Try Again Henna

Sorry for my inattention to comments this past week, but it's been a busy time!  My eldest graduated from college (with a virtual ceremony) so I was doing my best to make the day special while also a surprise...a difficult mission in a small house with 5 people!  It was a really fun weekend, although I feel bad for kids all over the world who are missing out on important events and milestones, not to mention their normal routines.  Congratulations to any other 2020 graduates out there!

I'm back with another Unicorn Twinn today.  This is a 1997 Helen that I worked on for the first time in my Toy Box Philosopher days.  She came to me looking like this:

1997 My Twinn doll with the Helen face.

Helen is a rare face mold, so I was really happy to get this doll.  I also love the idea of freckles and red hair, but I wasn't crazy about these particular freckles.

She even had freckles on her arm, which is a neat good idea that perhaps I should try someday:

I wasn't very experienced with My Twinn makeovers back then, but I knew how to swap eyes, boil wash wigs, and paint faces.

I cleaned and straightened Helen's original (red) wig, exchanged her bright blue eyes for some Secrist hazel eyes, and painted the face with extra blush, freckles, and enhanced eyebrows.

Here's how she looked when I was done:

I really like the Helen face, and I assumed that I would always keep this doll in my collection, but I never really connected with her.

One problem was that her eyes (while they look fine in pictures) are not very interesting in real life.  They seem faded to me (even thought they're not) and they have hints of red that look a little strange.

I also wasn't thrilled with my own paint job.  While I liked Helen's new freckles, I wasn't wild about the color of blush I'd chosen for her.  Again, it's hard to appreciate this in photos, but the blush was too yellow and made her head look like a different color than her limbs.  I also applied the blush too heavily, and over too much of her face.

Last of all, I wasn't happy with the boil-washed wig.  It felt amazing and silky, but it was poker-straight, which didn't match the (un-boiled) bangs:

A few months ago, I scrubbed all of the paint off of Helen's face to see if I would like her any better.  It made a small difference, but I still wasn't content.

So, I decided to give her another little touch-up and see if I could transform her into one of my Unicorn Twinns!  Her facial expression is perfect for this happy group.

As I embarked on this project, I also decided that Helen should have a new name to go with her new look.  I call her Henna now.  This name is reminiscent of the original name, but it also hints at the beautiful color of the new wig that I had in mind for her.

Here's Henna before I started her makeover:

You can see that all of her blush and freckles are gone:

Already I think she looks cuter.

Her body has always been in really great shape.  It's a clean 1997 body with very few picks in the torso:

The back looks good, too:

Henna has elastic-strung ankles, though, which is unfortunate.  Her joints are actually tighter than many dolls with this body style, but she's still more prone to tipping over than the non-elastic-ankled dolls.  Fortunately--like many of the Unicorn Twinns--Henna will be wearing boots, and these help a lot with balance.

Henna's neck joint was still sturdy, so I simply removed her old wig and worked on her face with her body still attached.  

Incidentally, my workshop pictures are probably the best representation of Henna's skin tone.  She has the most common skin tone, but I'm garbage at identifying these shades using the number system.

The first thing I did was remove the old eyelashes (or try):

It felt weird to dismantle a makeover that I had done myself!  At least I know now how durable some of the materials I use are.  The tacky glue I use for eyelashes is very robust...until you get it wet.

The eyebrows are fine, but they're very pale and they have some areas of uneven paint.  I don't think my brushes were very good back then:

You can also see that the eyes look a bit faded.  I like their subtle green color, but it's not at all vibrant.  The color is dull (and the eyes themselves are slightly wonky).

So, I removed the old eyes and replaced them with the beautiful brown Denver My Twinn eyes that I pulled from Safiya:

I love the color of these eyes!  They are gorgeous.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice until after the eyes were in place that the right eye has a small scratch on the outer part of the iris:

At first I thought that this was a small patch of residual glue, and I tried to clean it away, but it's a scratch.

I debated long and hard about what to do at this stage.  I really love the color of these eyes and there's nothing like them on the market.  However, a scratch is irritating.  I finally decided that I would keep the eyes in place.

If a small scratch is something that might bother you, Henna is not your girl.  In the finished doll, the scratch is very hard to notice, though.  My husband can't find it when I ask him to look.

Henna also suffered a tear in the vinyl of her left eye socket.  This was left over from my first makeover attempt:

This tear causes no structural problems, will not worsen over time, and is not visible with the eyelashes in place.  However, it's there and I wanted to point it out.

With the eyes in place, I moved on to re-applying Henna's blush.  I also darkened her existing eyebrows to match her new wig:

I gave her some new freckles, too:

Here's a close-up look at one of the eyebrows:

The new brows are much more distinct than the old ones were.

I applied Henna's eyelashes and her lovely new wig, and then I started to dress her.  That's when more problems arose.

Henna's unicorn skirt had some ragged threads around the waistline, but I didn't think too much about it.  

However, as I pulled the skirt on, I noticed that parts of the waistline were literally coming apart in my hands:

I could have sent this skirt back to Julie and she would have fixed it for me, I'm sure, but I didn't want to loose a whole week on this project.

