If you're reading this, you've likely just fallen, head over heels like the rest of us, in love with Blythe. Her grapefruit head, her dazzling eyes, her mysterious and knowing expression... She is a charming doll like no other, and has passionate fans all around the world. How can you be a part of her world, you might be wondering. Where do you begin? I hope to provide an introductory crash-course here so that you can get started.

First and foremost, you should read up on her history. Knowing the history is crucial to navigating the secondhand market.

With over 200 releases of Neo-Blythe alone, your options can seem overwhelming. With the following factors in mind, I want to state that I am not here to judge anyone who chooses to get a fake Blythe doll, but I do think the authentic dolls are very much worth saving up for, and it's also worth thinking about how the fake dolls are made not with the purpose of lowering the financial barrier of entry to the hobby, but simply to profit off of someone else's hard work. I don't endorse fake dolls but I acknowledge that fake dolls are here to stay, and there may be reasons why a fake doll is more suited to your needs. Here are some things to consider.

1. What do you want to do with your doll?
Are you a mint-condition-er, hoping to display your new friend in her box and original outfit? Do you want to dress her up and take her with you? Do you want to customize her hair and face plate? Do you want a mini-me, or do you want to explore and invent characters?

2. How confident are you in your crafting skills?
If you have any desire to modify your Blythe doll, there are a plethora of tutorials online on how to take apart the head, change the eye chips, give her sleepy or boggled eyes, or do a face-up. The tools are relatively inexpensive a la carte, but because you are dealing with plastic and chemicals it's important to gather all the right tools and PPE, so this can be a large up-front investment when purchased all at once. Authentic dolls aren't cheap, so it can be nerve-wracking to do something drastic like sand the face plate down or even give her hair a trim.

3. The official Blythe doll shade range isn't great.
I love Blythe, and I think she's so cute in every release. But there's no denying the fact that of the 200+ Neo-Blythe dolls, fewer than 20 of them have skin that is either tan or brown, with the first brown-skinned Blythe being finally released for the Twentieth Anniversary. From what I gather, it is likely the Blythe team probably wanted to release a doll like Miss Twenty a long time ago, but convincing a Japanese manufacturing company to produce a doll that looks nothing like their customer base or usual dolls (and thus requires more development to get the colors and materials right) takes a lot of perseverance. I really hope that they will continue to release more and more darker-skinned dolls! I've seen plenty of Japanese collectors say they wish there were more, and have seen collectors across the globe try customizing their dolls to have darker skin. Everyone deserves to be able to find a doll that looks like them. One way to show them that there is demand is to buy them when they come out, but that might not be within your budget. Because there are so few in circulation compared to the light-skinned dolls, they do go for quite a bit more on the secondhand market.

Anyway, let's weigh some pros and cons.

OFFICIAL BLYTHE DOLL
The official dolls vary a little bit depending on the release year, manufacturer and face mold; for instance, the earliest Takara releases came on Licca-chan bodies. The earlier dolls also tended to have very light make-up and thinner lips. The dolls that Good Smile Company has released so far tend to have very full lips, in line with current beauty trends.

Although she isn't articulated, something I like about the official dolls is that the legs bend without seams, which creates a very elegant look. However, the texture of the vinyl legs on the Blythe body can be a tad bit sticky, making it difficult to put socks and tights on her. They are not sticky to the touch, but I find that fibers and dust cling to them easily, although it's never been a huge issue or anything. I just pull her socks up patiently with gentle little tugs. I personally find it fun to try posing her within the limits of her default body. It's okay for her to look like a doll and move like a doll. For more about the different bodies, I recommend this article.

The eyes of real dolls tend to be closer to the face plate, which creates less gappage when looking at Blythe from a 3/4 view and thus a more elegant profile. Official dolls typically range from 100 to 400 USD, depending on condition and rarity, with the rarest of them fetching prices over a thousand dollars. However, I have definitely seen some good deals both on new-in-box dolls and on dolls long separated from their boxes and clothes... These dolls will come naked and maybe a little disheveled, but if you are willing to give them some love, you can bring them home for around 60 to 80 USD.

The most important thing when buying an official Blythe doll, in my opinion, is liking the skin tone and make-up, and if she comes with them, the clothes. The hair and eye chips can be swapped out with some quick tinkering, but well-made doll clothes can get kind of expensive, so it's nice to be able to get a full outfit. The base price of dolls can vary quite widely because some dolls come with more accessories than others. When you buy a new Blythe you also get a very cute stand; I adore the clover shape of the base. Please note that only dolls made with Radiance-type face molds and newer have scalp mechanisms that are easily swapped; you can use wigs on an older doll if you don't want to go to lengths to pry her head open.

Because most releases are limited to around 3,000 units, I think official dolls are good for people who want to do simple customizations, like eye chip and hair swaps. Not that I encourage thinking of all your purchases with a reselling mindset, but if you decide you'd like to part ways with a doll, you'll get a better price for dolls that are more or less in their original state. Some official dolls are popular with customizers and for that reason are fewer in number in their original state. Perhaps it's silly to feel conservatively about them, since people should of course have fun and make their dolls their own, but I do think the new-in-box experience is quite special and wouldn't mind passing on a doll I wasn't crazy about as-is so that someone else can enjoy that moment. If you'd like to customize an authentic doll but aren't confident in your skills, it's possible to buy spare faceplates, though they will be counterfeit and thus poorer quality.


by malupink

FAKE BLYTHE DOLL
The fake dolls, referred to in face-mold format as TBL (Taobao Blythe), are typically listed as factory dolls (though this is incorrect terminology), and usually come with articulated Azone PureNeemo-style bodies. These dolls are manufactured by a company called DBS. They are also sometimes referred to as ICY dolls, though ICY dolls tend to have their own unique faceplate. They typically go for anywhere from 20 to 50 USD. They come with a variety of different faces and hairstyles; some of them come with eyebrows and pouty lips. It is likely that they created faceplates based on the work of popular customizers. It's good to look at a variety of listings to see what kinds of faceplates the fake listings come with; this can help you not get scammed down the road.

