Toy review: Corolle's Calin dolls vs Corolle's Tidoo

Our Lucy just turned 3 yesterday, she's the 3rd of my 4 girls, and guess what, her big birthday request was - a baby doll!  I've written before about our journey in finding the the most cuddly, cutest and sweetest smelling dolls for my two, and about choosing between American Girl's Bitty Baby and Corolle's Bebe Do, and now apparently the journey continues!
At 3, Lucy's not quite big enough for a 14 inch baby doll, the 12 inch dolls seemed to suit her better when we went to 'try on dolls' at our favorite doll and toy store, The Doll Hospital and Toy Soldier Shop.  We looked everything over carefully and decided to choose between Corolle's Tidoo dolls and Corrole's Calin dolls, both styles are 12" dolls.

Here are the Tidoos...

Tidoo Graceful

Tidoo Lutin Bright

Tidoo Raspberry

Tidoo Turquoise

Tidoo Strawberry

Corolle's Tidoo is adorable, and comes in lot's of different outfits to choose from  - but - Tidoo is a doll that can go in the tub(!) and is meant to dry quickly, so: all the Tidoos are 'crunchy' feeling because their bodies are stuffed with what feels like styrofoam to me, (which we think is a total bummer!) so the Tidoo gets a thumbs down.  :(

So which to choose, Carming Pastel Calin (in pink) or Sky Calin (in blue)?

Wait, not so fast!  There's MORE than that! There were more than one pink Calins, one comes in a striped cotton jersey outfit and another comes in a pink velour.  And there's also an adorable (if pouty) Asian Calin, and almost all of the Calins had teeth!!! Teeth? Yup, two front teeth that are painted and part of the lip sculpt, which seemed to me to interfere with the charm and play opportunities of the doll - I mean, could the doll take a pacifier or bottle  into it's mouth with those teeth?  Not really.  And not all of the dolls' teeth were painted very well...Hmmm.

The Calins....

Laughing Flowers Calin

                                                         Calin Yang

                                                             Sky Calin

                                                  Charming Pastel Calin

                                                             Sorbet Calin

Ok, so here's what we decided: we choose the Sky Calin which is the 'boy' dressed in blue, because he was the only Calin that comes with a pacifier and a mouth sculpt of a slightly open mouth, sans teeth, and meant to take a pacifier.   So, super cute face sculpt, but dressed all in blue.  A boy doll, for sure.

"Do you want a baby boy baby doll, Lucy?"  

"No. "

"But you LIKE baby boys, Lucy, and he could be the baby brother!"

Um, OK, I want TWOOOOOOO babies!  A boy AND a girl Mama! TWOOOOO!"

Um, OK, No.

maybe Santa will bring a twin at Christmas, but 2 dolls right now? No.  Daddy would have a fit.

So, figuring the girl was the birthday girl's 1st choice and a boy would be second, we added on a 12" Corolle doll outfit in pink(!)  and also a feeding set,  and then I dressed the Sky Calin in pink, saving the blue outfit for some other day, and wrapped it all up prettily and we were done. (I mean done with the doll acquisition   There were a few other toys to get still - and I wanted to finish the Snow White playset I was making  (that'll make it's way into a blog soon...) But yikes, buying quality is not cheap.  At least the store has sales often and we saved 15%, so it wasn't tooooo bad.

Anyhow, the birthday girl was very Happy.  And see what good size the doll is for this newly 3 yr old girl?  I think it's a good fit.

 And named her new baby 'Lizzie' right away.  Welcome home, Lizzie!

Corolle's feeding set, love the 'magic' milk! Also comes with a spoon and pretend orange juice, not pictured.

:)