L.O.L. Surprise Remix Hairflip Pt.1 - the BEST tots release ever
I picked up this Hairflip from Coles - a grocery store of all places. "Candii, aren't the toys at grocery stores heavily marked up for the convenience?" I hear you ask. Typically yes, and these would usually be no exception, but they were on sale, down from $29 to $15! That's still cheaper than Big W, at $25. I was like "they may never be this low anywhere ever again, and I need to check these out" and so I got one. Target has them on sale currently for $15 as well, but I didn't want to pick up more until after I'd looked at one at least.
At my Coles, there was what looked like a brand new, freshly opened case of 12 (6 on top, 6 on the bottom, in a 2x3 layout) on the shelf, so it seemed I would get first pick! I first put the middle row right in my trolley, but felt it wasn't someone I would like, and swapped for the middle left instead. I guess it was something like a 6th sense that told me to pick a different one. I might never know who was in the middle right but I'm okay with it. I mention the placement of this box because it can be indicative of WHO is in this specific box. There are no doubt hacks everywhere already, there's 12 to a case, and only 12 dolls so one could assume all are in there, but I'm refraining from looking for hacks until after I complete this almost blind review. Additionally, this box weighs 408grams, and the batch number is 30320MBGE.
The cubed Remix Hairflip boxes show some cool tots in dope neons and brights and match the big sister box themes of the whole Remix series. It claims to come with 15 surprises including a ROOTED tot, the inner case itself along with a little record, and new-to-this-series musical instruments. It shows the musical tune as being one of the surprises which is a bit of a stretch.
Of the 12 tots in the series, I hope to get Stix Queen or Bangle BB in my box. I like the art of most of the tots, but as I've seen of the physical dolls, the art to doll translation isn't the most accurate. Bangle BB also has a little keytar like Goo Goo Queen - I LOVE that one.
Bangles is a 'common', or 'popular', as the checklist says. All of these dolls have the same articulation as previous series, AND they have 100% rooted hair!
A neat feature of the inner packaging or the record turnstyle/speakers is that they clip onto the Remix Pets piece to make a boom box, like an itty bitty baby version of the [Super Sonix mega box!] It also shows that there are turnstyle lids in different colours, which are likely associated with who is inside, like all LOL tot products. From personal observations of this box, its incredibly difficult to tell what exactly the colour is of the turnstyle lid by looking through the sides of the lid, as all 3 exposed sides are taped down in the middle, something is covering the turnstyle lid and the box tears easily if you attempt to lift the corners and peek in.
Don't worry, I didn't tear the box until after I got home - if I had have done that in the store I would have been so ashamed, omg.
There's this weird little plastic tab stuck to the top of the box which I thought was to lift the lid when opening, but it's on the front, and it opens at the back... It's for lifting the box out of the store case dingus. Because they're cubes and stacked in neatly, there's nowhere to grab them.
To open the box, you must first cut the tape holding the lid shut... or rip it apart like a monster, that's your choice lol.
This immediately reveals to me why I couldn't see the turnstyle lid colour - the instruction pamphlet is rested under the lid tabs, I assume to make cheating or hacking more difficult. Underneath it, I can see that the lid of the record turnstyle is yellow - nice! My fave colour!
The instructions are a thick chonky booklet, but it's just all the same stuff in different languages. For the 'Speaker' section, it tells me in steps 1 and 2 to open the speaker by taking off the record turnstyle, and this will reveal who's inside. It then says to put it back on in steps 3 to 5, and that I can pop the speaker front off and place the doll stand inside or on top of the turnstyle lid. Step 6 onward says to take the record turnstyle back off again, turn the switch to the on position, put it back on, open the turnstyle lid, place in the record on the turnstyle, and push down and spin to hear the music.
The 'features' section tells you how to colour change the doll, as all dolls in this set will colour change. Put it in ice-cold water - if it doesn't change, put it in hot water. Step 3 doesn't make much sense, but I assume what it's trying to imply is whichever temperature changes the colour of the body will change the colour of the hair? Later in the instructions in fine print, it says the hair doesn't change colour and not to submerge it in water, so I'm not sure what it's meant to mean. This is why it is absolutely important to read instructions before play. I would definitely have dunked the poor kid's hair in water without a second thought. So what's the go there then? I'll have to figure that out.
Included is how to connect the boom-box pieces, and that each speaker and doll has a unique piece of the song - oh no lmao - that can be matched with the sticker and collector guide.
After I took it out of the box, it also became immediately apparent that one of the features of it may also be a flaw. The holes in the side - the connection points to make a mini boom box - prematurely showed the colours of the bags and if I look just right, I can see the tot chilling out in her plastic casing.
