Monday 24 March 2014

A royal trio


At the end of last year I won a mystery runner-up prize in Ashley's holiday giveaway. When it arrived on March 1st it turned out to be an "I love shoes" Cleo doll which is the third Cleo in my collection. On this occasion, I brought the other two for a little photoshoot.

I had no idea what the prize was going to be until the very end. I have little faith in our postal service who "lost" a couple of important packages and slashes carelessly the ones that do get through (US packages have it the worst for some reason). Whenever I receive something, it's a holiday and this time was double, triple, multiple special!
- a surviving package for me
- from the USA
- with a surprise gift
- I was told it was MH-related
- and I was down with a cold, the timing couldn't have been better to lift my spirits!

Try to feel my excitement... I reached into the padded envelope and drew out a piece of cardboard that made me jump with joy:


An actual doll, and none other than my favourite ghoul, Cleo! Wow!

Cleo is the most special to me because she's the only one without any monster traits whatsoever. She gets the best of both worlds - the awesome Monster High body with great articulation and unique head (one of the best sculpts, too) and the versatile human skin tone of a regular fashion doll (and no foreign body modifications). I don't care that the character is a bitch in the webisodes. Doll "personalities" don't interest me. I just want them to be pretty.

Okay, long introduction. I love Cleo, is what I'm saying. This one is no exception. The doll comes with two extra pairs of shoes, one extra pair of earrings and a paper bag. This is not a review - I didn't take pictures of all the stuff. Here is Cleo rocking very straightforward Egyptian attire. She reminds me of Anck-Su-Namun (loved that girl!). I half wished for gold tinsel in the hair =)


 I Love Shoes Cleo looks equally good as a modern day fashionista:


I like how the belt was made from a very bendy plastic. It's not stiff like I thought.


The black bangle seems to be a snake, something I didn't notice until I looked close. It's hard to capture on camera, too.


This is the first time I found a recolour of an accessory. It's the case of the purple collar, which appeared previously as a gold upper arm bracelet on the Scaris doll. Despite having different destination, they are exactly the same.


...And it's only now that I realized I used the gold arm band instead of the choker for the whole photoshoot! Oopsie. It's because I removed all clothes and accessories for about a week to clean the hair of the disgusting goo we are seeing lately, and I forgot what went where. The hair needed several washes but it's nice and clean now and I restored the gelled look with fabric softener - sooo proud of myself for discovering that trick. Short hair like this needs to be tamed. It wasn't bad when fluffy, but the fringe and everything looks much neater now.


Moving on to the outfit, I was pleasantly surprised that the top under the pantaloons extends to a full bodysuit!


Finally, someone to keep Skull Shores Draculaura company. I don't have other swimsuit MH.


To show the shoes, I brought the other two Cleos from the shelf. Meet Dead Tired Cleo, the plain one who can wear anything. Natural hair and makeup. I can't understand why they never made another fringeless Cleo, this one was insanely successful.


The flashy Scaris Cleo is a different kind of beauty.


Neither of them screams Egyptian the way I Love Shoes Cleo does. It's a very bold style and really fun to have in my collection.


ILS Cleo brought footwear for everyone. The default pair is a bright gold, shinier than the Scaris cat shoes.


A pair that caught my attention is the purple one with detailed moulding on the sole and heel.


I had some difficulty pairing it with an outfit. This is the best I came up with:


I love all three pair of shoes. But even if she only came with one pair, the rest is still very nice. The double-duty bodysuit, the black sunglasses that go with everything, the unusual (for me) haircut, the strong Egyptian vibe... and mostly, the fact that it was a gift sent with love and care from overseas. Thank you, Ashley, for this wonderful present!

The Black Kitty
(^^)~

13 comments:

  1. Ah, what a great post! I'm very happy to see that Cleo arrived in one piece and to a home where she will be appreciated!

    ~Ashley/Kewpie83

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    1. All thanks to you! The new Cleo owns my MH shelf :)

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  2. I have that Cleo with the shoes! In fact, she's the only Cleo version I have. I like your other Cleo's too.

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    1. Oh yes, it's the one with the shrunken head and Barbie body, isn't it?

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  3. I just nominated you for an blogging award on my blog!

    http://mylittledollcorner.blogspot.com/

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    1. It's so sweet of you to think of me! I don't know if I'll be passing these awards forward, as I feel they are just for flooding the blogosphere, but I appreciate the thought :)

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    2. That's okay! I've never done one of these where everybody I picked felt the need to participate.

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  4. Oh, lucky you! Congrats on your present! :D That Cleo is so beautiful, I'm loving her hair and outfit. Awesome shoes, too. All 3 Cleos are really gorgeous (the dead tired one looks so cool with that dress)! Great review too, as always. ^^

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    1. Thanks! DT Cleo is my all-time fave doll, but this one is beautiful in a different way and very fun to play with. Do you have her in stores? We don't, which make the present even more valuable to me. I found Scaris Cleo on Ebay and bought her solely for the cat shoes, the seller was very accommodating with this because she wore different shoes in the box and these were a spare.

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    2. No, I think we don't. I didn't know about this Cleo till reading your review. Lately I see some scaris mhs on shelves, and that's it. The newer ones I see mostly online. The best source for them is still ebay (also the price is a LOT better). And nice seller! Those shoes are really gorgeous (I love how creative they get with mh shoes!), and the doll was a great buy as well! I have one Cleo so far, the gloom beach one, but her facepaint was so fragile it started coming off, so she is in line to get repainted eventually. Which kinda sucks, I did love the green lips.. ^^'

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    3. That does not suck at all! Now you get to design a better face, and there's no reason to do the lips a different colour if you like that green! I like that one too, and another one with gold lips. I'm feeling a little nostalgic about Cleo designs from before I got my hands on her, the ones with no teal in the hair. I still like the teal, but I feel the older designs were more "traditional" Egyptian.

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    4. You are right, it is a good excuse to repaint mine. I wanted her to keep her face, but I can make her unique, so it will work too, probably even more than the original plan. I'll remove her bangs and root longer hair in the front, then I'll go from there and see what she wants to be. =) And only recently I noticed the teal streaks on the new Cleos. I didn't see any in person yet, but from pics they look gorgeous! It's cool how Cleo looks so good in any style or color. <3 I think this last one you got looks very Egyptian, she is in my opinion one of the coolest Cleos along with the first wave one. ^^ (And hey, you can always go after some of the older ones! One can never have too many Cleos! X3)

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    5. They gradually replaced the brown and tinsel with teal and lately, purple. Picture Day, for example, had both tinsel and teal and it was overkill, in my opinion. Still, that was the first Cleo I saw for real in stores (I hopped on the bandwagon reeeeaaaally late) and I liked the face very much in spite of the terrible hair choice.I love Cleos the best because they are so beautiful and go with everything. I had a hell of a time hunting down Dead Tired for that normal hair, but I'm very glad I have a new Cleo who stays in character :) I'd love to "catch 'em all", but sadly it's not happening, not with my resources, not outside of USA. *sigh*
      P.S. I'll be keeping tabs on your Cleo makeover ;)

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