Okay so in case you didn't know, Tokidoki® is celebrating their 10th anniversary, and of course, they thought of a great way to celebrate it by releasing a beautiful doll in collaboration with Barbie®. Oh my, yes please!

With the success of the previous doll released on 2011, I knew that I had to act quick. I didn't get the chance to buy the previous Tokidoki® doll, but I was surely going to try to buy this one. My aim was towards the Platinum Label®, but of course, she was almost like a unicorn, so I think my chances were good with the Black Label® doll. 

I started browsing the site the night before the release, and all of a sudden I was in the "waiting room". I really wasn't expecting to fall there just yet, but I did. The site said that if I left the waiting room, I could loose my place to buy the doll, and I didn't want to take any chances. The thing I didn't like about this "waiting room" was that you couldn't keep on navigating the site at all. Whichever other window you opened from the official barbiecollector website, kept you in the waiting room. I decided to leave the laptop on and hoped for the best for next morning. 

The release date came, and it was soon 9am. The countdown came down to zero, and all I tried to do was stay calmed and focused. The page kept refreshing by itself, I suppose that it was doing it in order of those who were in this virtual waiting room. All of a sudden, about 2 minutes in, I was sent to the shopping page, and I was able to add the Tokidoki® Barbie® doll to my cart. I saw there were other items for sale, but no sight of the Platinum Label® doll. I looked for a few minutes, but then thought that if I kept on waiting, I was going to loose my chance to buy the doll I had in my shopping cart. After all, it is never really yours until you pay for it, and someone could just take it away as you are wondering around on the page; it's happened before on other websites. 

The purchase went smooth, because I have been buying dolls this way for a few years. I knew the process, and it is not really that complicated. I even tried to see if I could find a coupon for free shipping, but I failed to find one that worked in time, so I left it at that and just bought the doll. I was still monitoring the page, and noticed that by 9:24 am, the Black Label® doll was gone. I don't know how long it took for the Platinum Label® to be sold out, but I heard rumors that it took only a few minutes, between 5 - 10 to be sold out. I honestly have no idea and I can only assume it was very quick. A few minutes later I saw that the Black Label® doll was available for purchase again, which was cool, and when I finally found the page for the Platinum Label® doll about the same time the other one was back on sale, it was gone. It felt like a beautiful shooting star just passing by.

I still feel lucky and grateful that I was able to buy the Black Label® doll, because I missed my chance with the doll in 2011, which has my favorite head mold, and I just felt this was a very interesting doll to have and add to my collection. I was so excited, that I even did a little fan art image.

The shipping:

I got the order confirmation right away, and the shipping confirmation on September 2nd, the day after. I got the package today, September 9th, so it only took 7 days to get here. To me, that was pretty fast. I was surprised that this doll was not in back-order, as the last 4 dolls I've bought have been and I usually have to wait about a month or so to get it. 

The package:

All the dolls I have purchased so far from barbiecollector.com have arrived in a big box, and usually there is another box inside. The doll's designer box is usually inside this second box, which in my opinion helps the designer box be protected. Since I am a doll collector, the box the doll is in, is as important as the doll itself. The Tokidoki® Barbie® was not packed in a double box before it got to the packaged doll. There was the shipping big box, and right away when you opened that first box, you could find the Tokidoki® Barbie® doll's box.

The graphics in the box are great. Very colorful, and with Tokidoki®'s characters all over the place, something that is very characteristic of the Tokidoki® brand. You can see in the images below the graphics that you will find on the sides, the back, and the top of the box. The top has a representation graphic of both anniversary dolls, the Platinum Label® (The purple version), and the Black Label® (The pink version). This top side also has icons familiar to the Barbie® brand, and a cartoon line image of Barbie®. The box is a little saturated with images everywhere you look, however, it is not overwhelming and has a nice flow to it. The background is white, and the images are mostly line art, colored in a light silver tone, with hot-pink accentuated graphics overlapping. The sides have more color with the dolls' graphics, and then the back has even more color with the addition of more Tokidoki® characters, which appear to be celebrating Tokidoki®'s 10th anniversary.

The back of the box has a nice story about what Tokidoki means, which reminds me a lot about one of my favorite words; Serendipity. They almost sound like the same thing to me, which is great, because I know y live by Serendipity, and now I know more about what Tokidoki® represents.

I felt the box had a good size and the doll looks great in it for display. The graphics in the inside show a lot of the Tokidoki® characters acting like paparazzi, taking photos of the Tokidoki® Barbie® which stands on top of a red carpet printed in the inside of the box.  You can clearly see this in further photos.

The doll:

The doll has a model muse body type, which is the one mostly used in the collector Barbie® dolls now at days. It is not a jointed doll from wrists, elbows, nor knees, However, the doll's legs move from the thigh area, front and back, and the arms move at shoulder level. It is the traditional model muse body. The left leg is the one that is slightly bent towards the front, and both her arms have a downward direction with a slight bent in both arms, just enough to look in a natural resting position, since she is holding objects in both hands. 

