Barbie You Create Barbie Basics Neutral Kit 002-Unboxed Review

Shipping boxes for Barbie Basics You Create Kits 002 and 001

This is a continuation of my review of the two Barbie You Create Barbie Basics Neutral Kits that I purchased. The link to my review of Kit 001 is at the end of this post. 

The Tango head was attached to the Made to Move Athletic Barbie body that comes with the kit.

As with the other kits in this series, the back of the box and a tri-fold insert inside the box illustrate ways to style the doll.

This photo was taken before the doll and the packaged accessories were removed from the box.

Freed from the confines of the box, Tango posed for the camera after I fluffed out and shaped her auburn and brown curls with my fingers. 

Tango wears a metallic gold puff-sleeve top, a "B" monogrammed wrap skirt, and tan flat ankle strap shoes. 
The contents of the three black envelopes are illustrated next.

The Pazette and Elle sculpts were in the top envelope. Again, I had to work with the hair to make it presentable.

A tan spandex maxi skirt with a faux leather panel and a brown long-sleeved spandex blouse were in the second envelope.

The third envelope included a pair of plastic, white square earrings; several plastic hair clips, a pair of white pointed-toe mules with "B" monogrammed heels, a pair of rectangular white shades, a headband, a gold-tone cuff bracelet, and the base and waist clip of the doll stand. The doll stand pole was attached to the box liner alongside Tango.

I placed the sunglasses and earrings on Tango before swapping this head with the Pazette head.

With the Pazette head on, I removed the white puffed-sleeved top and added the brown spandex top for her to wear with the wrap skirt and shoes. The headband and the earrings were also added.

After getting her hair detangled, Elle tried on the puff-sleeve top with the maxi skirt. All dolls modeled the same tan shoes because, unfortunately, the white "B" monogrammed shoes in this kit do not fit well.

This is how the white mules in Kit 002 fit the dolls in both kits. The Kit 001 foot is on the left; Kit 002 is on the right. It will require an elastic band to hold the shoes on the doll's feet, and even with that, they are prone to falling off Kit 002's shorter foot!

I wanted to see if the shoes in Kit 001 would fit Kit 002 doll's feet. The ankle strap position is off.

So, in both kits. There is only one pair of footwear that will fit these dolls, the boots in Kit 001 and the tan flats in Kit 002. 

This is the back of the tri-fold flyer, which illustrates how to build, style, and pose the doll.

This is the front of the tri-fold flyer.

My Pros and Cons for this Kit mirror those for Kit 001 with some additions.
Pros

• I appreciate the three different head sculpts, one of which (Tango) is not used often on dolls with this complexion.
• I am thrilled that two of the three kits in this collection have brown complexions. Thank you, Mattel.
• I love Tango's natural coils and the color of the hair.
• I like Elle's hairstyle, but... (see the 4th con below).
• Head removal and placement are easy.
• The interchangeability and creativity are pluses.
• The ability to create different looks using this kit with Kit 001 is another plus.
• One pair of shoes fits well.
• The neutral palette is appealing.
• The clothes in this kit are more stylish than those in Kit 001.
• The clothes fit well.
• The headband is more flexible and fits better than the one in Kit 001.
• Although they are plastic, the earrings in this kit have a better design than those in Kit 001, and they fit better without jutting out. 

Cons

• As mentioned and illustrated above, the white mules are not a good fit for Kit 001 or Kit 002.
• The plastic hair clips are useless to me. 
• The cuff bracelet is so oddly shaped with a narrow opening that I could not place it on either kit doll's wrist. So, it's useless, too.
• Elle has layered hair with multiple double-strand twists on top of loose, wavy hair with more twists underneath the wavy section. The twists and the wavy hair were tangled upon arrival. This hair mixture will easily tangle and should only be finger-combed. 
• Pazette's hair is gelled on top (not really a con, but this is worth noting). The ends looked rough, were uneven and required trimming.
• (This is just an observation, but it would be a con if I had purchased Kit 003: the clothes in that kit are frumpy! I'm so glad they were not included in Kits 001 or 002.)
• Creating three complete dolls will require buying three extra bodies that match the complexion of the heads in this kit. 

I didn't do a deep dive into body complexion matching because again, I have no immediate plans to buy more bodies for the extra heads in each kit, but I did compare this body's complexion with two dolls, as illustrated next.

The twinning Elles (the doll from Kit 2 and Barbie Looks Model #2) share the same complexion.

Elle and Barbie Looks #21 share a similar, if not the same, complexion.

Finally, I attached each head to the body and dressed each doll in different combinations of the fashions and accessories and took the following full-length and close-up photos.

Tango, Pazette, and Elle from Kit 002

And here they are in a close-up.

Initially, I thought Tango would be my favorite, and I do love her head sculpt and hair, but there is something about Elle (probably the hair, even though it will tangle easily) that I love more.

Elle is the "it" girl in this kit.

To summarize, do I like both kits? Yes. Would I love for Mattel to produce a line of doll heads and bodies with different complexions, hair styles, and hair textures that can be mixed and matched and each piece sold separately, from which collectors can pick and build dolls of their choice? Absolutely, just make and sell separately packaged heads, bodies, clothes, and accessories.

This style neck connector is used for the Barbie kit dolls.

A better idea is that, going forward, Mattel could use the kit doll neck connector on all future collector dolls so that heads can be easily swapped. I'm always afraid I will damage the traditional-style neck connector (like the one on the right in this image) if I remove a head. The kit dolls' long flat neck connector makes head removal a "snap."

Related Post

Barbie You Create Barbie Basics Neutral Kit 001-Unboxed Review

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