Janay's great facial bone structure has caused my recent onset of "Janay-itis." I already owned three or four Janays prior to the current inflamed desire for more but the others have light to blond hair. Lately I have craved darker skinned versions with dark, natural textured hair.
Who is Janay?
According to A Philly Collector of Playscale Dolls and Action Figures:
Recently I added a dark-haired Janay to the doll family. This doll had not been on my wanted list. The extra doll jewelry and Janay's dark hair, although straight, prompted the purchase. Her complexion is not as dark as I desire, and I did not realize until after Shimmering Nights Janay arrived that her eyes are blue. Maybe she's wearing contacts.
Sharpie to the rescue: I darkened Janay's eyes with a brown Sharpie and went over the brown with a navy blue Sharpie (since I didn't have a fine-tipped black one and because the brown didn't darken them enough). This worked to successfully transform Janay's blue eyes to dark brown/black.
Still on my want list, among others, is a darker skinned Janay with dark, natural-textured hair.
It certainly would have been nice if IT had articulated these dolls, but then that would have driven their average 10 to 15-dollar cost up and defeated Newsum's goal of providing affordable self-esteem building dolls to an underserved market. So I won't complain.
Addendum: 08/08/2013 5:01 a.m.
So the link does not get buried in the comments, I wanted to add the link to D7ana's Integrity Janay and Friends Pinterest board. There are some beautiful dolls there.
dbg
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Who is Janay?
According to A Philly Collector of Playscale Dolls and Action Figures:
Janay is a 1:6 scale playline fashion doll produced by Integrity Toys from 1995-2005. Integrity Toys' president, Percy Newsum, felt that dolls of color were under represented among playscale dolls: Janay, Alysa, and Jade were created to fill that void.Angelic Dreamz adds:
In 1995, listening to his instinct, Mr. Percy Newsum founded Integrity Toys, Inc. in Chesapeake City, Maryland. Noticing the obvious lack of dolls with various ethnic backgrounds in a market filled with blond-haired blue-eyed dolls at the time, Newsum embarked on a mission to provide a product that would exceed the expectations for the price, keeping in mind that its major role would be to give parents access to a product that would help build self-esteem in their children. Many major doll manufacturers have since realized the value of the ethnic toy market and have also started to offer more culturally diverse dolls in their lines.
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| Shimmering Nights Janay, Integrity Toys, 2004 |
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| Close-up of Shimmering Nights Janay illustrates her blue eyes. |
Sharpie to the rescue: I darkened Janay's eyes with a brown Sharpie and went over the brown with a navy blue Sharpie (since I didn't have a fine-tipped black one and because the brown didn't darken them enough). This worked to successfully transform Janay's blue eyes to dark brown/black.
 |
| Janay's formerly blue eyes are now a warmer dark brown-black. |
Still on my want list, among others, is a darker skinned Janay with dark, natural-textured hair.
It certainly would have been nice if IT had articulated these dolls, but then that would have driven their average 10 to 15-dollar cost up and defeated Newsum's goal of providing affordable self-esteem building dolls to an underserved market. So I won't complain.
Addendum: 08/08/2013 5:01 a.m.
So the link does not get buried in the comments, I wanted to add the link to D7ana's Integrity Janay and Friends Pinterest board. There are some beautiful dolls there.
dbg
Follow my Dolls for Sale blog
Please visit and "Like" The Doll Blogs: When Dolls Speak I Listen
I am sorry that Integrity Toys did not continue the play line dolls. As for articulation -- Kenya dolls have dropped as low as $7.50 at my local Family Dollar and they were good complexion matches for most of my Janays so almost everybody upgraded.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up on FD's Kenya price, Paulette. I'll have to check here, but based on the other comments that I have read about how difficult it is to rebody Janay, I may leave well enough alone.
DeleteGreat job on the eye color change. Knowing you, it won't take long for you to get the one you really desire. I love my Janay dolls. I think I have about 7. I do find they are the hardest to rebody, mainly because of their different neck structure and harder heads. I bought most of my Janay dolls from Walmart for $6 - $7, regular priced. Still kicking myself for not getting Tariq back then.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vanessa.
DeleteThanks for the information about the difficulty in rebodying. As I commented to Paulette, I plan on leaving well enough alone. Every "body" doesn't have to be articulated here, although articulation is nice.
$6 to $7 was a great price to pay.
You can still find several of the darker ladies online. I have a few of the darker ladies with textured hair. I've collected the Janay line of dolls since the 90's. The doll featured is the last face of Janay before she was discontinued.
ReplyDeleteI've rebodied a few ladies on Dyanmite Girl & Barbie bodies.
I have seen the darker ladies online Dollz4Moi, but many have been too costly. I purchased my first Janay in the 1990s, too, but I was not as enthused about her back then as I am now. In fact, I wasn't particularly fond of fashion dolls during the 1990s, but opinions change.