According to the barbiecollector's website, the skintone is called "nostalgia". It is a light color, but does not make the doll look as pale as the Platinum Label®, which is much lighter. Her hair color is hot-pink, and has some blond streaks in the back of her head, however, you can barely see the blond the way the doll is packed. There are three tones of blue in her eyes, and her eyelashes are painted in black. Her eye-shadow is in a different tone of blue from the tones used for her eyes, and also has a layer of glitter on top. In my doll it seems like one eye has slightly less glitter than the other one. The lips are in a pink tone that looks almost the same as the hair, but less silky. Her eyebrows are light brown, and she has a little white star on her left upper side of her cheek, which also has a bit of glitter on it.

In my opinion, the dress has a very nice combination of shiny and color. The top part of the dress has silver sequins, and at first glance looks like if these were two pieces; the top and the skirt. Since I did not remove the doll from the package, I can only assume this. The skirt shows many of Tokidoki®'s characters, and once again the logo of the 10ve anniversary. The doll also has a simulated belt on, which has the logo of Tokidoki® in the front. I was able to tell that it is sewn to the skirt. Though it does have a lot of graphics, I did not feel this outfit to be over-saturated. I think the silver sequins makes it look less crowded, but yet elegant. 

The accessories:

She is wearing a silver bracelet with a star and a Tokidoki® character on her right wrist. She is wearing two more bracelets, one yellow and one pink, on her left wrist. With her right hand, she holds a silver clutch, matching the bracelet in that arm, and with her left hand she holds a Tokidoki® shopping bag in hot-pink. She also has a Tokidoki® pet pal with a thin chain for a leash, which she holds with her left hand. 

She also has two different sets of headbands. The one she is wearing looks like two different types of donuts on her head, representing ears, and the second one looks like cactus ears, with a little pink-star character adorning them. 

Her shoes are silver strapped stilettos, which have a heavy amount of colorful metallic glitter in the front part, compared with the amount used within her makeup.

As mentioned before, the pet is a character from Tokidoki®. It is a cactus pup called Polppetina. She is pink, and has mauve cactus thorns all around her body, except her face and feet. Her face is white and she has big black eyes with one long eyelash in each eye. Her left ear is adorned with a tiny bone that looks like a bow. Very cute, and very Tokidoki® like. 

The doll comes with her stand, which was hidden in the back of the cardboard background that holds the doll in place. This doll also comes with a certificate of authentication, which to collectors, is also an important feature.

Regarding the package, I loved how even if there are graphics all around it, it is not overwhelming. I think the different tones contrast really nice with the overall graphics both in the outside and the inside of the box. I am a fan of Tokidoki®, so I enjoyed seeing the different characters all around. The inside is almost like a fun party inviting you to celebrate Tokidoki®'s anniversary with them. You can clearly see the doll with her accessories through the plastic, and the items do not get lost within the graphics. I thought that was really well done. I really liked the story in the back, and the hashtag, because that way I can follow-up with other things that are going on regarding the anniversary celebration. 

Regarding the doll. I am not a fan of the color pink, yes, I know it sounds ridiculous coming from a Barbie® collector, since it's their main color. However, I think that it looks good on this doll. I mean, it's not like everything is pink. Most of what I described as hot-pink, is more like a fuschia color, and only her pet and her hair are lighter, so I am good with that. I loved the dress. I think it was a nice combination of shine, and color. Once again, with all the characters in the skirt, it does not look overwhelming and that is something I enjoyed too. I liked the tattoos in her body. Though I wouldn't personally use tattoos, I do appreciate them as a form of art expression, therefore, having a doll with that concept is quite exciting to me. It makes her look very artistic and cute at the same time. I really liked that the shopping bag seems to be made of a thick paper, which I dare to say feels very much like the material used for many real apparel shopping bags.

I really liked the bracelet with the star on her right wrist, and her shoes, which I feel match her outfit to perfection. Another thing I really liked was that this doll comes with underwear, and in case you were wondering, it is the same color as the fuschia underskirt. In other words, the same color as the shopping bag. To be honest, this had been something I was disappointed at with previous collector dolls, especially dolls that were way more expensive than this one. So having the doll with underwear was something I was looking forward to. 

The silver clutch does not open. I know this is a collector's doll, which would probably be in display forever, but I remember when I was a little girl, I was always very happy when I was able to open and close the doll's clutches and place something inside. I know it's not something very important, but I think it would have been fun. 

The head bands. I know that both headbands are representations of Tokidoki®'s characters, but it makes the doll look look very cartoony in my opinion. I understand and respect everyone's opinion regarding this matter, and believe me, in real life, I would probably wear a headband like that, just for fun and because I really like Tokidoki®. However, the previous Tokidoki® Barbie® did not have them and she looked as gorgeous as this one. 