The fake dolls, as stated before, have eye mechanisms seated further into the head than a genuine Blythe, which means from a 3/4 view, more of the gap will be showing. The eyelashes are typically poor quality and splayed upwards, but can be swapped out relatively easily. They may come with matte or glossy faces. The PureNeemo-style bodies are a bit curvier than the official body, so you may have some trouble squeezing your doll into clothing made for official Blythe proportions. Shoes and socks in particular are the most troublesome. The best way to find some that will fit is to inspect the model doll to see if it's a Blythe or PureNeemo-style body.

The PureNeemo-style bodies don't stand as well as the official Blythe body because the knees can bend, but they can be posed in so many more ways. Some listings for fake dolls come with extra hand gestures that you can swap out. The PureNeemo-style bodies are extremely easy to work with and pose, though you can't fight gravity. Sometimes her noggin is just too damn large. She looks particularly cute curled up in a ball for a nap. Because these are fake replicas of the real Azone body, they are also poorer in quality than the real thing. It is also worth notng that some people buy genuine dolls and put the head on a Azone PureNeemo body (often a real one) so they can have posable bodies, so articulated bodies don't always mean fake dolls, but nine times out of ten I would say a PureNeemo-style body is a fake doll because Obitsu 22 bodies are more popular with collectors of genuine dolls.

Because the fake dolls cost less, there is less at stake when getting started customizing your dolls. There is a huge customizing community, with people giving Blythe eyebrows, toothy smiles, and even duck bills. Many of these artists offer in-depth tutorials.

As I mentioned before, official Blythe dolls don't have a great shade range right now, and the fake market offers many dark-skinned dolls with many different hairstyles. However, if you are looking to have a lighter-skinned doll and have no intention of customizing, I'd highly recommend spending the extra money to buy a genuine doll. The quality difference is night and day.

There are a few more types of fake dolls, such as the Basaak doll, the Blyss doll, the Jecci 5 doll, and Blybe; these do not try to imitate official releases but try to mimick the essence of Blythe by having colorful boxes with a similar design language to the official dolls.

Please be advised that if you choose to purchase a fake doll, your doll may not be welcome in certain spaces both online and offline. For instance, it would be highly disrespectful to bring a fake doll to an official Blythe shop such as Junie Moon.

FACTORY DOLLS
This was originally a term used to refer to authentic dolls that weren't part of any official release, but were given as gifts and prizes to the community during events like the Blythe Beauty Contest. However, as Blythe rose in popularity and online shopping sites like eBay became more widely used, listings for dolls that looked to be real but didn't match up to any official release in terms of features started popping up. These dolls were a combination of various parts smuggled out of the factory, most of them having failed quality assurance checks, thus resulting in combinations of one doll's hair and another's face and such. These were referred to as factory dolls, because they came from the same factory. Most veteran collectors will agree that true factory dolls don't really exist anymore.

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One option I haven't mentioned yet, for those wanting customized dolls, is to buy a doll from someone who does custom face-ups, with the above comparisons in mind. There are a lot of great custom doll artists out there who can make the kind of doll you want but might lack the confidence to try making. However, it's important to vet artists before buying from them, as the recent resurgence in Blythe's popularity has led to a lot of scammers who will resell unaltered TBLs as if they are customs. There are also quite a few customized authentic dolls on the secondhand market; if the customizer is an amateur or relatively unknown, the price will likely be lower than that of a new doll. However, the work of well-known customizers can go for very high prices, especially on an authentic base.

The more information a doll artist offers about a doll, the better. Sellers who lie about authenticity, sellers whose work doesn't have a unifying style, sellers who list too many dolls at once for someone to have reasonably customized, and sellers who charge prices inconsistent with other custom artists at their skill level should be avoided. Any customizer who is claiming to sell a customized authentic doll should be able to tell you the release name. You should also be wary of customizers using unsuitable supplies, such as solvents and emollients that will degrade the plastic over time (make-up, nail polish), and sealants that will not hold up over time. The tried and trusted sealant for Blythe customization is Mister Super Clear UV Cut Flat. The non-UV Cut formula was altered to include alcohol for quicker drying, but this causes the sealant to crack over time and is not salvageable, meaning the whole face-up will have to be redone. Don't get scammed! And please, please, please don't buy from the website This is Blythe. A cursory search will point you to a rich history of scams and harassment. Another seller to avoid is Edelweiss Day. Their websiteis incredibly sketchy and people have received dolls that look nothing like the custom they thought they were buying. There are many helpful people in the Blythe community who would be glad to help you determine the credibility of a seller.

I hope this breakdown was helpful to you! I wish you luck on your dolly journey. If you're moving onto the next step of buying a doll, I have a guide for that as well, which can be found here.