DeleteI do not like the "doll faced" Janay, the one that preceded this head sculpt. I guess she was the original Janay released with Jordan.
dbg
Janay is very pretty I love her. I think 5 are getting face time within my stories and 3 are still boxed. I wish they had articulated her and Tariq they were very hard to rebody.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading about your girls, Mustiwait.
Deletedbg
I never knew that Integrity dolls were at Walmart. I missed an era. I also thought they were all articulated but I guess they have different lines like anyone else.
ReplyDeleteI think I only saw Janay at Toys R Us and possibly Target. I cannot remember where I purchased Fashion Fling Janay and Tariq; it may have been online. Then someone gave me another blond Janay that was purchased at K-Mart. K-Mart... maybe I saw them there before K-Mart left Texas. Not sure.
DeleteI never saw them at Wal-Mart.
dbg
Hola, recien te sigo desde Mexico, me encanta tu blog, las barbies son muy hermosas, yo tengo un blog de barbies, pero solo playline, si gustas podemos seguirnos, ya lo hago en el tuyo como patymod_04, hasta pronto.
ReplyDeleteHello Lindaivette,
DeleteThank you for visiting and following. Your blog is nice!
dbg
______________________________________________________
Hola Lindaivette,
Gracias por visitar y seguirte. Tu blog es agradable!
dbg
Oh my gosh!
ReplyDeleteI've been looking everywhere for more info on these dolls- I bought one in a toystore ages ago and really wish I could buy more. Where can you find them online?
The Janay and Friends dolls show up on a regular basis on eBay (ebay.com).
Deletedbg
Thanks for the shout out, DBG! I love how you darkened the eyes on your Janay. She looks great.
ReplyDeleteI have lots to say about Janay dolls. Lots. So I'm going to do a "sister" post and link back to your site. "Fellow" collector-enthusiast Therese of Dolls of Color piqued my interest about this doll series a few years ago. Therese had created a wiki about them. Alas, the wiki does not seem to be online now.
Few quickie bits though: Integrity's Janay and friends sold at lots of stores for some time: Toys R Us and Walmart sold them. And there were a few articulated Janays. I do not have any of them - drat! - but they exist. You can see photos of Janay et al. on my Pinterest board.
Hi D7ana,
DeleteThanks for sharing the link to your Pinterest board. I happened upon it a while ago but forgot it existed when writing this post. The memory is a terrible thing to lose.
I look forward to reading your "sister" post on Janay and Friends.
dbg
My Integrity board is at the bottom of my Pinterest board line up - not likely to be on anyone's immediate recall ;-)
DeleteI was tickled to see you writing about this IT series. I mentioned my Pinterest board because I recently uploaded Janay and friends photos from an older website. I think that you have one of those dolls photographed - one of the African Dancer Janays. Although, that doll has the older, bigger-head Janay sculpt, she is a rare articulated Janay doll.
When you write about dolls, your writing generates/inspires others to write about their dolls. That is good news for me. More information, more photos, more perspectives all build up to more fun. It would be a sad thing to have only one person writing about them ;-)
Will get back when I complete that Janay and friends post.
Hi D7ana,
DeleteSo glad to be an inspiration. You have been an inspiration to me as well. My collection would be devoid of playscale men had I not been influenced by you and Roxanne.
So that it will not be missed, I have added the link to your Janay and Friends Pinterest board to the body of this post.
dbg
Thanks for sharing the link to my Janay Pinterest board, DBG! I added a brief post with that link, but that new post is NOT the one I have planned. It's just to let readers know that my Janay board has been updated.
DeleteRoxanne is another fun collector-enthusiast. I LOVE how she re-bodied her YNU Group Mixis Opal. So very cool.
Great job on Janay! She looks so much better once she took the contacts out. ; )
ReplyDeleteI wish I had gotten Tariq as well.
LOL. I agree.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had gotten him as well, GG.
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for this post! I've been searching and searching trying to find the name of one of my old dolls and now I know her name was Janay! Using D7ana's fantastic pinterest board, I found out that she was an Embassy Ball Janay.
ReplyDeleteMy mom used to collect Barbies so I started a small playline collection back when I was in middle school and this Janay was one of the few dolls I ever bought for myself. I kept her boxed and then donated her to a toy drive when I became "too old" for dolls. Recently I've been thinking back on her more and more and she's been really eating at me--I want to find her again! It's so good to know that she's still as classy and beautiful as I remember her being.
I was going to contact you specifically for her if I didn't find her soon! I'm glad I started looking through your older blog entries first.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge of dolls--your blog is a fantastic resource!
Hi Honilee,
DeleteI am glad I was able to be of service in helping you ID your doll. D7ana's Pinterest board is quite helpful.
Janay dolls are offered on eBay often. I hope you are able to replace yours soon.
dbg
wspaniała w każdej wersji -
ReplyDeleteja bym do tych ciemnych oczu
jeszcze zmyła Jej usta by tylko
to spojrzenie i smakowite usta
kusiły...