Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Barbie Fairytopia Magical Mermaid
1. The transient tail refuses to stay on. Try as you may to reconnect this appendage, the longest is remains secure is five minutes.
2. There is a button on the back of this Barbie that makes the tail “wiggle”. The wiggle is rather unrealistic and causes the tail to fall off (yet again!) after a few seconds of use.
3. The wiggle button on the back of Barbie jams, causing frustration to both child and parent. Then, when you finally get the wiggle to work, the tail pops off (no surprise there).
4. The doll comes with a crown, hairbrush and storybook. This is fine except that your daughter will want to take this toy into the bathtub. Hence, the crown is now nowhere to be found (we fear it went down the drain?) and the storybook is soggy and smeared.
5. The hairbrush is cute, but not effective on the long, thick, sparkle-infused hair on this Barbie. My daughter wound up taking one of my brushes to attempt to fix the rat’s nest that was now Barbie’s crowning glory because the broken plastic bristles on the tiny toy hairbrush just weren’t doing it.
6. The doll, being a Mermaid, lures our daughters into taking her into the bath. Although I protested, it becomes difficult to tell your daughter that a mermaid does not belong in the water. However, it was a regrettable decision because the already messy hair on this doll became impossibly tangled after a few dips in the tub.
7. The bra – this accessory never stays on either!! The doll comes with a Madonna-like mermaid bra that is attached with a flimsy piece of elastic that lasts through about five minutes of intense child play. Once the elastic snaps, the bra never stays properly secured and becomes another dreaded accessory for mom to have to keep fiddling with.
8. The makeup on this doll is really overwhelming. My daughter became obsessed with heavy makeup and wanted me to “do our faces” like Barbie. The generously applied fake makeup on this doll makes her resemble a woman of questionable character and I certainly did not want my daugther to want to emulate that! To sum it up, although I realize this Barbie represents fantasy, little ones may not and she is just not designed to be a stellar role model.
9. The mothers and teacher at our preschool unianimously agreed that this doll would have to stay home because it simply was not a suitable toy to bring to school overall. The reason for this was the fact that Barbie dolls were wandering around the classroom, topless and legless, with bushy purple and blonde hair and stage makeup. All the boys were completely amused (including my son at home) by this braless hussy and a plethora of off-color jokes began to erupt. In the best interests of what was moral and decent, we all had to confiscate these dolls from our vehemently protesting daughters before school (easier said than done, by the way).
10. After the initial protest at preschool, my daughter quickly lost interest in this Barbie because “she has no shirt or legs and her hair is a mess!”. She went back to playing with more conservative Barbies and this poor Barbie now lays in the bottom of the toy box, untouched and unclad. Although she was only about ten bucks, she still did not earn her worth as a toy because she only kept my daughter interested for a couple of weeks.
Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I really love Barbie. I played with her as a child and my daughter has several different versions and playing “Barbies” together is one of our favorite games. However, this particular design was definitely not one of the better ones and should be avoided based on the frustration factor to both parent and child.
