and add visual interest. Plus they're just, you know, really cool.

Her faceup isn't unique but it's very pretty. She has silver and purple eyeshadow and bright pink lips. They're the same color as her Skultimate Roller Maze doll's lips, but just a tad brighter. Her hair is the standard Abbey colors pulled into a ponytail that rests to her left. As I mentioned, she comes closest to matching the solo dolls in design and quality, but she's not quite there. I like this doll, but would I pay $13 for her if she were sold alone? I'm not so sure.

Next we have Ghoulia (always a good thing, in my opinion). This particular one isn't her best, but it doesn't disappoint, either. Her dress is made of a satiny material and uses blue eyes dripping blood as the dots on the bodice -- very cool. She has a black belt attached and a puffy skirt in red with white skullettes dotted throughout. There is one sleeve, on her left, and it uses the same skullette pattern. This is my favorite of the three dresses, although it isn't layered in any way and therefor feels detached thematically from the rest of the line.

She has several good accessories. Her purse is made of bones and opens on a hinge. It's pretty brittle and feels a bit cheap, but it looks great. She also has a translucent grey molded cuff on her left forearm that's textured to look like it has a liquid of some kind running down it. This bit of gore nicely fits her theme. It limits movement of her arm but once again it looks good, so whatever. Her shoes are amazing -- white bones on a wedge of red brain matter. They're probably the single best accessory of this entire pack. She has large white glasses (I like the shape of these a lot), and red crossbone earrings.

Her faceup is good. She has shimmery pink eyeshadow topped by a layer of silver. Her lips are a pure, deep red. This makeup doesn't particularly stand out but it's not bad by any means. It exemplifies "less is more". She has bangs that curl under and a tight ponytail. A mass of tight, unruly curls rests behind her head. I love this hairstyle! It's unique to this Ghoulia (the only one that's similar is Dawn of the Dance but it's not in a ponytail), and comes across as fun and youthful. Even though she doesn't have quite as many accessories as Abbey's doll I like her much more. Then again I like Ghoulia much more than Abbey in general so maybe I'm biased. What I do know is I would pay $13 for this doll in a heartbeat.

The third doll in the pack is Draculaura. I'm just gonna say it -- this doll reeks of minimal effort. Her faceup is quite plain (not in the good way), and her dress feels cheap. She comes with an iCoffin (zzzz...) and a simple bracelet. Poor Draculaura doesn't even get a purse to carry her things in at the party. She has pink bow earrings and black and pink shoes. I'm pretty sure they're modified Dead Tired shoes. They're okay I guess. Her dress has a pink bodice with a print of white and black hearts. A black collar attaches to a black bow in the center top of the bodice, under which hangs three small layers of white lace. It reads much better than it looks. The skirt has a print of diagonal black squares with an alternating pattern of white skullettes and pink dots. The skirt is gathered in the front with two black bows. Once again, this reads far better than it looks. The gathering actually makes the dress look misshapen and the print is too small to work as a dot pattern.

Her eyeshadow is magenta (no glitter, no shimmer), and her lips are dark pink (these do shimmer). To her credit, she has good hair. It's pulled into a ponytail and has a light wave. The pink streaks are spread evenly throughout.

Of all the MH dolls I own this may be my least favorite. She feels cheap, and when you combine that with the fact that Draculaura dolls aren't my thing anyway, you can see why this doll just doesn't work for me. No way would I own this doll if she weren't already included in a pack with dolls I genuinely like.

Overall grade: B- My favorite doll from this set, Ghoulia, feels a bit lacking compared to the solo DDG dolls. But taken on her own she's a beautiful doll that I'm glad to own. Abbey is good as well, but not quite on the level of the solo dolls. Poor Draculaura doesn't have much going for her at all. Being exclusives, these dolls don't come with stands, a big negative for me. I would say as a whole this pack is pretty unessential, but then I look at Ghoulia and her cool dress and pretty hair and have second thoughts. Ditto on grading this set. I almost gave it a C+.

Review: Dot Dead Gorgeous Spectra Vondergeist

Maybe I should rename this blog Spectrathing. She's on quite a roll at the moment 'round here, hogging all the posts with her shiny purple hair and grubby little (clear) hands. I'm going to be honest with you: Spectra usually doesn't get much attention at my house. It's not that I don't like her -- I actually think she's extremely cool and remarkably unique. It's just that, as I covered in my spotlight of her, there's literally not much of her around that we can get excited about. She's had two dolls and one fashion pack, and they're all great (her fashion pack might actually be deserving of it's very own blog post, it's that awesome), but when you've got new characters and tons of lines constantly being released she tends to get lost in the shuffle. Doing her character spotlight really put me in a Spectra mood, plus I'd already been planning on reviewing her Dot Dead Gorgeous doll, so why not do it now, while the proverbial iron is hot? And for anyone feeling Spectra fatigue, take heart, because she likely won't be showing up again on the blog in a major way until her Power Ghoul doll is released next year.

