Look at her, strutting her stuff, in her fluffy pink bear suit and dress. I mean, her expression is full of attitude! To pull off such a bear costume, you better be confident wearing. Everyone, meet Miss February, Cherie Babette.
I remember when a few months ago, Olive sent me a link to the above illustration. “What do you think?” She asked. I wasn’t such a huge fan at first. Why did the girl have a french tag? (Kind of like the golden button Steiff bears). She did look kind of cute, and I am a bit of a sucker for brunette girls, and even more so girls with bangs. And then I read the description; “FBL. Translucent”
Yeah, so I hit the order button faster than I should have.
The FBL mold was created in 2009 and has had a small number of releases – some fantastic ones like Bloomy and Wendy Weekender. It has never been one of the more popular molds, that award going to RBL’s (which resembled the original Blythes more) possibly due to their slightly smaller eyes and slightly asymmetrical face. However, Cherie Babette was not only a rarer FBL, she was also translucent, the special glowy skin type of girls like My Melody, Curly Blue Babe and Miss Sally Rice.
I ordered my Cherie from CC-Toys, and she arrived from Hong Kong to Australia on the last week of February.
Her box is a bright pink with little “French” details like croissants, the Eiffel tower, blue and red and pink ribbons.
When you slide her out of her box, you are greeted with a fluffy pink girl resplendent in head to toe kigurumi. You cannot see her hands, or feet. The lining of her box is heart-polka-dotted, her stand is a bubblegum pink. Her bear outfit is covered in the centre with a black heart-spotted dress, with tiny little pink ribbons. Her pull ring is translucent, and the only other thing in the box is a fluffy hat to top off the outfit.
She’s quite the pretty girl when you pull her out. She has a very fashionable wine-brown bob and thick bangs. My girl had okay hair out of the box, and her bangs were quite straight. I could not see any imperfections in her skin.
She has front facing brown chips, right facing blues, left facing emerald greens and front facing pink.
Her lips are very full, and she features some yellow eyeshadow, and a very bright pink blush.
When you don her hat upon her head, she has this spaced out look of why, why did you dress me like this. I am sure she will look quite lovely in different attire though.
Can you see how the corner of her ear she has a pink-french-like ribbon and her own golden button?
The fur feels extremely synthetic, and her hat is held under her chin with a little bit of velcro. I actually think she looks kind of cute and extremely cuddly.
When she’s kind of just standing there strutting her stuff, I think she’s totally rocking this outfit.
Olive also asked me to do a quick comparison of my other translucent girls to Cherie – so lets have a look.
From left: The Dauphine, Miss Sally Rice, Cherie Babette, Nostalgic Pop, Curly Blue Babe.
What we can see here is that she has full lips and brown-yellow eyeshadow like Miss Sally Rice and NosPop, and has high blushed cheeks like Curly Blue Babe. You can also see how her face shape is different to the other four, who are all RBL molds.
When I saw these two, I thought they looked a bit like sisters. Except NosPop is more pastel pink, where as Cherie is Hot Pink.
There are a lot of photos online of Miss Sally Rice and Cherie swapping their scalps and seeing how similar they are – they are, but the subtle differences in the blush do make a difference. Can you see how Cherie’s nose looks a little more fat and buttony (cute!)?
Another shot coz I do like seeing them all in a row.
Cherie Babette was released in February of 2016, for ￥18,500. I honestly think she’s quite the fun one, and might be an ideal candidate for customisation, or of course, to just be fabulous as she already is.
Project Doll House 