With the package, the inside where the characters are taking photos of the doll, has two panels. The one that is the main cardboard, and a pop-up 3D kind of panel. This popping panel is a little bit higher than what looks correct. I think that if that section was lower, and then the characters going upwards were the ones of the main background panel, it would had looked with a great in-depth image. But then again, that is just me.

Little details here and there. When I inspected the doll closely, I noticed that her bangs had a longer hair, so it shows in one of the close-up pictures. I had to carefully cut it to even those bangs. I am a collector, I need the doll to look almost perfect. I also noticed that one of her eyes has slightly less glitter in her eye-shadow. You can't really tell from afar, but if you look closely with the right light, you can tell. The tattoos are stickers, which I can only imagine take a lot of care and precision to place. However, I did notice little defects on the placing of the tattoos. In one of the birds in the front, I can see a wrinkle, and I can also see a line printed by error in the chocolate donut ear. 

I also didn't like that I couldn't find a series number. As a collector, I like to see which number out of the many created, I have. In this case, I looked all over and couldn't find which number this doll was, which also gives it a little big of a playline feel. I felt like there was attention to detail to some things, and lack of the attention to detail on other things, like the stickers as mentioned, and the placing of the glitter on the shoes. There is like a small blob of glitter in a corner, which is not on top of a shoe, but rather just floating over the foot.

I think that if the people putting these dolls together were more careful and thoroughly cleaned these dolls before the face paint, and the body paint, there would be less defects like this. I saw a piece of hair attached to the corner of her lips. I know that with twizers, this could be easily removed, but that is not the point nor my job. Sometimes I notice that they don't do a good clean over the face, and when they apply the paint, you can see a hair under the paint. The problem then is that by removing the hair, you leave a line with no paint and end up making it worse. So if I could suggest something that would actually be considered, I would ask the people working on the dolls, to make sure there are no bits and pieces of hairs on the face or body before painting. It can easily be removed with another brush, and even just by blowing on it, who knows. I honestly think that there should be more attention to quality control with dolls that are not in the playline, because they are not cheap. The last time I bought a collector's doll it had a scratch on the box, which makes the value of the doll go down, and as a collector, I take as much care of the boxes, as I do of the doll itself. The nice thing was that they offered to refund or to send another one. However, I have trusting issues with returning items and waiting for the right one. It's not their fault, I've had problems with other companies to which I've returned the item and received no replacement nor my money. Scary! Anyways, it was nice of the customer service to offer a replacement for that one doll. However, I also feel that one gets so anxious to receive the doll, that the last thing you want to do is let go of it, whichever its condition. I mean, if it was in horrible shape, then yes, of course, but in this case, they were minor details that didn't look okay. 

About the experience, though I enjoyed it, and it worked smooth for me, because I was connected early, I did not like that it was a little hard to find the Platinum Label® doll. As mentioned before, I am not a big fan of pink, so my choice was the purple version of this doll. The "clues" in the buzz announcement were not easy to track. I read the post like 10 times with no luck and no idea of where the doll was. The thing is that with so many recent changes to the website, it is hard to navigate to find dolls at all. I understand that it is for the better, and it does look great, even if it is missing a lot of the dolls from the gallery, which I understand will be eventually added. However, I felt the method of doll-hunting drastic, considering all the changes in the site. Until the date, I had no idea where the link was. I found it by accident, when it popped up as a favorite, meaning someone added it to their "want it" list, and that is how I saw it and was able to access the page. I still have to figure out how to better navigate the site, so until the site is finished, I think using treasure hunts is not a fun experience at all.

I do have to congratulate the people who found the Platinum doll, well done! To the rest of us who bought the Black Label®, yay!!! To both Tokidoki® and Barbie®, thank you for this great collaboration, and for creating not one, but two collectible dolls. I believe in unicorns, so maybe one day I will get to see or even own the Platinum Label®, but until then, I am happy with my purchase.

Did you get your hands on one of these dolls? Let me know which one and where. I know that the Platinum Label® was also sold and quickly sold out at a big-buck Toy Store. *Sigh... one day!

Here is my unboxing video of this doll. Just keep in mind that I do not remove the doll completely from the package. I just open the box to expose her for everyone to have a better look at the doll. Enjoy.

Smile, because it is contagious!

Disclosure: I was not compensated for this review. The item was purchased by The Happy Reviewers Blog. Opinions are 100% my own honest opinion. Though the Tokidoki and Barbie brand's rights belong to them, the rights to the written content of this blog post belong to The Happy Reviewers Blog (Missha V), and are protected by copyright laws. The images were taken personally from an item we purchased and own. You may not use these images or video without permission from us. Brand names are used under fair use for the purpose of this review. This post contains affiliate links from where we get a small commission with every purchase.