A Review of Nicki and Isabel Hoffman

            If you can’t tell by the title, I got Nicki and Isabel! As some of you may know, I’m trying to collect all of the historical characters, so I planned on getting them when they were first rumored. I wasn’t thrilled about them at first, but once the leaks came out, I was at least glad that they were so unique! Well, now that I have them, I can say that I absolutely do not regret getting them! All of the doubts I had turned out to be nothing to worry about, and I might even consider them to be some of the highest quality dolls AG has ever produced. I wasn’t necessarily planning to make this review, but I’m so pleased that, well, here I am! 

            To begin, I took several pictures while unboxing them. I was SO excited.

         Please don’t judge how unhappy all my dolls look crammed in the dollhouse like that. I just cleaned my room, and they’ll be all over my floor by tomorrow! At least I finally cleaned the dollhouse. 🙂 

       As you can see, their boxes are just the typical historical boxes. Nothing special! 

        Here are some close-ups:

Nicki

Isabel

          And here are some more various photos from the unboxing:

       I think that you might be able to tell from these photos that they’re SO MUCH CUTER than in the stock photos. Especially Isabel! She’s actually very sweet looking! 

         Nicki and Isabel are AMAZING! We’ll start with a run-down of Nicki:

          My Nicki came to me with PERFECT face paint. Her lip paint is very pink compared to Isabel’s; and I think it fits Nicki very well. This is something consistent between dolls, judging by AG’s promo pictures. Her eyebrows and eyelashes are different colors, surprisingly! Her eyebrows are more brown and her painted eyelashes are almost auburn.

 Her painted eyelashes are nearly the same color as her hair, which might be the best wig AG has EVER used. It’s SO soft and smooth; way more so than any of my other dolls. I haven’t had to brush her hair yet, and she’s been moved around, laid down, and put in the wind already. That’s pretty significant. New dolls also tend to shed a little right out of the box. This is completely normal and entirely expected, but Nicki’s hair hasn’t shed. The weft coverage is great as well. You could definitely do pigtails with it without the cap showing. The hair doesn’t completely cover the sides of the wig cap around the ears, though. She doesn’t have layers, but her blonde streaks are a little shorter than the rest because they’re meant to be face framing. I’m so happy! The Joss mold is completely adorable on her. I’m going to talk more about the twins’ face mold in a moment. 

           I gave Isabel the benefit of the doubt, and wow, she looks completely different in real life! Isabel doesn’t look as mean as she does in her stock photo- she doesn’t even look a little mean! Her eyes do give her a little more of an intense gaze, but she honestly looks really sweet. I LOVE that they used the Felicity eyes, and ones similar to the older Felicity eyes as well. My Felicity is Beforever, and her eyes are a darker green. The yellow in her eyes pop so much, and overall the color accents her hair color so well! I put her in the perfectly plaid outfit (which came out in 1999!) and I can say with confidence that Isabel is adorable in green! Her face paint as far the eyebrows and eyelashes go are the same color as her sister’s, but the eyelashes pop a lot more on Isabel. Her lip and cheek paint is more of a light coral color, and it suits her so well.

 Her hair is a little shorter than Nicki’s, even though they’re illustrated with the same hair length. It’s slightly angled with a few layers that turn somewhat inward. Isabel also has a bit of face framing like Nicki, and that’s where most of the layers come in. She has staggered highlights. (I’m not positive if that’s a real term, but that’s how I would describe it.) Just like her sister, this is the SOFTEST DOLL HAIR EVER! I have brushed it because it’s thicker than Nicki’s, and it hasn’t shed, not even a little bit! The wig coverage is the same as Nicki’s and I also noticed that Isabel has the short hairs that dolls with braided meet hairstyles have to cover their wig cap! That means that Isabel’s hair is great for styling! 

         Both dolls came with super tight limbs! 

          The Joss mold fits both of them perfectly. AG has been making their dolls’ heads bigger lately, but it gives the Joss mold these really adorable chubby cheeks and I’m OBSESSED. I didn’t expect them to be able to wear Joss’ hearing aid, because Maritza and the other Joss mold Truly Mes can’t, but this is my biggest, most exciting discovery: THEY CAN WEAR JOSS’ HEARING AID! I’m SO, SO excited about this! Isabel can wear it slightly better than Nicki can, but it will definitely stay in for both. Since Joss came with an extra hearing aid, I’m thinking about using the extra for Isabel. What do you guys think? 

        The journals were a quick read for me. (Don’t worry; there are no spoilers ahead.) I read Isabel’s first, and then Nicki’s instead of doing my science homework. I’m a huge fan of the AG book illustrations, and even though Nicki and Isabel don’t have realistic illustrations like all the other historicals, it’s a really cute art style with so much beautiful color definition! I will say that I didn’t like the journals. Don’t get me wrong, their story was great and I LOVED the idea of it, but it was definitely lacking something, and there’s no way it would replace the full book for me. It would be great to supplement the story, like Tenney’s journal does, but it can’t replace it. The plot of the story was really good- the twins are all about girl power and feminism (which I LOVE), and I definitely want to read the full book when it comes out in August. 

        Overall, the twins are AWESOME! I rate them both 12 out of 10! They exceeded my expectations so much, that I’m still over the moon the day after I got them! Should you get the twins? ABSOLUTELY YES! They’re amazing quality, plus, they’re ADORABLE! 

         I wanted to include some photos from a photoshoot I did with Nicki already. I’m going to do one with Isabel soon, as well. 

         Well, that’s it for this spontaneous review! I want to do a photo series for their arrival, so stay tuned! The first part will be up on my regular posting day, Monday. If you guys have any ideas for the series, please let me know because I have no idea what the plot’s going to be.  Have a great day and remember to eat your veggies! Bye! <3