Maryellen and JLY#38 - Comparison

I got my MaryEllen last week and did some comparisons.

 With the introduction of MaryEllen, JLY #38 disappeared.
It isn’t hard to see why.

Here is a closeup:

The difference in the eyes is obvious here. MaryEllen’s face paint is a little darker than #38 (and it seems like all of the newer dolls have more face paint.)

#38 can hop into a time machine and be one of MaryEllen’s sisters, younger (Beverly) or older (Carolyn or Joan):

 

The family resemblance is obvious. #38 is wearing an Our Generation Retro dress from Target. The quality between the two dresses is obvious. The American Girl dress has serged seams while the OG dress has raw edges. The OG dress has a sewn in crinoline that is yellow and pretty thin—it doesn’t add much fullness. The cardigan on the OG outfit is much better quality than the dress. It is knit and has a mesh lining. The shoes are nice and the glasses add some dress-up possibilities. Look for it on sale—I paid around six dollars for it last year.

#38 looks AMAZING in Mary Ellen’s outfit (and could be mistaken for ME at a glance)

 

Can I just say how beautiful MaryEllen’s Meet Dress is? It is cotton and poofs out even without the extra crinoline. I wish the purse had a clip but everything else is top notch. #38 could be MaryEllen’s doppelganger from the front. The differences, however, are obvious from the side:

 

#38 has a lot of short hairs to cover her wig cap that are hard to corral. She looks much better in pigtails than in a ponytail.

MaryEllen can be all modern too:

Whew, I was afraid MaryEllen could only wear her own clothes! ;-) The hair is quite different. 

 

MaryEllen has wavy hair and much more of it than #38. My #38 had her hair in braids (she was being Anna from Frozen) for a long time which caused some crimping. #38 has very straight hair and no layers. Both have shiny, silky hair—no texture.

Here is another picture showing the length and fullness difference.

 

With the waves, the length differences aren’t that obvious. But #38 still has a lot less hair. Final thoughts are though the two look superficially the same, there are enough differences that AG probably didn’t have to retire #38, but they were getting rid of all the dolls with bangs so the writing was on the wall.

Everyone looks good in MaryEllen’s dress. Ramona is rocking the 50s look.

And now it is time for Halloween. 
Happy Halloween!

I also thought a fun discussion question would be:

If you had to pare your collection down to five dolls (any brand) what five would you keep?

-MollyMonster