Rainbow High Poppy Rowan & Daphne Minton (more pix June 20)

[Alliecat]

Today was a good example of "why I don't need to start collecting another line of dolls".  I thought the Rainbow Highs were cute, and although I didn't intend to get more than a couple, I HAD to get the one with the butterflies, right....?
Well...
I was looking forward to her arrival.  Most of the reviews I saw of these dolls were good, although I saw some quality control issues mentioned.
Boy, have these dolls got quality control issues 

The box looks really nice.




It's all designed to make everything look very cool and shiny and buy-me-please, inside the box.  Top points for the visual hook.  However, the packaging is truly awful.  It's worse than Pullip packaging, because it has all the tabs and tape in common, and little ties, but it has MORE little ties, MORE plastic inside EVERYTHING, and everything that could POSSIBLY be plastic-tied to something else, IS.



Plastic inside the skirt.



Plastic inside the shirt, to make the hood stand up in the box.  Which it isn't really a hood, it's a couple of ... pieces, that velcro together atop the head.  Around the hair.  I mean, I guess it's innovative, when a doll has that much hair...



Plastic inside the SOCKS.



I have NEVER seen anything like this... little plastic ties are ROOTED in her scalp!!!, and on top of them, are little plastic circles.  OK, they want to keep the ties from getting tangled in the hair, I guess, but why does the doll need ties rooted in her scalp to attach her to the backing in yet another place??







Some stains on the boots... plus some airbrushy-looking over-run or bleed or whatever you want to call it, from the paint job.
They are very hard to get off and require a hair dryer, although maybe not quite as bad as Pullip shoes because at least she doesn't have breakable ankles.



Cracks on the leg seams likely wouldn't stand up to strenuous play.  These bodies looked sturdy, in the photos.



Out of the box, one leg wouldn't bend at all.  Some surgery to remove a plastic piece didn't do the trick either.  The lower leg is a little crooked.  They don't bend far anyway, not quite 90 degrees, but after some digging around the joint with a dental pick, I got it to bend.
The clothes appear to be extremely difficult to get off.  The jacket is so stiff she can't move much, and I'll have to pull her hands off to get it on & off.  I pulled out one hand for a quick look, and you CAN, but I don't know how many such operations they will stand before the little peg breaks.



Unbelieveably, the shoes are not properly painted.
How do you miss this, putting the doll in the box??  Let alone making it.  Whoever boxes them probably doesn't paint them, and whoever that was, must've decided not to call attention to the flaw if they saw it -- just bung it in a box and forget about it.
I'm not sure it would've showed, buying in a store, and who would think to look, anyway.  This one came from Amazon, so no preview.

Oh -- and, her hair is CRISPY.




>sigh<
So yeah, I'm disappointed.  They're so cute, but, this just looks like a really hurriedly-thrown-together mass-produced cheap toy that is absolutely NOT worth the prices I've seen on eBay -- or even $60 at ToysRUs.  I don't know if the newer "wave" has addressed some of these issues.  I thought I'd like "Emi Vanda" as well -- actually I had my eye on her first but Poppy was on sale -- but now I don't know if I'll take a chance on another.  Poor Poppy should have a sister.
Which brings me to what to do with her...  I once saw a report on Amazon's glut of returned packages; they landfill a lot of things, which is a horrible waste, because not all of it is even defective.  Given the disastrous packaging, she'll never go back in the box properly to return.  If I get a replacement, will there be the same issues?  Or different ones?  Obviously nobody's going to check over a replacement before sending it.  
Cue the soppy sentimentality, but I'd feel bad if she just got garbaged.  I can maybe paint the shoe.  She's a plastic toy but I feel sorry for her, dangit.



(oh, and, not sure if it's because of the puffy jacket or whether that's the actual placement on the stand, but her feet are a couple of mm above the stand