A New Barbie Fashionistas Girl

When I saw this new set of Fashionistas on Amazon.com, I knew I wanted to add Summer to my collection and eventually change her to an articulated body.

I finally got her last week and she's even lovelier in person.

Her packaging was easy to open, as it was held closed with plastic tabs:

There were no wires, but these plastic tags (I think they're called Kimble Tags). I have always dreaded having to cut off the ones at the back of dolls'  heads, as I am scared of damaging the doll's hair.   The ones at the back of the box were not difficult to cut, though.

After carefully cutting off her head tag, here she is, out of her box,  and I didn't damage her  lovely hair.

I saw this line on her skirt and thought that the top was stitched incorrectly to the skirt.  It turned out that it was just the impression of the plastic tie that was across the doll's midsection that created a crease.

These are the shoes that she came with.  I don't really like their bulky appearance:

 Plus, her left shoe is slack and keeps falling off.

So, I switched to the shoes that came with the University Cheerleader dolls.  They are neater looking and a much better fit.

I was enjoying her so much that I almost forgot that she had a pair of sunglasses on her head; and, horror of horrors, it was secured with a tag!  It was secured very close to her head,  so there was the risk of damaging the lens of the sunglasses and her hair.

 Even after I had cut off the horizontal piece of the tag, the sunglasses still wouldn't budge and I couldn't see what was keeping it so secured to her head.  Me and my aging eyes.

After parting her hair bit by bit, I saw the clear plastic band looped around the nose of the sunglasses and around the doll's head.  Good grief, why didn't I see it before?

At last!  Or so I thought, as my relief was short-lived. I still couldn't get the sunglasses to disengage from her head.  Instead of being able to pull the sunglasses over her head and pull her hair through the loop of the band at the base of her neck, the band just wouldn't come out from under her hair. 

It was tangled in the hair at the back of her neck.  I wondered if I had inadvertently tangled it, but I didn't twist and turn the band or her head.

I turned her upside down to get a better look at what I was dealing with and found a mess of tangled hair.  I didn't want to pull at her hair and make it worse, so I cut the band.

The last row of hair plugs at the base of her neck had wavy, tangled, frizzy strands, unlike the straighter, smooth hair on the rest of her head.

There were also several strands of hair coming out of the base of her head at the back of her neck.  Eeeek!

I just don't know what to say.

 Neither does Summer.

Despite her issue, which she has successfully hidden, she has settled in with her new family, after being warmly welcomed by (self-proclaimed) Princess Stardoll Kayla (a Barbie Basics Model #5, collection 002 on a pivotal body) on the left and Lea (a 2012 Ballerina Barbie on a Liv body) on the right.

Sisters Three.