Barbie Style Raquelle

The first of the onslaught of new Barbies is here! I've never had a Barbie doll with rooted lashes before, and I was curious. She arrived yesterday, I haven't had a lot of time with her, but here are my first impressions:

what's with the weird broken leg pose? yikes!

Packaging was a pain. She had four plastic ties through her head (one holding the glasses on). I snipped the ends off without snipping any hair, but there will always be little pokey pieces in her head unless I take her head off and remove them. Thumbs down for that.

Ouch!

New idea for an extreme body mod?

Her hair itself is very tangly. I wasn't expecting it to look like the stock photo, but it's needs some serious styling right out of the box. I love the colors though, dark brown with light highlights, looks like mine! Very cute!

Hair held into place with thread

I'm not super-impressed with the clothes. The dress is some weird colors, in my opinion. The jacket is sort of cute, after I figured out that the "wear" spots were supposed to be there. Two pairs of shoes is very nice. They seem to be better to work with than the old Barbie shoes from the 90s. Her pants are way too tight and limit her posing, especially for sitting down. She also moves her arms better with the jacket off. Plastic necklace and handbag probably won't get a lot of use here.

"Don't tell anyone, but my pants are undone so that I can sit in this chair..."

Pose-ability is more limited than Made To Move, but still decent. She has joints in her wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles, but none in her torso. She's the less-graceful friend of my Made To Move doll! But she can still be set in some cute poses. Her leg joints were a bit loose, however.

"You'll teach me to pose like you, right?"

"How am I doing?"

Her eyelashes were scary long and thick, and squared-off, and squashed to one side. I trimmed them and styled them a bit (after I took the photos), and they look much more natural, though she still looks like she went a bit crazy with the mascara. Also like me!

"Of course these are my real eyelashes!"

Overall, I think she's very pretty and cute, with decent flexibility and good play quality. She was a bit expensive, but I love how photogenic she is. Now I just have to choose the perfect name!