"He's right, I ain't coming back for awhile..."

As you've probably gathered from my previous reviews, the Dot Dead Gorgeous line is a personal favorite of mine. I feel it strikes the perfect balance of style and function. The line isn't as basic as Skultimate Roller Maze, and it's not overly elaborate like Ghouls Rule. If it were the porridge in a fairy tale it'd be the one that's just right.

"Did you just compare me to soup? Uh... okay..."

Spectra Vondergeist is the third and final of the wide release dolls left to cover. She's the second Spectra doll to be released, and in terms of hair and face she doesn't stray far from the Basic doll. She still has long, straight hair in streaks of lavender and purple. This doll has bangs where the basic one didn't, and her hair is pulled into a ponytail to the back left side of her head. It's held in place by a thick row of molded silver chains. The piece has a rubber band around it, which is a good thing because there's a pretty big gap in it, and since it doesn't have a buckle or clip I doubt it would hold her hair at all without that rubber band. The texture of her hair is very soft and silky. This doll's faceup is pretty similar to the Basic one, as well. She has the same turquoise eyes with a hint of purple, surrounded by more purple where typically the eyes would be white. On Basic Spectra these purple eyes have always stood out to me and given her a unique, otherwordly vibe, and it's the same on the DDG doll. This doll's makeup is painted in the exact same shape as the Basic doll, but most of the colors are different. The eyeshadow that surrounds her eyes is a bright magenta color while the second layer of shadow that goes to her brows is the same silver color, but much lighter. She has the same strip of blue-ish eyeliner. DDG Spectra's lips are still purple, but they're a much brighter, almost pink, shade. Her lips are pursed tightly, emphasizing her cheekbones, just like the basic doll.

This is how you give good face.

While I'm on the subject of faces, I just want to say I've always found Spectra's face to be one of the fiercest of any of the dolls. If Mattel was going for accuracy in representing a teenager with Spectra they were way off, because there's no way this doll is any younger than mid-twenties. As I've mentioned previously, in my mind these dolls are somewhere around their mid- to late-twenties, so I like the Spectra facemold in particular.

Anyway, moving on from that tangent, Spectra's dress is one of the best of this line. It's a lavender sheath dress with black dots. It has one strap, on her left. The length is just past mid-thigh. It's covered completely by soft tulle in purple, with a print of magenta chains connecting large, dark purple dots. I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a ball-and-chain print. The seam around her chest is lined with magenta ribbon while the seam around the bottom of the tulle skirt is magenta thread. At her abdomen is an asymmetrical hem and from there the skirt flares out. The skirt is pretty big and folds in on itself, creating a layered look. Over this Spectra wears one of the most interesting accessories we've seen from MH yet. It's a molded, silver piece that rests on her left shoulder. Six strings of chains hang from it and reconnect at her left shoulder in the back. The first string hangs over her right shoulder, then four more strings hang under her right arm, getting progressively longer. The last string loops under her left arm. This is a really cool piece, and I'm not even sure what to call it. It more or less functions as a sort of necklace but is much more elaborate than any necklace I've ever seen. Well done, Mattel. I'm impressed. Matching silver cuffs wrap each of her ankles, while on each of her hands she wears a corsage made of black elastic with a little magenta bow with black dots attached. I don't really care for the corsages and I'm not sure why. Maybe they seem like overkill? I don't know. Molded onto Spectra's hands are silver cuffs, with a string of chains that "dangle" over her hands and connect to a ring on her middle finger. These hands look really small to me, but I compared them to her Basic doll's hands and they seem to be the same size. Anyway, these are really cool hands. The chain detailing adds a lot of visual interest. Her purse is black and has a silver chain handle. More chains are wrapped around the purse haphazardly. Her shoes are solid purple high heels with molded chains all over. They're not the most interesting MH shoes we've seen, but I like them nonetheless.

Basic but pretty.

She has mismatched earrings. One is a silver chain with a heart connected to it; the heart has a lock in it. The other earring is a white skullette key. Pretty cute! She comes with a silver stand and matching brush (I love these DDG stands), and a collector's card featuring her Dot Dead Gorgeous drawing on one side and all six DDG characters on the other.

