City Shine Barbie Doll- Red/Asian- UPDATED

*Scroll to the bottom for updated pics, etc.

What was supposed to be an exciting unveiling of Dollton's newest resident will instead be a rant, and here's why...

The moment I laid eyes on promotional images of the new city shine dolls, the Asian doll in the red outfit was on my wish list. Some of you know by now that I'm a sucker for dolls with short hair cuts. Add to that the fact that she has the Lea/Kayla facial sculpt, which happens to be one of my favorites, and I was sold. Plus I love her outfit. I'm not a huge fan of shimmery dresses, but she looks like a friggin' rock star in her shiny top and black pants.

For months and months I waited for the dolls to go on sale, which they did on June 1st. Of course when I placed my order, I was informed that the doll was back ordered (how is that even possible when it just went on sale?) and wouldn't ship until July. Oh well, I'd been patient for this long, what was another month or so?! I'd saved my Barbie Collector quarterly reward specifically for this doll, so I placed the order anyway. Imagine my delight when I received an email last week that my order had shipped. She arrived today. I cut open the box, fished through a sea of packing peanuts (I could fill a bath tub with the packing peanuts from my BC.com orders, but that's a rant for another day), and tore off the tissue paper wrapping to find a doll with the worst hairy eyeball I've ever seen. See for yourself.

At first I thought maybe the rooted eye lashes had somehow been flattened, but closer inspection revealed that they were rooted pretty much in the center of her eye. Completely unacceptable. Where is the quality control? Grrrrr! And I had a body donor all set to go. I phoned customer service about the defective doll and was shocked by the complete lack of service. Apparently I've been spoiled by online retailers like Amazon and the GAP family of stores who go out of their way to make returns hassle-free. They send/provide a prepaid return shipping label and instantly ship out the replacement item BEFORE they get your return...all in an effort to satisfy the customer. Well, this lady told me that after I returned the defective doll, they would ship out a replacement (you've probably already guessed it) in July! On top of that, when I inquired about having to pay to ship it back to them, she told me to place a copy of my shipping receipt in the package and wait to be reimbursed. WTH?! So they send me a jacked up doll and now they want me to pay to return it and wait for a replacement doll plus the cost of shipping? I seriously hope this is the last time I have to deal with BC.com about a problem with an order.

Okay, enough of that...let's look at the doll. First off, this girl's accessories are killer. I'm pretty sure I already have one of those silver cuffs and those black and silver open-toe heels, but the spiky earrings and the bag with its "chain" strap are both edgy and cool. In keeping with the red and black theme, the doll has red lipstick and her fingernails are painted black and her toenails are painted red.

I thought from the promo pictures that her hair would be jet black. It is actually two-toned. It's mostly black with some dark brown highlights. Is it just me or has just about every doll that's come out lately had two-toned hair? In real life, her bob is less asymmetric than it looks in the promotional photos. It is also loaded with hair gel. I tried brushing some of it out, but that just made it look like she had dandruff. When my new doll arrives, she will be getting a shampoo.

She has brown side-glancing eyes. I finally figured out what she was looking at. I'm pretty sure she's been checking out Takeshi this whole time.

Some of you may recall that Takeshi isn't available, though. He's with Jolie. I'd advise Red to watch her back. There's something about Jolie. To me, she looks like the type that might cut a b!tch 'bout her man.

Well folks, I'll be boxing this lady up and shipping her off tomorrow. When I get my replacement doll, I will update this post with her character profile and pictures of her on a new articulated body.

UPDATE:
My replacement doll arrived last week.I took a few days to debox her, because I was waiting to be sure we had that necessary connection. Well, she's out of the box and on a new body and I've added some pictures of her. Her name is Meiling and she is a model.

Meiling is on a pivotal Sinatra body. To be honest, the Divergent Tris body was a more exact match (both are supposed to be Vintage tone, but I swear my Tris was a smidge lighter). I needed her on a size 0 pivotal body since she's a model, so I put her on the Sinatra body even though it wasn't the better match. I will be stocking up on Tris bodies as my budget allows. These pivotal bodies are pricey on the secondary market.

Looking like a BOSS!

Her earrings come in two parts. The pointy stakes can be removed.

Now that Meiling's eyes and lashes aren't wonky, she has a contract with Maybelline! LOL