Around Christmas time I bought myself a “Dream Fairy Doll” on Aliexpress – At the time it was on sale, $59.99 for fullset. I bought it mostly for the outfit as I didn’t care that much for the face. But I figured the outfit alone was worth $59.99 and free shipping.
She comes with a faceup, shoes, socks, underwear, dress, accessories, 2 pairs of hands, rooted hair head (not a wig sadly), eyes, and even a painted manicure on one set of her hands. And she’s huge at 62 cm.
She was packaged very nicely and the doll and her dress are high quality.
From my understanding, and what other people have told me, Dream Fairy Dolls are not Recast, they are a cheap ABS doll similar to Hujoo but cheaper. I don’t really care if it is recast because I’m pro recast or recast friendly, but I know a lot of people are pro artist / anti-recast. So they should know that (from what I understand) Dream Fairy is not a recast which makes it a good solution for a cheap doll body for anyone regardless of where you stand on the recast debate.
It is no longer on sale, and now ranges $89-$100 for a full set, or you can get just the body for around $35. I would recommend waiting for a sale. Aliexpress has sales pretty frequently. I’m betting some dolls will go on sale in a few weeks for Valentine’s Day or in a few months again for Easter. $100 is still pretty cheap for a fullset non-recast doll. But they have sales like super often. By time you read this it may be on sale again.
The following URLs can help you find Dream Fairy Dolls – or you can do a search for Dream Fairy 1/3 in dolls on Aliexpress.
Here is a link to the doll I purchased on Aliexpress:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DBS-1-3-BJD-Blyth-doll-Name-by-Elena-mechanical-joint-Body-With-makeup-Including/32960394775.html
There are numerous different styles of Dream Fairy Fullsets – here are a few more:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Dream-Fairy-1-3-bjd-doll-62cm-pig-girl-doll-with-outfit-shoes-headwear-cute-doll/32964273604.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-3-BJD-Blyth-Doll-Mechanical-Seal-Body-With-Makeup-Including-Hair-Eyes-Clothes-62cm-Height/32964741370.html
What I noticed though is perhaps the best / most exciting part about these dolls. While browsing facebook, I came across someone selling a dollfie dream body and I noticed that the neck piece looked similar to my Dream Fairy neck piece.
This got me thinking… Could a Volks Dollfie Dream head fit on my Dream Fairy Doll Body? I decided to try a little experiment… And discovered that yes, it fits without needing any kind of attachment.
Note: Some dolls that are listed as “Dream Fairy” are not Dream Fairy – you have to be careful to read the descriptions fully – for example, icy dolls and Dairy Queen / Diary Queen dolls are often listed as Dream Fairy and they have different neck pieces. When in doubt look for the one in my blog post in the pink dress with yellow hair. It for sure has the right neck piece as of time of this blog posting. Of course manufacturers sometimes make changes to their designs if parts/prices change in the future to maximize their profits or improve their dolls.
For my experiment, I bought the DDH10 head from www.VolksUSA.com – Blank heads are available for around $40. So for under $95 you can basically have a Dollfie Dream. The Dream Fairy doll body probably isn’t as flexible, good at posing, or as stable/sturdy as a Dollfie Dream, but for $59, when the Dollfie Dream is about $400 for a body – the Dream Fairy Doll presents a good option for those who can’t afford a Dollfie Dream.
It is not a good color match, the head I bought was a DDH10 Semiwhite. I wonder if just white would have been better.
Also I am a super bad faceup artist – sorry for my amateur work.
And I couldn’t find my MSC Mr. Superclear – I used a can of krylon topcoat that my grandma had… Don’t ever use it on dolls – in my opinion it dries sticky – Even a week later, and I did stand back and only use short quick sprays – and due to the stickyness – it picks up hairs and dirt. And I think it has a slightly yellow hue. If you look at the back of my head with the neck/body the color match isn’t as bad.
The color match is worse with the flash of your camera… (FYI Flash was on in the picture above showing back of head – and it’s STILL not THAT bad – so I think a lot of the yellowness is from the krylon I used for the sealant.) Here are some more photos with and without flash. You’ll see the yellow hue I mention below.
Anyways, having seen that my experiment in creating a hybrid was a success aside from my awful faceup skills, I bought a custom DDH2 head from Buyee.jp and waiting on it to arrive. They are a proxy bidding service for Y! Auctions Japan, Yahoo Japanese auctions.
Even with the proxy fees and international shipping, it was cheaper than I could find any second hand or custom dollfie heads for in the states. I paid about the equivalent of $108 for the head + insurance/package inspection (could have saved about 6 dollars without the insurance, but it was worth the peace of mind, because if there is a problem, the proxy can communicate with the seller in Japanese to resolve any issues).
The proxy just received my package today, with no issues, and I paid about $20 for shipping and handling – cheaper options existed but this one was reasonably priced and said it will arrive in 2-4 days.
So I paid about $130 for the head + shipping + insurance + tracking — which isn’t bad. If you look on Etsy and Facebook and elsewhere rarely do you see a custom head going for that cheap. Most of the custom heads that I see on Etsy are $200+. Especially if they’ve been heavily modded like mine to have mouth parts or sanding/reshaped.
I will use Buyee again in the future. Also for those wondering, someone told me that the auction was from a popular Japanese instagram faceup artist named doll a holic. Some of you may want to check out their instagram here. https://www.instagram.com/doll__a__holic/
So that’s how I am now the owner of 2 dollfie dream hybrids – I will eventually buy another dream fairy body for the other head – but until then they can easily share the one body. the head just squeezes/slides/wiggles over the neck attachment that looks kinda like a grooved pe— err p–iece of male anatomy 🙂 lol.
PS: someone on Instagram asked me if the hands are changeable – I believe the answer is yes. It came with an extra pair of hands which seem to be using a “peg” system. See photo of the extra hands below:
Will it work with Volks hands parts? I dunno – I am tempted to find out.. I believe it will work with this item which on one end has a long peg and the other end has a ball joint and “square” type attachment, and then you order extra hands that I assume slip over / snap onto the square like piece?
I may buy a few and try out this theory – I will update this once I know for sure if it will work, but looks like a strong possibility just from the photos. – They could probably be sanded or cut and/or lengthened/plumped with clay etc if the pegs are too thick or thin or too long or short.
There are a lot of cute hand attachments. The internal piece and all of the attachments can be purchased from Volks at the following page: https://volksusastore.com/webstores/dollfie/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=826
I hope you find this post helpful! If you decide to make your own hybrid after reading my post, it’d be great if you could come back and share a photo of your doll in my comments here 🙂 I’d love to see them!
I’ll be sharing some more pictures of my custom DDH2 once it arrives on Instagram. Follow me @xenokitten