Overall grade: A- This is yet another great doll from this line. The theme is executed well; I don't exactly know what a dot party is supposed to entail, but I imagine this is how you should look for one. The multi-chain thing on her shoulder is way cool and very distinctive. The doll itself is well-made; very high quality for a playline doll. She lost a few points for having a face that's a little too similar to her basic version, but there's no denying she's really pretty in her own right. I'm glad we have another Spectra around; she's a cool doll.

"Ta! See ya next year!"

Review: Dot Dead Gorgeous Lagoona Blue

When I first discovered Monster High Lagoona Blue was the doll that drew me in. I was fascinated by her unique look, interesting body modifications, and beautiful face. To this day Wave 1 Basic Lagoona is still one of my favorite MH dolls. Unfortunately since then I haven't always been impressed by her dolls. I loved the dress and accessories on her Dawn of the Dance incarnation, and admired the ambitious hairstyle, but felt her faceup was too overdone. Her Classroom doll was the exact opposite -- I found her outfit boring and her face a bit mundane. Really, aside from that first Lagoona doll the only other one I've really loved is her Skull Shores doll. There have only been eight Lagoona dolls released to date, peanuts compared to Frankie's 15 dolls, and Draculaura's 16. But in two of the most recent lines - Dot Dead Gorgeous and Skultimate Roller Maze - we've gotten a brand new Lagoona. Considering that's literally a fourth of her total dolls available, it's the toy equivalent of a Lagoona tidal wave. And I'm happy to report that they're both beautiful dolls! Today I'm gonna take a look at her Dot Dead Gorgeous incarnation.

Do you like my shell?

Let's start with the hair. Lagoona dolls are infamous for having bad hair. It looks so pretty in the box, but the moment you take her out it turns into a mess of frizzy, gnarly, yellow puffs. Combing it doesn't help; in fact over time I've learned to simply not comb it at all. If I want to rearrange a Lagoona dolls' hair I just use my fingers. Unfortunately this Lagoona is no different, and in fact there's been a new development here: it's also crispy. We've seen this crisping gel used on Lagoona's bangs in the past but never on the back of her hair like it is here. That said, the gel does have a bit of an anchoring effect; her hair is staying put a bit better than usual for Lagoona. Not dissimilar to DDG Operetta, having Lagoona's hair in a ponytail also seems to mitigate the frizz problem. She has an interesting thing going on with her bangs. Like her ponytail they've been gelled, then set in a large curl. In her box these gelled pieces were laying on top of her head and jutting out in four directions. This worried me when I bought her but happily I was able to gather them into the large wave you see above. I actually really like the look. Check it out in profile...

Talk about catching some waves...

Her ponytail is held by a hot pink, open shell. There's a pearl inside that has a bit of a sheen to it. It's a great accessory. Her earrings are white bubbles -- on her left is one simple bubble (it could be a pearl, but I'm saying bubble because it's not shiny like the pearl in her hair). On her right is what you see above. It looks like another bubble, but this one has a molded detail hanging from it. It's pretty elaborate, to the point that I can't entirely make out what it's supposed to be. But it looks pretty cool anyway.

This is a beautiful faceup for Lagoona. She has a thin strip of magenta eyeshadow over which is an even thinner strip of blue eyeshadow, which is all surrounded by a large layer of light pink eyeshadow. It all has a thin layer of glitter over it. Her eyes are the usual olive green with a hint of light green. Her lips are also light pink and have a light sheen to them. Her eyebrows are the usual lavender color and her freckles are green.

She's wearing three necklaces in pink, blue, and pink again. Surprisingly these aren't molded together but are individual pieces. They get progressively larger as they go down. The top of each one is jagged. She wears a strapless slip dress with a print of blue stripes and white bubbles. There's a little bit of pink in there as well. The hem at the top and bottom is black. Around her waist is an electric blue belt with a molded pink starfish attached on her left. The belt is attached to the dress. Under the belt, also at the waist, are three layers of tulle in an asymmetrical cut. The top layer has the same print as the dress while the other two layers are hot pink. I really love this dress. I like that they used bubbles as the "dots", the use of different materials for each piece of the dress creates visual interest, and the materials they've used all feel nice.

Lagoona's shoes are open toe wedges. The wedge of the shoes work similarly to how DOTD Lagoona's shoes worked -- that is, the wedge is a flat piece attached to the front of the shoe but not the back. I love this style of MH shoe - DOTD Cleo's shoes functioned the same way -- and here it creates a visual effect of an open clam holding her foot. This coordinates with her hairpiece nicely, especially since the strap over her toes has another shiny pearl on top. The plastic used for the shoes feels sturdy, but not as hard as her DOTD shoes.

