Pepper Joins her Sisters

I decided to order Pepper on the last day of the second Mattel Barbie Fan Club reward. I received her earlier this week. She really is quite incredible. I love everything about her. Luckily with my reward and a discount coupon she was a little more reasonable. I'll post a link when I add full length pictures of her in the gallery. It's really hard to tell if this doll will be around or if she will sell out. I just decided to order her now instead of being disapointed later!

The Spices Collection

I received Sugar a few days ago. What can I say? I'm in awe of this doll. She has to be seen to be appreciated. She is now sold out at BC.com and I could kick myself for not getting another one. I am going to leave this girl in her box and I can't wait for the day when Coco and Pepper join her! Her details are incredible, those eyelashes are just so outrageous! She has the guts to have her cake and eat it too! Those are some of the feelings that come to me at the sight of this doll! I know that she is not for everyone and I could go on and on here, but I'm sure you get the message.


I was thinking . . . Sugar, Coco and Pepper. That doesn't sound like the Chapeaux Collection, it sounds like the Spices Collection. Too bad Pepper is the last one. I could have gone for Paprika and Salt. Could you imagine . . .?

Why Do I Always Do This, or Why is Coco so Expensive?

I was assessing my MM doll collection a few days ago. Model Muse dolls are now the predominant part of my Barbie collection. It's amazing how this body sculpt really breathes new life into an older doll. I've spent the past year or so re-bodying most of my collector dolls. This means de-boxing them, photographing their original version and then body switching them. I still have several dolls I would like to de-box but it will probably take me another year to do so because in the meantime I buy new nude dolls and new nude MM bodies for these new projects. I guess this is a never ending task. But, I really do love it. There is something somewhat therapeutic about going through your collection and revamping it.

Another issue is that I would like to have all the Mattel produced MM dolls in my collection at some point in time. I think I have pretty much all of them but when The Chapeaux™ Collection came out, I really wasn't interested. I saw Sugar close up at the 2006 Barbie Convention but she didn't do anything for me. Last year I found her nude on Ebay re-bodied with Marisa Beach Baby's body. I went for it and bid and won the doll. The picture of her is below. Her hair was trimmed by the seller and I thought she looked just great. When Pepper was announced I thought it would be nice to buy her and the others in The Chapeaux™ Collection. I looked in the Barbie Collector shop and realized that Coco was sold out. I'm amazed that her price is going for over $300 on Ebay now. I wonder why? Was it because she was produced in such limited numbers? She really is out there in style and hat pin! Maybe it's because there are some die-hard Byron Lars collectors? I could have bought her for her original price of 99.96 but that seemed so high at the time. I see that Sugar is still available in the shop so what is it about Coco that made her sell out and jump up in price? I'm going to enjoy my Sugar for now, but I have the feeling that someday Coco, Sugar and Pepper will all have a play date at my house.