The exterior of the box is mostly a pearly silver/grey with black/dark grey speaker and record turnstyle base. There are moulded, raised and inlaid details to give it a more authentic boom-box speaker look.
Because I read the instructions and know to, I pull the record turnstyle off and there's the little tot, in a body-fit plastic egg case thing. It's translucent yellow, I can see who's inside.
And oh. My. God.
IT'S BANGLE BB!!! THE LIL LIGHTNING BOLT KID ON THE SIDE OF THE BOX!
I'VE BEEN BLESSED!
I've been cursed too though because this Bangle BB has the grungiest looking eye and baby hairs paint. Damn. I'll need to do touch-ups on her, or see if MGA will send me a replacement. They've sent me a replacement part before, I'm not sure if they'll send me a whole head though.
The bright side is the likelihood of getting one of the two I wanted of TWELVE TOTAL is a 1/6 chance, and I did it! I'm excited to see what the keytar looks like.
Bangle BB has dark tan skin, with sea-green teal hair, done up in a top bun and 3 thick curly ponytails. It's a little messy, but with some time and patience, I could get it all set back in place. Underneath the top bun, I thought was simply the hair ties, but its HAIR! There's a lock of neon pink and neon yellow hair, twisted tightly and almost hidden! This is what I thought the colour change hairstreak was!
OH MY GOD, AGAIN!
It's not just her top bun, it's in her ponytails too!
I don't want to ruin her hairstyle and to pull them out to show you, please forgive me! If I can get my hands on a second Bangles, I'd be happy to go nuts, but for now, here's a stock image of what she would look like!
Wow, that was actually pleasantly surprising. On with her look.
The neon pink lightning bolt earrings are not removable, glued to her head. There are no sunnies indents behind her ears. Boo :( She's got brown iris', bright neon pink eyeliner and a neon yellow lightning bolt over her left eye. Very David Bowie. She is printed with black fishnet sleeves, a white bodysuit and neon yellow/green frilly socks. I can see shapes and colours already shifting through the main colour, as I'm sitting in aircon, so she's probably a cold colour shifter.
I chucked her in the freezer, just like I did with Big City BB previously, and my suspicions were correct, she is indeed a cold shifter.
I do the whole freezer/blow dryer thing to avoid wetting the dolls.
Her gloves shift to deep pink, her socks turn teal and her body does a very Shapes-like style of blue, teal and pink. Bangle's colour-change coats are not applied the best and have gaps between colours. The worst is the pink on the front of her torso, and a big chunk is taken out in the paint on her butt. Sad. Her facial features do not change colour.
Her arms twist quite smoothly but her legs are as stiff as a board and I fear for breaking them so I shan't twist them more then they'll let me.
Onto the first accessory bag! It honestly feels empty... what's in here?
I cut the top of the paper bag to find... the guitar strap? Really MGA? Why? Such a huge bag for a small accessory. What a waste. I guess each individual accessory will have its own bag then. Again, why?
Another small, definitely the bottle.
Big bag, feels like the keytar - because it is lol.
Back to a small one. Feels like... shoes. Wrong its hair ties lol.
A big one again. This has to be the clothes. Yup! The dress and ooooooh it's pretty neat.
The last one, a small bag, okay this must be the shoes. Yup! Tiny little things.
In the very bottom of the speaker, the box is the plastic record in an awesome 70's print sleeve and miss Bangle herself on the front, the checklist and the lyric sticker sheet. Check out the little barcode, H33L5ONMYF33T, 'Heels On My Feet'.
Before I dress Bangle and play her tune, I must address the completely unnecessary paper waste of the surprise bags. Almost everything was individually bagged. Why? There are definitely parts that could have been paired or grouped together. The keytar strap could have at least been included in the bag with the keytar itself, the shoes, brush and hair ties could have been all together, the stand could have been included with the bottle, and the dress I would still leave on its own but the bag it was in would be smaller. That's 4 bags instead of 9. Yes, kudos MGA, for changing from plastic blind bags to recyclable paper bags after fans demanded it, but the idea is to reduce the amount of waste, not the type. Sure, in one box you may think "it's not that much" but imagine if every single person on the planet had one, or even the whole set. That's billions and billions of pieces of paper waste. It's just not necessary and they can absolutely do better than this.
Okay now onto dressing Bangle, and taking a better look at those accessories.
The stand sucks. Bangles' hair is too heavy and her shoes are too small, so she topples out of the stand all the time. I have to lean her entire body forward to make her stay upright. She looks drunk lol. I would have preferred to have her displayed on top of the turnstyle lid, but she's gotta be difficult like this, so she'll be an inside-speaker display, where I can jam her packaging in behind her for support.
I'm almost 100% sure the dress and shoe moulds are recycled but I don't mind because she looks good. The dress does anyway, but the shoes, oh no.
