REBORN DOLLS

Over the holidays I decided to make my daughter a doll, something special for her to keep, something sentimental that she could hold on to as she grows up.

I got a couple of cheap dolls from Wilkinson’s, cheap plastic dolls and a glue gun and had a go melting them together and gluing them in shaping them into one small doll.

I glued on hair and drew on eyes and a mouth but it looked awful like that horror film chucky. It was actually scary! After my first field attempt a googled how to make a doll, that’s when I was introduced to the reborn world, the dolls and the artists who make them.

Reborn doll is a vinyl doll, so realistically made that it closely resembles a human baby. The first we want dolls were mass manufactured in America in the early 90s, they were very popular among doll collectors, artists children and adults and were first sold at designer doll fairs over the Internet.

Because of the unique nature the reborn dolls, not everybody understands or accepts them as they so realistic, they are not like normal children’s dolls that you buy from a toy shop.

Because of the sometimes unwelcome reactions of onlookers and people who just don’t understand reborn dolls, the reborn community is quite a closed one. It’s not something you can just get into you need to get to know the people who own the reborn dolls of people who make them, need to get a couple of reborn dolls yourself before they really let you in.

In my research I have purchased a couple of reborn dolls. One very low quality China copy doll, one Ashton Drake mass manufactured doll, one lower end artist painted vinyl doll. And another higher end artist painted vinyl doll.

The higher end one I purchased from a friend of mine who walked me through the process every step of the way which was very helpful, we have become friends she has helped me immensely with the process of creating these dolls, and continues to help me as I learn and grow with my skills.

Another friend I have made through the reborn people, offered me a table in Middlesbrough in November I’m going to sell my dolls. I have decided to make a minimum of eight dolls. To start off my own business, and then as I sell the dolls and use the money from the sales to fund me getting more dolls, I have a business plan which I will include in this project.

I’ve also created a website to sell my dolls, after the show. I haven’t started my selling my dolls yet as I want to have a good collection and I want to have them in a decent quality before I start selling them. After the show I will open my website and I will have a better understanding on pricing and how my dolls will sell.

The market generally began with doll collectors who admired the craftsmanship and realism in which the dolls were made, but people began running the dolls for all sorts of reasons. People would connect to the dolls who wanted an emotional response, and use the Dolls therapeutic purposes or as an emotional outlet.

Holding a newborn baby releases a hormone called Oxytocin (the cuddle hormone) this is needed in nature to help mothers care for their young, it’s the nice feeling you get when you hug someone or hold someone close. These dolls are so realistic, they look and feel just like a newborn baby in your arms. A lot of people think that these reborn dolls are responsible for releasing this hormone and that is one of the reasons collectors and buyers love them so much.

Researchers working with the British psychological Society conference recently presented some information regarding the therapeutic benefits of reborn dolls on ice Alzheimer’s patients. They found that rewards were effective at reducing the agitation caused by the onset of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. When a person suffering from dementia was given a reborn doll to hold and play with they were naturally relaxed and less likely to experience an agitated outburst.

So they have really been proven to be beneficial in lifting a person’s mood.

Some mothers who have lost children seek out reborn doll to fill a void, you can have memorial dolls made to look like a lost child which is really sad. But can help a mother through the grieving process, it’s been known for doctors to suggest reborn dolls the couples who have lost a child or are unable to conceive.

A lot of people just like the dolls because they’re cute, but they come at a hefty price the dolls are priced between £300 and some dolls as much as £7000.

The Dubai dolls are manufactured vinyl kits, and painted with special heat set Genesis paints. There is a wide spectum of quality when it comes to the dolls.

You can get cheap copies made from China from around £60 that these are nothing like the actual dolls themselves, these are copies of another person’s hard work, the by vinyl doll from either England or the US then copy the mould into plastic. It should be against the law but you can’t enforce it overseas, these dolls are often falsely advertised as silicone dolls.

Silicone dolls are on the higher end of the market starting from around £3000 going up to the most expensive doll ever sold which was sold on eBay for £22,000!

The silicone dolls cost a lot more because they are first sculpted by hand from clay using the artists own design, then poured into silicone through a long and difficult process. I’ve looked into a process called a glove mould, which are going to at the end of the project if I have enough time. Some reborn artists spend their whole lives just trying to make one sculpt. Once a sculpt is made it had a certain amount of uses before it is then broken inside the mould. Once the sculpt is broken that is it you contact get any more from it. Making these dolls each one of a certain amount ever made. There are approximately nine OOAK dolls in the world, OOK dolls are dolls where the sculpt has broke with only one mould coming out of it. Making them truly unique these dolls are the most expensive and highly sought after by collectors.

In the middle between the extreme high and low pricing, you get the vinyl dolls. Vinyl kits are created using 3-D printers, there are many vinyl kits available from different artists. There are also real born kits real born kit, as a kid that has been 3-D printed from the image of an actual real-life baby. These are my favourite to paint although they are more expensive than other vinyl kits but not by much. You can also get seconds kits, a seconds kit is a batch of kids that are flawed in some way, it might have a dent in the head or a wonky eye and they get sold for a lot cheaper. I mostly use seconds kits for practising, if I want to try something new user seconds kit rather than a more expensive real born kit.

The first kit I purchased was a Soanna toddler kit, from an online supply shop called Tinkerbell creations, I got the kit because it looked a bit like my daughter and because it was a full-bodied kit. I like the idea of doing the whole body. It was quite expensive but it was worth that I really enjoyed making it, I took some progress along the long way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reborn_doll

https://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1562785/care-homes-controversial-doll-therapy-people-dementia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGl7fRz57Q8