The last three accessories we have to talk about (yes, there's three more to go -- girl got DRESSED for this dot party!) are her purse, bracelet, and armband. Her purse is a thin, translucent orange piece with a kelp design and little dangly bits hanging off of it. I think these are supposed to be choral but I'm not certain. They look cool, though, and I like that the purse is the only orange used on the outfit. It keeps everything from being too matchy-matchy.

On her left wrist is a white tentacle bracelet that matches her earrings. It has two layers of bands and several twisted arms hanging down from those that frame her hand nicely. Lastly, she has an electric blue armband on her right arm that wraps her elbow. It's a soft mesh material and perfectly accents the blue of her belt.

Overall grade: A This would've been an A+ but that hair is still a problem for me. Although it's much more manageable in the ponytail I'd like to see a Lagoona doll who has thick, silky hair that isn't impossible to maintain. Otherwise this is a great doll! I love her dress, the color scheme is nice, and the bubble dots are a simple but creative way to execute this theme. She has plenty of accessories and her faceup is beautiful. Quality control was very good for this doll, or at least it was for this particular one.

"I like me, too."

 All images: yours truly

Review: Dot Dead Gorgeous Operetta

Oh, Operetta. Last fall we were all so excited about you. Your profile art looked amazing. Your bio was so cool -- who can resist a rebellious rockabilly chick? And your doll looked oh-so-exciting. Those victory rolls. The scars and tats. Your musical note/heart mask sealed the deal. We all had to have you. And then you started showing up in stores. And you were cool, for sure. Those victory rolls looked great -- so polished, so glam. And your clothes were indeed rockabilly retro. But your mask, attached as a barrett to one of your rolls, was kind of a problem. It smushed your left roll down in middle which just looked odd. And if I wanted to remove it, it required messing your hair up even more. And speaking of -- while your victory rolls truly were victorious in their soaring doll hair perfection, the back of your hair was a completely different, very messy, very crispy, story. It seemed your hair, in philosophy at least, had much in common with the mullet: business in the front, party in the back. But we loved you anyway; you were so unique and so ambitious in your design, we simply had to.

It seems Mattel may have agreed with us because since your first doll there have been some design changes, or at least, your hair and mask have seen some changes. No victory rolls, no barrett mask. It's for this reason that I declare your Dot Dead Gorgeous incarnation the best version of you to date:

Beautiful

Okay guys, let's get one thing clear right up front: the new earring mask is a vast improvement over the barrett mask. It looks just as good, but is much more user-friendly. It can be easily removed, and just as easily reattached. The cobweb and spider it's attached to is pretty cool, too. With that out of the way, let's continue.

Her hair has upward curled bangs (a simple alternative to the victory rolls that achieves a similar visual effect), and while the texture of her hair in the back still seems a bit ratty, it's at least pulled into a cute ponytail so it's pretty manageable. Let's see how she looks without the mask:

Gorgeous indeed.

Her faceup is lovely. She has a thin strip of hot pink eyeshadow over each eye, which is in turn surrounded by brown eyeshadow that goes halfway up to her eyebrows. This is coated with a thin layer of glitter. Her lips are a deep red. This version of Operetta uses the red, black and white color scheme established by her basic doll, but much more prominently. She also maintains her retro 50's vibe thanks to a nicely buoyant poodle skirt. The bodice and skirt are white with black polka dots, with two layers of red tulle over the skirt. The top layer of tulle has large black dots printed on it and a hemmed seam. Her bodice has a molded cobweb detail in the middle of the bust and red straps with small black dots. This print matches the large bow in her hair. She has a white, beaded necklace, with three black musical notes hanging off of it. These coordinate nicely with her piano key-themed belt.

Her purse is also piano themed, although it looks like a pretty old, beat up piece of equipment (aka it looks really cool). The handle is a string of musical notes, and black, molded cobwebs hang off the sides.

Creepy and cute.

Her shoes are amazing. They're red, open toe platforms with black wedges. A pair of die cover the toes, and a black spider with long, loose legs grips the back of each ankle. The spiders lower legs can be moved and adjusted.

Her other earring is a silver cobweb. It matches her stand and brush (I love the DDG stands, by the way). I'm not always a fan of the mismatched earrings Mattel puts on these dolls, but I like the effect here. Plus it's kind of necessary since the other earring doubles as her mask.

Overall grade: A- She loses a few points because her hair is still a bit of a mess. But overall this a big step up from her basic release, at least in terms of mask functionality, and how they've tamed the hair somewhat by putting it in a stylish ponytail. There are lots of great little details, her theme is emphasized in a creative way, and quality control is good on this doll. Take us out, Operetta!

"Y'all come back now, ya hear!"

Top image: Mattel. The rest: yours truly.