And then I found Kimber. Being an Aussie I loved the background story, and most of all I loved the price. From memory it was AU$699, and whilst it didn't have the bells & whistles (silicone, removable inserts) it was a bargain. The online ordering process was easy, the delivery only a couple of weeks (Australian stock). We all like opening new presents, and Kimber doesn't disappoint. Pretty, all the right curves and well-made. In fact she looks better in real-life than she does online. Out-of-the box she is awesome - and even after 6 months I think represents the very best value-for-money TPE doll on the market. Sure she's not as soft and jiggly as the real thing, but if that's what you really want (silicone) this is the wrong price range. The cleaning & maintenance is exactly as I expected (take care = no problems), she's a lot of fun to play with and I have absolutely no regrets, if anything she really does ask the hard question of why other TPE dolls are so much more expensive.
So where does she lose points? Well I have a few minor annoyances.
1. Surface creasing on the buttocks. This is the only "minor" blemish of the TPE surface, oil/vaseline, etc. have made no difference since new. I assume this is caused by her weight creating pressure points in her storage box. I've used some additional rugs to try and reduce this, some memory foam would work a treat.
2. The head mount is the male-&-female thread system, and I've read that this is compatible with other manufacturer heads (such as WM) as well. Bonus. However it is almost impossible to accurately orient her head in a fixed position. Even when the head moulding is rubbing quite hard on the neck moulding there still isn't enough friction in the thread, so her head always seems to move & rotate to a slightly odd position! Normally just visually annoying but it does make some positions awkward because you always have to stretch and hold her head with your hand. Just not quite as relaxing as it could be.
3. Stand-up feet. Like most other dolls this is simply metal screws extending through the feet. Which is hopeless on hard surfaces, where it slips, slide and the screws even mark floor tiles. This makes it *really* difficult to clean her standing in the shower, in fact the first time I attempted this she slipped and created a tear in her heel. Great. Kimber support are excellent and sent me out a bottle of the solvent glue. Works OK but agricultural & chemically I'm sure nasty stuff - worth doing your research on this (no instructions). I've modified her to have rubber feet now and whilst it's a bit "rough" it's hardly worse than the screws and works an absolute treat.
4. I ordered another long black wig, it's not as good as the blonde one. The hair tangles easier and is more fragile, in retrospect I wish I had just bough the short black hair one. Yes the wigs sometimes fall off, but I find that if you take care when putting it on it's more than reasonable fit.
5. Clothing - firstly the lingerie supplied with her isn't the same as shown online. Kimber says this is beyond their control, it gets packed at the factory. But it's rubbish anyway, flimsy & scratchy so I just turfed it. She looks great dressed, lots of fun chasing down outfits. My only challenge has been getting bras/knickers/bathing suits to fit, I actually bought several sizes of Bonds (on sale at Target) and although a 10DD bra fit neither the size 6 (too small) nor 8 (too big) knickers did. A challenge I guess!
6. Paintwork. The facial design is excellent, really lovely eyes (I suspect used on other dolls?) and nice attention to detail. Unfortunately the paintwork (lips, teeth) is not very durable and wore off *really* quickly, even with water-based lube, gentle cleansers & baby oil. I actually suspect the main culprit was actually pre-use preparation using Vaseline, recommended by many forums & users for stressed areas. Perhaps without using Vaseline the paint will be more durable, however even the eyebrow paint is showing wear and Vaseline wasn't used there.
7. Eyelash glue - the eyelashes are also really nicely done and each one is made up of smaller segments glued to the top of the eye. As these are only held in place with a very small surface ridge it's easy to accidentally bump & loosen these, and I did so whilst cleaning. I've tried repairing a couple of times with "gentle" surface-2-surface bonding glues (tested on her heel first to make sure it doesn't eat into the TPE!) but haven't found a good one yet - so probably better to not need to repair in the first place.
But all of these are minor - together they only lose a single mark.
However I have had one major hiccup. She only comes out of her box maybe once a month and is treated with kid (cotton) gloves. If out of the box her condition is 10/10, she's still at least 9/10. But recently I has a problem with the RH hip joint. The joint has lost all friction through about 60 degrees of movement, +/-30 from horizontal. all other joints are as new, and when rotated past this range the joint regains friction.
I've contacted Kimber and they cannot think of anything that could cause the joint to fail apart from abuse - obviously they (and you) only have my word that this didn't happen. It's actually quite annoying, as it makes carrying the doll even more difficult (27kg dead weight bad enough!) especially trying to position her for standing. Because you cant pre-orient the leg into the correct position you have to do this by putting one leg down *just enough* so it locates on the floor and then use your legs to maneuver her other leg into a balanced posture. Tricky.
Kimber reported that each joint is designed to withstand 15kg of force(?) which although doesn't really make any engineering logic if the doll weighs 27kg then that doesn't seem to be leaving a lot of wriggle room. By my maths if she's standing then each knee joint would be loaded with 13.5kg..... If the joint were to completely fail OR the other hip/knee joints do the same then this would significantly limit the positions available - and since there isn't any rationale for the failure nor any repair option I have docked her another full point.
But she still comes in at 8/10, she's still (IMHO) the #1 value TPE doll and at her price point it's extremely hard to be disappointed. After 6 months I would only consider a different replacement if it had a stronger internal skeleton or was silicone, and I'll wager these are going to cost far, far more.
