Thursday, January 3, 2013

Introducing Kenya!


Happy New Year everyone! 
I was thrilled to find that the $20 Kenya dolls were on sale for $10 at Family Dollar, so I picked up one on New year's eve, and one on New Year's day.  I have a South African Barbie who was still on an old TNT body, and one of the basic black Model Muse dolls with very dark skin who was still on the stiff MM body, so I was hoping for a match. 
I bought two Kenyas, Beverly Hills and Riviera. I didn't get pictures before, but here they are: 
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13076470
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13076471&prodFindSrc=search
I actually really like these clothes and accessories.  I like the faces too, but they have the ridiculously large head syndrome.  So there may be shrinking in their future.


Skin comparison: Left to right, Riviera Kenya, Model muse 1.0 Goddess (#4), Beverly Hills Kenya, and Princess of South Africa.

As you can see, even these super-dark Kenyas are not an exact match for the other two dolls, but they are as close as I will ever get for Goddess, so I put her on Beverly Hills, and then put South Africa on Goddess's body.  The MM body is no more posable than the TNT body, but I do prefer it. 

But here's the problem.  These heads are VERY hard to remove.  The heads themselves are very hard, and then they have weak neck pegs and very thick hooks holding the head on.  
It's hard to see because it's so blurry, but there is no knob to speak of--just hooks. I heated both heads with a hairdryer, but they were still very hard to remove.  One of the head joints popped completely off (i replaced it with a spare) and the other almost did, until I got a small screwdriver and shoved it in her neck hole to stretch it.  If you buy these dolls for body swaps, be very careful removing the heads!  If you don't mind sacrificing the heads, I would just cut them off with an exacto knife rather than try to pry them off.  If I had it to do over again, that's what I would have done.  
Although there is a definite difference in tone, it's not as noticeable with clothes on.  Here's Goddess on her new flexible body!
 Here are a few obligatory "how they stack up" photos: 
 Here you can see Swappin Style barbie, Kenya, and Liv sitting.  That is as close together as Kenyas legs will get.  She has hinged knees like the old Fashionistas.
 No abdominal joint and hinged knees mean she leans as far back as a SS Fashionista. 
 Very graceful profile.  You can see that her breasts are larger than Barbie's (and rounder, less pointy) and her butt is smaller. 

And here she is, all dressed and ready to go.  All in all, I do like these bodies, but the difficulty of removing the original head is definitely worth noting.  And as I stated, they were as recently as 2 days ago on sale for $10 at Family Dollar.  I do hope they will sell the TJ doll locally.

17 comments:

  1. South Africa looks great on her new body. I'm on the hunt for a couple more of these ladies if I can find them. I hope the $10 stays at FD a little longer. I'm patiently waiting the arrival of TJ & Keyshia. I hope they make the scene soon.

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    1. Have you seen any actual product pictures of the other dolls? They only have Kenya here, and last I looked TRU only had Kenya on their site too.

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    2. No I haven't seen any actual pics of the other dolls on the back of the boxes. I'm just watching the boards for any sightings and pics

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  2. Nice post Miss Lola 77! Happy New Year! I need to get a couple of the bodies because Mattel seems to refuse to give us any dark skinned articulation. I only purchased the one with the leopard attire. I plan to keep her as is...big head and all. Lol!

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    1. I hope the heads will shrink. If they do, I think i'm going to put one back on the body...maybe give her a nice hairstyle first. I do really like the face.

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  3. Thank you so much for this post! I have seen some people complain about the neck thickness vs. Barbie, but you are the first to mention the neck knob, or lack there of, in detail. I will keep all this in mind in case I decide to opt for one of these gals. (^_^) And by the way...your new gal looks great!!

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    1. The neck is a bit thicker than Barbie, but I didn't really notice since I really only put one head on the Kenya body. But that neck knob is a real booger.

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  4. Hello from Spain: Happy New Year! I envy your purchases. Barbie's head in the new body is perfect. Keep in touch

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  5. Hey, Great post! Yeah, I lost the knob trying to get it off too. I like that her knees bend but I don't like the length or the slop of the neck. The neck is a little to short and the slop of the back of the neck to the front of the neck is more steep than that of Barbie or other dolls.

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    1. The neck is surprisingly short. Barbie necks, in general, are longer than a person's neck should be, but it's still a little weird to see a doll with a normal length neck. I didn't notice the slope, but will notice it now:D

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  6. Awesome post! Love seeing comparisons like this. That is a much more reasonable price. Too bad they didn't start out at that price.

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    1. TRU actually had them listed at $16 on their site when FD had them for $20. We didn't have any at the local TRU though.

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  7. I should have hit more FD stores. The two I went to didn't have any SIS dolls at all:/

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  8. Congratulations on finding the Kenya dolls on sale. Crossing my fingers that I will find some ;-)

    Thanks for the comparison photos, too. They are always helpful.

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  9. One tip you could try is to gently warm the head before you try to remove it off the neck. (Heating pad, or a hair dryer on low) would probably help soften the head vinyl enough for it to give a bit more easily when trying to remove it. (Obviously you wouldn't want to heat it for too long lest it melt the hair!) but that's what I do with Fashion royalty, and with the Triad Alpha heads.

    Thanks for the comparison shots on this post BTW!
    E

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  10. Thank you so much for this post! I've been wanting to swap some of my Kenya heads with Barbie heads, but I wanted to see someone else do it first. :) I appreciate the info.

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