The dress has a white-pearl collar that acts as sleeves. It's long, goes to her knees and angles up on the left side. It's primarily a bright blue, with neon pink frills, and black, pink and green designs on the front and back. The shoes are itty bitty open toe heels with pom poms on the front. I think they could definitely have done without the pom-poms and gone with simple heels.
The small neon yellow brush is of course for brushing her hair, which I'm not doing, and the neon yellow bow hair ties with black elastics are probably for styling her, after brushing. I think I'll just put one on her head like a headband-
- Nope never mind, her head and hair is the wrong shape and now she looks like a kawaii pirate lmao.
I love the keytar. I love anything keytar. Keytars are cool and there's nothing anyone can do to convince me otherwise. It's a wavy shape in a light pink colour. The key colours are inverted, and it has Key-Matic printed in black a near unreadable font. Oh, I mustn't forget. It's got legs! The keytar has stand legs so it can be used as a keyboard tooooo! It's so heckin' cute, oh my god.
I put it on Bangles but it's got her in a tight uncomfortable chokehold. The strap is so short!
Lastly for her accessories is her drink bottle, a bright pink soft drink/soda can with, black zig-zags, neon yellow cap and yellow label band.
I've not forgotten the record, nonononono. That's like the biggest feature of this set. Remember to turn it on before you try to play it. I read the instructions and still forgot.
...? There's no sound... I'm pressing down the record so the nub touches the activation button and nothing is happening...
Oh my god the batteries aren't included. It says it on the bottom of the box and the instructions in fine print that they're not included. I read the instructions but I didn't see that! UuuuuuuuGH! Why were the batteries included in the OMG but not the tots? Because 3xAAA is more expensive than 3xAG13/LR44 button batteries? Yknow what, yeah that sounds about right.
Okey, so unscrew the battery cover with a Phillips (not included) and insert 3xAAA batteries (not included) and screw it shut. NOW it should play music...
Sweet! They really do each have different parts of the songs on the back of the checklist. It seems that each doll may come with the missing lyrics on their sticker sheet for one of the four volumes. Bangles comes with missing lines 5, 6 and 7, from volume 6. These are some of Pop B.B's lines in the Crew Remix music video at 1:25 ;-
I don't want to put all my stickers on my lyric sheet until I have a spare as a checklist. I wonder what the Pets have? I must know.
Okay, I do like this series. I can get past the questionable wastefulness of surprise packaging and obvious production flaws and see the awesomeness they were going for. It's more interactive than any other LOL tots I've opened both in my own time and in a review, and it's not a one-time activity. Because these have a theme, they can be played with like a rock band, play the tune, and with real hair, they can be styled and styled until their hair falls out. The packaging is functional for crying out loud! You can make a baby boom box if you buy multiple, and the packaging has a purpose so you wouldn't want to throw it away!!! If someone was just starting out collecting LOL, OMG, small dolls or figures, this would be on the list of what to check out first FOR SURE, I would make sure to note the frequency of factory flaws though.
After the review... searching the net.
I have reason to believe my suspicions were correct in that a whole case contains a full set and now I'm supremely upset that I didn't grab the whole case. Yes, $180 is a lot of money, and if I had have bought them all at the same time, that'd be all I'd have to pay! UGH. So now I'll have to find a sealed case for under $200 and that's not likely based on the fact their RRP is $25-30, which is up to $360. YIKES. So it may be one of those things I have one of, but at least she's one of my faves!
There is a placement hack too, and prior to me picking up mine, someone may have switched the places of the middle two as I learned Bangles should have been where I took the other one from. I found an image of a hack for these guys, a little late, along with this entire post in general, however, it's still helpful for documentation of this set. It would seem the middle two had been switched around prior to my purchase or I would have gotten Bluegrass. The image came from @dollboy.29 on Instagram, but the original source seems to be @lol_surprise_community_de(?). In the comments of the post this is from, someone says that Alto and Rocker should be switched around. It's possible that there are discrepancies between placements but their layer is correct?
Additionally, the colour of the accessories baggies seems to be irrelevant. All of the baggies are yellow, and so is the protective case for the tot, so there are no major giveaways there. In relation, a perk of these is, because the dolls are contained in a translucent casing, you could theoretically reseal it and return it to where you purchased it from for an exchange, which is a little scummy and I personally wouldn't do, or sell it online as 'revealed to doll' including who it is or keeping it a secret, but it can still be completely enjoyed as a surprise to the new owner! You couldn't do that with earlier completely blind tot waves.
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We rule the world, that's right, we're L.O.L. Surprise.
Don't take my words as an unbiased judge for this product. I'm very picky. Do some more research! Check out others reviews, check out their homepage below, or purchase one to discover it for yourself!
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Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more! <3
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