I have an old sewing machine in my garage (my mom's machine from the 70s) so I figured I'd just get it out and zip a new row of stitching around the waistband.  Easy peasy.

However, while I easily found the sewing machine and its table, I couldn't find the power cord or pedal.  After an entire day of combing through the garage with no luck, I gave up and decided to repair the skirt by hand.  I am *not* a fan of hand-stitching.  I never would have survived the 18th century.

Anyway, I reinforced the areas that were falling apart with thread, then I glued a piece of purple ribbon (left over from the seasonal fairies) over the messy seam.  Once the glue was dry, I hand-stitched a new seam all-around the waistband.  Here's the skirt as it is now:

While I had my needle and thread out, I also decided to re-sew the lopsided hem of Henna's shirt:

Again, I used Fabri-Tac to tack down the hem and then I stitched over the glue with thread (trying really hard to be even):

So, finally, here is Henna in her full unicorn outfit!

Henna's wig is the Rowan wig from ZaZou Custom dolls.  It's a gorgeous dark red color with an abundance of volume and curl:

  

I have the wig clipped back away from Henna's face for these first few pictures because that's the hairstyle I like the most.

I took the headband off for a few shots...

...mostly so that I could get some portraits for the comparison GIF!  

Here's Henna compared to how she looked a few weeks ago:

That's not a very striking transformation, I'll admit, but I like her better now.  

For a more interesting contrast, here's a GIF with how she looked when I first got her:

Now let's a take a look at Henna's outfit!

She's wearing an off-white top with a unicorn face decal.  This decal is in very good shape:

I love the print on this skirt.  It has rearing unicorns (with glittery hooves!), clouds, and rainbows:

I especially like the detail in the unicorns:

I paired Henna's outfit with some lavender purple tights from Doll Secrets and light purple boots:

I think Henna has one of the most beautiful unicorn headbands in this whole group:

The horn is metallic gold, and it's accented with pink and peach-colored ribbon flowers:

Head to toe she's a colorful, happy-looking girl:

I took Henna's hair down for a while so that I could show off the wig a bit better.  This wig is just like the wig that I used for Elsie, just a shade or two darker:

I find the curls on these wigs slightly hard to manage.  I think I've mentioned this before.  If I brush the hair, it's smooth for a second, but then the curls start to looks messy.

I've found that the best method for keeping the hair tame while also preserving the shape of the curls is to separate the hair into its naturally-forming ringlets, brush the ends of the hair with a wire brush, and then finger comb the rest of the ringlet.

The wig is wonderfully thick and shiny, though, and I adore the color!

Here are some pictures of Henna with her hair down, wearing the unicorn headband:

I also tried clipping her hair back lower down on her head, but this style doesn't look quite as cute as the higher-placed clips:

And, of course, Henna doesn't even need hair clips since her headband fits well and holds her heavy hair back very nicely!

Here she is back in my favorite high-clip hairstyle for a few more pictures:

I've found that this style stays in place best when the clips are secured behind the headband, like this:

Henna's hair looks amazing in the bright sunshine, so I took her outside for a few portraits on one of our hottest days this week:

The sun on that day was a little too bright, though, so I tried again a day later when we had some clouds in the mix:

Henna really enjoyed being outside!  She wanted to explore every different corner of our backyard.

Henna was drawn to this small patch of purple flowers that's growing in one part of the yard:

After careful inspection, she found the most beautiful stalk of flowers to show you:

I've had a hard time finding Helen-faced dolls on the secondary market, so Henna is my last doll (in this size) with this face mold.  I'll be sad to see her go, but I have to make some tough choices about the My Twinn dolls who will remain in my collection.  Since the company made just under 50 faces, I certainly can't keep one of each!

Henna has had three makeovers in her time, which is a lot!  I think she was clearly destined to be a freckled redhead, though.  I hope you like her most recent incarnation.

Here's a summary of the work that was done on Henna, including some of the things I did when I first got her:

-all old freckles were removed with Remove-Zit and limbs were cleaned with Formula 9-1-1

-all of the vinyl parts were washed with soap and water

-the original eyes were replaced twice.  Currently Henna is wearing dark brown acrylic eyes that were taken from another 1997 My Twinn doll (Safiya)

-her face was repainted, including blush, eyebrows and freckles, but excluding lips.  The lip paint is original

-she was given new auburn eyelashes

-she is wearing a luxurious, high-quality, dark red wig from ZaZou Custom Dolls

-she is wearing an outfit from Fairy Tale Blessings that includes a top, skirt, and unicorn headband.  I've added purple Doll Secret tights and lace-up boots to this ensemble

Henna's most noteworthy flaws are that she has a scratch on the edge of her right eye, her ankle joints are elastic-strung (and so are looser than the more recent My Twinn ankle joints), you can still see very faint remnants of her bright orange freckles if you look really closely on her arms...and I think that's it.  Her body is in very good condition with just a few minor picks and scuffs here and there.

Henna has sold.  Thank you!