- Warning, there is doll nudity in this post
Here are the rest of the Barbies that I brought home from the Op Shop. I am lucky with this lot as except for one there are no marks to remove from their faces and most still have their hair. One latecomer arrived after after I’d taken the others home. She’s had a trim and her fringe is gone so I’ll have a think about how I want to fix her. I’ve put her aside for now. These dolls are always handy for people who like to experiment. She could be a subject for a reroot. I have only done that once and I found it quite difficult pushing the needle through but now there are tools to help with that I might have another go. One of my co workers at the Op Shop mentioned that she had seen some dolls rerooted with wool. I have seen this myself and while I personally wouldn’t want one it might be a good project to try on a damaged doll. Little kids might like it. When I get a damaged doll now I put her to one side and if she’s too hard to fix I’ll use her to experiment with. Dolls like this are handy for head transplants, reroots and boil perms which I am not confident with yet.
One of the others which I originally thought was a Swappin’ Head Fashionista turned out to be a Barbie on a pivotal body. I’ve been wanting one of those myself so I’m torn between buying her myself or swapping her body with a non articulated Fashionista if I have one in the right skin tone. I’ll let you know what I decide. On closer inspection I found that her knees were loose and she couldn’t stand but there is a way to fix that too. YouTube is very handy for finding tips and tricks. I used some super glue in the knee joints. You have to keep moving the joint so that it doesn’t lock the knee up but it worked fine. I just have to scrape a little residue off her leg. Apparently clear nail varnish will also do the trick but it takes a little longer to dry. I didn’t have any so I used some cheap gel glue. I gave her hair a wash first and when it was nearly dry I did her knees. I will style her hair later.
Some of the dolls have belly button bodies but others are articulated. Everyone has rather dull, frizzy hair. Naomi has some plans to try dyeing doll hair so she may take some of these dolls home to practice on. If they come back with green and purple hair I’ll make them some matching outfits. One is an African American doll with wild curly hair. I want to see if I can sort this out without losing her curls. I’ve watched a few hair restoring tutorials on YouTube so this doll is being put aside for later as she will be a more complicated job than the straight-haired blonde Barbies.
There is also a My Scene doll. She has auburn hair so I think that she is Chelsea. (I do wish Mattel would stop reusing names on different dolls. It is so confusing.) She did not need a lot done to her so here you can see her before and after photos. As you know I don’t usually put shoes on dolls for the Op Shop but I happened to have some boots that fit her well so I put them on her and bagged her with a change of outfit and some accessories. I am quite pleased with how she came out after just a bath, hair wash and conditioning and a new outfit.
This dark-haired doll is very pretty. I liked her so much I went looking to see if I could find out who she is. I think that she is a Candy Glam Raquelle from 2008. I have seen some photos that look just like her while others show a different colour streak in her hair. This one might be a foreign edition doll as we usually get those in Australia. Anyway I think she is very nice.
I spent quite a lot of the day today washing and tidying dolls. As well as the knee joint repair I washed the hair of all the blonde dolls and gave them all a boil wash afterwards. I also fixed a couple of Bratz dolls who came in later so I will show you the rest another day.
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
Excellent! The my scene looks better than most of the originals, The last one looks perfect with the purple print w/brown ribbon that matches her hair. As far as cut off fringe/bangs you might try to glue hair from the side going across the worst area like a side part, but I did this on only those that were my very most loved daughters dolls. The Disney dolls sometimes got a headband or crown. I lost another swappin head fashionista auction, still looking for those as I don’t usually see them at the thrift store or swap meet. I feel sure someone will really appreciate your efforts.
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‘what sort of glue did you use for hair?
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I love love the ‘my scene’ girl, a tad jealous lol
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Always enjoy your make overs. The dark haired doll and the redhead both turned out very pretty.
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I was very pleased with them both too.
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The kids in your area, are lucky, that you take such good care of the dolls before they go in the salesroom.
The blonde on the pivotal body is a Fashionista. She is 2012 Clutch Wave I Barbie in the pink dress.
The suspected Candy Glam Raquelle is actually also a Fashionista, someone must have made a body swap. She is 2010 Fashionistas & Pets Sassy and should sport a pivotal too..
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Thanks for the ID’s Andrea. I will have a look to see how these two were supposed to look. Obviously kids still swap heads. I did wonder about Candy Glam because I had seen pictures of two different hair streak colours on that doll. I knew the body was pre-hobbit belly button. I’m kind of surprised a Fashionista got a pivotal body too. They usually save those for the collector lines. Looked up Clutch Wave and you definitely nailed it with her. I could see that she had a pony tail but her hair was sticky and nasty so I just wanted to get her cleaned up before deciding how to do it.
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It had not occurred to me that you could swap the head of a Swappin’ Head Fashionista in the normal way but I guess they are attached the same so why not? I don’t think this was the work of a small child however.
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I think someone needed the Fashionista body to make another doll poseable and donated the rest of both dolls combined in one, a kid would probably have broken the neck joint.
The collector pivotal bodies are slightly taller and have more defined neckbones, which the Fashionista bodies don’t have. The first wave of Fashionistas had the hinged knees, they got the pivotal knees since wave two.
The 2010 Fashionistas & Pets had a regular pivotal Fashionista body without the swapping style feature.
The yucky stickyness of Clutch Wave One Barbie is caused by her gluehead, funny enough her closed mouth twin from the same wave didn’t have a gluehead.
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She certainly had the worst gluehead I’ve seen on a doll. I didn’t see the Fashionista’s and Pets in the shops here so I was going by the photo on the box which showed a swap head. What I am also intrigued by is that there might be a collector in the neighbourhood with the interest and skill to do a head swap because I haven’t met any adult Barbie collectors locally. Don’t laugh this is a small town and everyone visits the Op Shop eventually. Oh well maybe she will come back.
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I’ve had several body swaps when kids and cousins met up w/ boyish disregard w/ siblings, I try to bring boys and girls stuff to play with, but eventually someone “meets w/ the red queen” and it’s off with their head.I’ve replaced heads, hands and sometimes feet. Crazy glue and gorilla glue and rarely hot glue are next to my hair stuff..including what we called in cosmetology school “snail snot” or heavy gel..used to use dippity-do or L.a. styles now whatever is in drugstore.It is great for coating super thin hair w/ an afro pick for back combing,I also use the pick for detangling thick/curly hair
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