Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Hollywood Hair Teresa 1992


It’s a fact that when we’re not looking for something, it comes to us on its own. And if you happen to be a doll collector, your grail dolls usually appear when you’d spent far too much money on some other dolls and now you’re impatiently waiting for payday. That’s exactly how it was with my Hollywood Hair Teresa 1992. I’ve lost many auctions and I rejected so many others because the doll was just not acceptable. Either Teresa’s glorious hair was butchered mercilessly, or she was just ridiculously and groundlessly expensive. I hate it when a seller describes a doll as being in “great condition” although her hand or foot has been chewed off. It appears that a loss of limb doesn’t decrease her value. She’s expensive just because she’s old, she’s a collectible/ vintage / rare and so on. Once I was utterly desperate and ready to buy her though she was ratty and nude. Well not exactly nude – she was wrapped with her own hair like in a cocoon of some sort. I didn’t manage to close the deal because someone else had done it before me. So I bought a Mexican and an Italian instead and I thought these two have answered the nagging question “And what about Teresa doll?”, but when I saw Hollywood, I knew the answer was not full without her.


I’ll soon move on to my Teresa, but before I do that, I’d like to focus a little on the topic of long hair on Mattel’s dolls. I know that this topic has already been addressed many times, but it just gives me a great pleasure to rediscover it, so here it goes. Mattel manifested their soft spot for really long hair in the 80s already and you can clearly see that in Twirly Curls 1982 and Tropical Barbie 1985 but it wasn’t until the early 90s that they went all the way, no holds barred and so we had Totally / Ultra Hair Barbie 1991. This girl needs no introduction, if you are Barbie collector surely you know her and probably you own her too. She’s the best selling Barbie of all time and her hairy friends were a hit too – Barbie the Brunette, AA Barbie, Ken, the Toys’r’us exclusive Skipper and Courtney and the European Exclusive Whitney. The girls had ankle length hair, crimped too and you could brush it and braid it and decorate it with hair accessories and even put on some hair gel. Long hair, short dress, they had it all and was there anybody who didn’t just adore those dolls? Me! The hair was just too long and a little messy. Now that I’m all grown up I appreciate her for her influence and I begin to grow fond of her little by little too. I mean, the facepaint – it’s amazing, and the dress is so crazy and psychedelic! I may end up buying her or the repro at some point. After all, the hairy Teresa did win me, didn’t she.


                                                source: https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/567594359260362228/?lp=true
 

Mattel would attempt to repeat the success of Totally Hair for the next several years exploring the topic of extremely long hair and what could be done with it. Each series would mark their existence and would be heavily advertised. In 1992 Mattel sites would produce the Hollwood Hair series – Barbie, Teresa, Skipper and Ken. Ken’s hair would be molded and covered with temperature sensitive paint, the girls would get ankle length hair and a bottle of spray to change it pink. You could sprinkle pink stars all over the hair! The dolls were and still are widely liked but not quite as much as Totally Hair. 


the source: https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/68961438018428280/?lp=true
 
Mattel seems to believe you can’t go overboard with glitter and they decided to bring that belief to life with the Glitter Hair Barbie series 1993. Four dolls comprised the series – a blonde, a brunette and a redhead – all superstars and an AA Barbie with the Christie face. The girls wore skimpy dresses covered with glitter. They also got a tube of glittery hair gel with a special applicator. You could make the hair all glittery and sticky with it and then you probably needed to wash it off. The dolls are pretty for sure, but even with all that glitter they didn’t shine quite as brightly as Mattel would’ve liked. Yet the company was determined, they would make another top selling series with super-duper long hair no matter what. They went all drastic and created Cut’n Style Barbie in 1994. Again there were 3 superstars and an AA and you could cut their hair! Not that it’s very inventive, kids had come up with this idea way before, but this time Mattel gives them a sharp tool – the dreaded scissors! Now what if an amateur hairdresser gave Barbie a pageboy look within 5 minutes from unboxing her? Mattel thought of that and so the dolls had Velcro at the back of their heads so you could stick an extension to it. If that was not enough, you could buy some more extension packs and even experiment with different hair colors if you wished to do so.



You would imagine that Cut’n Style would cut the topic of long hair. After all, apart from brushing, braiding, putting on sticky glittery gel on and cutting off, what else could you do with ankle-long hair? Well, you could make it even longer! This may sound a little unnatural, but mermaids are allowed. So in 1995 Jewel Hair Mermaid Barbie, Teresa, Midge and Christie were produced. Their boxes spelled “The longest hair ever”. What could you do with it? Whatever you wanted. Of course, that’s not the end, there are contemporary examples of extremely long hair on Barbie dolls, but that’s past my favorite era and so I’ll leave the topic here and move on to my lovely Teresa. 


I purchased Teresa used, but well-kept and still dressed in her 3-piece stock outfit which consists of a sleeveless jacket, a bodysuit and a skirt. Mattel used to make great clothes for their dolls. They used various types of fabrics. So here we have golden lame and net as well as fiercely orange lurex. How I adore this type of fabric that I remember so well from the 80/90s. It’s glossy, silky and soft. It had its flaws though – it often got damaged by Velcro and lame would flake off in time so I’m amazed at how great condition Teresa’s outfit still is. It’s a pity lurex is not so widely used by Mattel anymore. Now we get this awful plasticky kind of “fabric” heavily printed with glitter that gets all over you and the doll when you touch it! Yuck!!! Anyway, Teresa’s outfit is complete but her shoes are replaced and one of her earrings is broken. The seller included it in the package when I asked her to but so far I haven’t figured out how to assemble it. Her ring is still in place but it’s so loose I’m afraid I may lose it at some point. 
 




Teresa’s selling point is her hair and I’m so happy it’s not been tampered with in any way. I’m still struggling to distinguish between saran and good kanekalon (the bad one I can tell easily), but Teresa’s hair is most probably saran as it reacts well to boiling water. It’s also unique color. Teresa dolls would usually get dark hair, but Teresa’s is 2 shades of golden blond! I can also recall Camp Teresa who’s also a blonde, and there’s a reason for that. Both dolls’ hair works and the result is more spectacular on blonde hair. HH Teresa’s package included a special spray that you could sprinkle her hair with to make pink stars appear. They would go away when the hair dries. This wouldn’t work on other dolls’ hair though. My doll came with a bottle of magic spray but I was afraid it may damage the glorious hair so I haven’t found courage to use it. And in any event, I’m not a big fan of all those tricks that you could work on dolls’ hair. I almost forgot – Teresa still has her stock ribbon in her hair.






But it’s not only Teresa’s hair that makes her unique. Her facepaint is just stunning and beautiful in its simplicity. Her eyes are large and chocolate brown and there’s but a whisper of green eyeshadow. Her lips are raspberry color and she has glowing, sun kissed complexion. HH Barbie is pretty but Teresa surpasses her in terms of beauty. I’d go even further than that and say that to me she’s the most gorgeous Teresa doll ever made on this headmold.




So here’s my three most favorite dolls with Teresa headmold and the next girl to appear on my blog will also come from that same time period and … it won’t be Barbie.



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