Review: "Hot Shot" Nigel North

Nigel North arrived today. He is the second 2015 male doll I ordered this year. The other one was Vice Effect Ollie Lawson. I'm not disappointed with Nigel but he does need some work on his coiffure and the pants have to go.

I'm not a fan of faux velvet on 12" dolls. The fabric is too bulky and just doesn't lay correctly. I think I'd like white pants with this outfit. There is so much color that between the gorgeous jacket and the shirt a neutral or no-color slack would look better. Destroyed jeans would look good, too.

On the topic of faux velvet, I don't like it on any doll because it shows every piece of dust and lint in a photograph.

Nigel's shirt is very form fitting and I was surprised to find that the sleeves are sewn shut at the cuff! I wanted to press the shirt when I pressed the jacket and slacks but I wasn't going to open the stitching when I was just going to redress him right away. I've never come across that on any IT doll. Of course it makes for less bulk but still...

I planned to show him with his jacket closed but it's too tight and the fabric bunches and pulls a bit. The hooks can be moved, of course, to make it fit better. 

In the promo, above, the jacket looks perfectly fitted. His hair is shoulder length. Below is how it arrived...very weird. I'm sure that in order to drop that flipped up part, I'm going to have to dunk it into boiled water. His hair is the biggest disappointment with this doll.

 I love the sculpt. He would look good with straight hair in a pony tail. Looks like I have a little work to do.

I wonder if adding eyelashes, painted or applied, to the guy dolls would improve their somewhat bland faces.

Nigel comes with a little metal SLR that can be attached to his clutching hand with a clear rubberband. His ring has a purple stone and his sunglasses have purple lenses - no surprise there.

The bottom line: Nigel was $120. which is the same price as the rest of the Poppy Parker line. It's rapidly creeping upward.
He's a LE of 600.

Anyone wanna buy a pair of purple velvet pants?

Color Therapy Vanessa

Finally! Some of my readers may know that Vanessa is my favorite sculpt of all the Fashion Royalty dolls. I spend more time and energy (read: money) on them than most of my other dolls. I don't stop until they look gorgeous. Color Therapy arrived on the scene with too much hair. No amount of combing or hair tamer worked. So I bit the bullet and boiled a pot of water and used it to straighten her hair. Believe it or not, the result - which looks like she has had a light perm - was the straightest I could get it! I think it's much better than before.

Here are two earlier photos of her. In these, her hair has been combed out but I couldn't get it into a pleasing style.