JHD Fashion Dolls Mizi Midnight Orchid Millenium Yaya 5th Anniversary Doll

November 13, 2024

Who's that lady?

So as I said in my last post, "Convention Conundrum" I decided to branch out to other doll makers. The first clandestine doll affair that I shall have (for that's kind of how it feels) will be with an exciting new stranger called JHD Manufacturers and my first intro into that world will be Yaya. I think that's her name. I'm not sure I understand how they do the names yet. I'm researching, probing the internet like an alien who's taken a drunken tourist on back to the spaceship. But I think her sculpt is called Yaya, and she came out for JHD's 5th anniversary in 2023 (along with some other dolls that were released) and in this version she's also called Midnight Orchid.

"I'm mysterious and from a foreign land..."

The whole Yaya thing kind of threw me when I read it, but luckily I was well in love with the doll before I read her sculpt's name. My older sister's kids used to call my grandmother, who was their great grandmother "yaya" and she was older than dirt at the time (God bless her), so Yaya makes me think of an ancient wise woman who used to make me cookies and tuck me into the fold out couch at her house on weekends sometimes which this sculpt is certainly not.

JHD is in China, so there may be cultural stuff and shipping stuff and fees etc. associated with collecting from them. I've heard about an issue with this doll, but I guess it's not a dealbreaker from what I can gather.

I'm Irish, I'm translucent - you can see my veins - mostly the blue ones. It makes me an almost clear, ghostly blue deathly color. But ever since I was a little blue ghost girl, I have loved and collected black dolls and thought they were beautiful. I hadn't seen a fashion doll as black and beautiful as Yaya before I checked out JHD toys. Her skin tone is obsidian, which I think you'd agree is a seriously great name for a skin tone.

Before I even realized she had done anything, I was under her spell...

But despite this Yaya's sumptuous celebration of how a truly gorgeous dark skin tone should be done, this is where the cultural issue comes in. It's the makeup, especially the lipstick. I've read and seen in reviews that it doesn't look right to a black person. I realize my opinion as a white person doesn't matter at all. All I can say is, I bought the doll because I think she's pretty. I live in the U.S., and I also thought her lipstick color seemed kind of weird when I first saw her in person. But she's been with me for days and I'm pretty much used to it by now.

That's a long earring.

We must now discuss her earrings. As you can see in the above photo, they are beautiful and dangly, down scandalously well past her shoulders. There's a post inside her head just about as long as that earring as well, and it was a struggle pushing it in the whole way. Lort! The earrings on this girl! I saw the extra length in the post when I opened them, but I figured once I got them started, they would slip in easy. Um, N-HO-OH! I was about to split my thumbnail right up the middle pushing the damn thing in when I resorted to my old friend the hot needle. And not the needle with which I sew my frilly underthings either reader, the one with which I sew my corduroys to my jeans! But once I hot needled her ears properly and created nice, wide entryways for these considerable ear baubles I got them both in. It's funny to imagine the inside of her head though with both of those huge posts in there.

She may not look like your typical metalhead, but trust me...

I have studied her up close and it looks like her face is very carefully painted, I really like that. She doesn't have RBF but she isn't smiling, or I probably wouldn't have been drawn to her. She doesn't really have any expression except possibly looking a little bored. Her hands are slightly rubbery. I read about JHD dolls having rubber hands upon their debut in 2018 and customers hating it, along with other quality issues. By all accounts they have gotten themselves sorted and are making improvements all the time which kind of makes them even more interesting to me. At any rate I've had dolls with useless rubber hands, and these are not that, I don't mind them they're sturdy enough. Would be nice if Yaya had a ring or two though. And I must cheer the manicure on this doll. It is vibrant and vivid. Cheers to you, manicure artist.

This is the just enough ruffles skirt.

Her outfit is something of a mystery to me. Above is the part I understand, the ruffled skirt which is made of organza has just the right amount of ruffles and no extra, one big one along the bottom and two smaller ones along the sides. It's minimalistic, I'm into it. Enough with the superfluous ruffles on clothing! Structural ruffles only! I'm picking up what you're putting down Jason!

