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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Cutie Pops Doll Review & Customized Eye Pops

Cutie Pops are 11" fashion dolls from Jada Toys.  They have ponytails that can "pop" off to change their hair.  Their eyes can also pop off to be changed.  Each doll comes with a set of open eyes, a set of closed eyes, and two sets of ponytails.  I have seen these dolls in stores for quite some time, and always thought they were really cute.  Even though I admired how cute they were, I had not bought one because their glittery eyes just seemed a bit overdone for my taste.  I finally decided to get Chiffon and attempt my very first doll customization.  Here is my Chiffon with her custom eye pops (more details on her customization after her review).


Chiffon came in a huge heart shaped plastic window box with a cardboard back.


Back of the box

Included in the box with Chiffon is a pair of blond hair ponytails, a pair of pink yarn ponytails, open eyes, closed eyes, 4 hair bows, and 10 style pops.  The style pops are smaller decorative pops that can attach to her dress and hair bows.

Here is Chiffon with her blond hair ponytails and open "awake" eyes.  Her blond ponytail pops are long and wavy.  The hair is pretty silky and brushes through easily with a wire wig brush.  She comes with a tiny plastic brush with very short bristles, but I don't recommend brushing the hair with plastic brushes.  I always use a wire wig brush like an American Girl brush, which is much better for doll hair.  


She has bright pink lips and very faint pink heart shaped blush marks on cheeks.  She has big cupcakes in her eyes and big plastic glittery heart shaped lashes. 


Each eye pop has a heart shaped plug on the back that corresponds with the heart shaped hole in her eye.  When you pop off her eye, you are left with a partially painted eye with a hole in the center.  Here is a closeup of what it looks like.  You can see the heart shaped plug on the back of the eye laying on her ponytail on the right.


After changing her eye pops, here she is with her very glittery closed "sleepy" eyes.


You can even make her wink with one open eye and one closed eye.


Chiffon has yellow hair molded onto her head.  Her hair pops have a heart shaped plug that fits into a heart shaped hole on each side of her head.  You can see the turquoise colored heart shaped pop next to her in the photo below.  There is an extra round peg in addition to the heart shaped plug to hold her hair a little more securely.


Here she is wearing her pink yarn hair pops with her open eyes.


I like her sleepy eyes best with her pink yarn hair pops.


There are two different textures of pink yarn in these hair pops, which makes them even more fun.


Here are both pairs of hair pops and the 4 hair bows.  You can see the heart shaped plug on the first bow that fits into the hair pop.  The smaller round hole in the bow is where you attach the style pops. 


The dress has plastic hearts with holes attached to it that fits the plug on the style pops.


There was a piece of cardboard attached underneath the dress with a plastic tie.  I guess that was to make sure the dress stayed straight in the packaging.  I just clipped the plastic tie with scissors to remove the cardboard.


Her cute little dress is pink gingham with turquoise and white trim.  She came with 7 cupcake style pops and 3 heart style pops.  She has an adorable pair of white rubbery boots.  The pink cardboard in the back is the piece that was attached to her dress.


She is articulated at her neck, shoulders, hips, and knees.  She has molded on underwear.  Her tiny feet seem to angle inward.


Her legs cross very easily when she sits down due to the inward angle of her feet.  She can sit in a chair beautifully, which is good since she doesn't come with a stand.  She can not stand up on her on, so she would need to be posed sitting in a chair or you'll need to buy a stand separately.


Here she is with no hair pops and no eye pops.  Not such a Cutie without the Pops.


She is pretty close in size to LaDeeDa.  They both have big heads, but Cutie Pops heads are bigger.  Cutie Pops body and legs are bigger around than LaDeeDa's too, so Cutie Pops can't fit in LaDeeDa clothes.  For size comparison, here is Ever After High Apple White, Cutie Pops Chiffon, and LaDeeDa Peppermint Pose Cyanne.


Here's a closeup of the two pairs of eyes that come with Chiffon.  The pair of open eyes have really big cupcakes in the pupil, along with a heart that overlaps into the lavender iris.  Instead of eyelashes, she has big plastic hearts that are completely covered in glitter.  The closed sleepy eyes are turquoise with pink polka dots, completely covered in glitter, and the plastic heart lashes are across the bottom. 


Cutie Pop Customization


To customize Chiffon's eye pops, first I clipped the plastic hearts off with a pair of scissors.  I used some sandpaper to gently sand smooth the outer edge so that there were no bumps where the hearts were.  I used Folk Art acrylic paint to repaint the eyes.  I decided to change her eye color to blue, since I had to paint the iris to cover the bottom of the white hearts.  I painted the iris first, then came back with black to cover the pupil painting over the big cupcakes.  I painted all the way around the top edge of her eye with the black paint.  With white paint, I painted a larger dot and a smaller dot in the black pupil.  I got a set of false eyelashes from Sally's Beauty Supply, and cut them to fit where I wanted them on the eyes.  I glued the lashes on with super glue.  Then I trimmed the lashes shorter, and I think I actually got them a little shorter than I wanted.  Here she is with one original eye and one customized eye.


And here she is with both of her eyes repainted.


Here she is with her repainted eye pops and her pink yarn hair pops.

 
Side by side comparison.

Before
After

I hope you enjoyed this Cutie Pops review and customization.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Cutie Pops dolls in the comments below.



5 comments:

  1. Your customized doll looks fantastic. Here "before" eyes look very alien to me--you've managed to make Chiffon look extremely cute! I may just have to pick her up for myself now; she would look much more approachable with just a bit of an eye change.

    I also like the chair you have your doll displayed on; would you happen to remember where you got it?

    Thanks for sharing!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! I liked that my first customization involved just repainting the separate eye pops, instead of actually painting the doll itself. It gave me a little more confidence to try it, knowing if I messed up, I wouldn't ruin the whole doll. The scariest part was cutting the hearts off of her eye pops, but I knew that was one of the most unnatural parts, so they had to go. They snipped off easily with regular scissors too. You should definitely give customizing a try if you want a more natural looking Cutie Pops doll.

      The chair is from my daughter's 3 story wooden Kidcraft Barbie doll house that she got for Christmas last year. It came with some wooden accessories including a wooden dining table and two of those little white and green wooden chairs. It's so hard to find good furniture to display dolls on. Chairs are the main thing I look for at flea markets, thrift store, antique stores, etc. I got a few different chairs at Ross and TJ Maxx in the garden decor department too. I am planning on looking in the Christmas decorations section of stores for chairs for smaller dolls. I'm always looking for something pretty that I can use to display my dolls.

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    2. Thanks for the additional information!

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  2. Hi! She looks soooo weird with her original eyes.
    Just stating my opinion: I think she is kinda ugly.
    Not to mess up anyone's personal taste though!
    - Anonymous A.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi I am so impressed with your eye customizes it takes Cutie Pop doll from creepy to very cutie. I think if the original doll makers had made eyes like you did they would not be on clearance now. Good Job! I hope you will do more. Thank you for your review.

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