"My other outfit is panties. What?"

But the other outfit isn't slacks or shorts or even a wrap. The other outfit is granny panties. Which I personally am a big fan of, but I have no idea why hot young Yaya is wearing them. Additionally, to me they are not an outfit option. Then again, my silhouette is considerably different than a young pretty girl like Yaya's and presumably nobody would want to see me strutting around on the runway in my granny panties, nor would I ever dream of doing such a thing. The question remains, what the hell kind of outfit is this? Still, you can't argue that the girl looks great.

Her top consists of a little bra with big red cups, sewn over with organza which then connects the bra with the actual top, which is a ruffle in a circle around her that's kind of beautiful. If you can see her ruffled top as the petals of a flower surrounding her then she becomes the stunning stamen, (insert phallic joke here). There's probably a French or Belgian name for this very garment but I am obviously totally unaware of it.

The shoes were earth-shattering.

Her heels are legendary in my mind now that I have seen them. What the flip is this JHD? Little strappy red buckle heels that are made out of VELVET? How did you know the secret door to my heart that read "STRAPPY VELVET DOLL HEELS" that I didn't even know was there??? These shoes are so adorable I could put them on a spinning platform under a spotlight and just love them all day, or until I got bored. It's no joke to say that my heart fell hard when I saw these shoes, they are as cute as a bug's ear. And sturdy and well made, no chance of them breaking when you put them on the doll. There is one tiny thing about them and that thing is that this doll will never be able to stand flat while wearing these heart-catching things. Her toes make contact with the ground, but there's no way she's standing flat. It's ok. Her legs are sooooo long that all the weight is in her upper body, she's kind of a flipper but I was able to get her to stay still for most of the time on her stand.

The purse screams "Pour Some Sugar on Me"

I love her purse; it's tiny and leather, it's got long heavy chains attached to either side and it looks like Axl Rose is just going to POP out of it at any moment. It gets unbalanced easily, but you can just flop it back and forth until the chains balance themselves back out. I dig it. It's a cool accessory.

I should have known better than to touch your hair, Yaya.

Another thing about Yaya and JHD dolls in general from the videos I've watched (🌸 MILLENNIUM MIDNIGHT ORCHID YA YA JHD TOYS 5TH ANNIVERSARY MIZI DOLL 👑 ECW 🌎 UNBOXING & REVIEW is a great YouTube reviewer) that I've learned is that you don't ever touch their hair. Even though they come all the way from China the hair comes to you perfectly gelled in curled tresses or whatever 'do' that it happens to be 'done' in. Once I noted this by watching enough other people open their dolls on YouTube, I realized I had messed up with my lovely Yaya. As soon as I got her out of the box, I sprayed her hair with water and combed it through with my tiny doll comb out of habit. I didn't even give her a chance. I didn't go crazy, I stopped before her hair changed shape and she's still beautiful and everything, but I screwed the pooch on this one, as they used to say in Detroit in the 40's. She has pretty waves in her hair instead of the defined curls she probably came to me with. I won't make the same mistake if I buy another JHD doll... Just kidding I already bought a couple more; it's going to be a while before my dolls from IT arrive and I'm sick of diving back into my collection so... See you next week. But the point is, I'm not touching their hair when they get here.

So how do I feel now that Yaya and I have gotten down to our organza bra and panties and gotten to know each other? I think she's great! I think her sculpt is very sweet and at the same time somehow confident, she's beautiful. And the skin tone is darker than IT's darkest shade, it's gorgeous and rich and I love it. I'd definitely be a buyer of more dolls in this skin tone from any company, and if they were depicted in a more culturally aware way that would be great too. But really, for me to buy them they just need to be beautiful and made with love, and I think this Yaya is. I'm encouraged, and I think I'll dip my toe a little bit deeper into this water...

You'll be back.