Linda sent AG an email about her issue with Josefina's hair/wig.
I recently purchased Josephina, mainly for her long hair. I was very disappointed yesterday when I took out her braid to let her hair hang down. It is so badly cut that it can't be worn down or in two braids! Then, this morning, as I was taking pictures of my dolls, I noticed the bald spot on her top left hand side of her hair. This looks terrible!!!!! Her wig cap and head should be a darker color to match her hair. Is this how all Josephina dolls are or did I just get an imperfect one? I am so very, very disappointed! I buy American Girl Brand for the high quality of the hair in particular! This is a shame!
AG did respond to her email. However, I have circled SEVERAL grammatical errors. This is disturbing coming from a company email regarding customer service issues and defective products.
I have had similar issues with BF Josefina and Kirsten's hospital visit.
Thank you for sharing your story. I too have Josefina, but she is before Beforever and her wig is that of Pleasant Company. I am angry this happened to you. When you described it, it reminded me of Josefina dolls, but to see the pictures tells me that AG should honor their promise to making quality products. This was clearly a defect in the production of the wig. I saw this with Julie and the thinning of her wig the day after I purchased the doll. I would continue to call customer service on this issue. One person can make all the difference in customer service.
ReplyDeleteLooks, like they want her to just return the Doll. Julie wrecked my nerves. I had to kind of makes her a shelf Doll.
DeleteThe bald spot is most definitely a defect. I've always had good experiences calling AG's customer service.
ReplyDeleteI know when my eldest's Maryellen doll had her hair damaged from a hairstyle received at the AGPNY hair salon, we had to mail return her with a letter and pictures and they immediately sent us a replacement.
Not sure why the email you received had so many grammatical errors. Though I'm guessing the customer service department is very busy right now due to the permanent underwear issue.
I don't have Josefina, but my Nicki has some really bad bald spots. I definitely think the wig cap should be darker at least - all of my dolls (they are pre-BeForever) have wig caps of at least a vaguely similar colour to their hair.
ReplyDeleteAs for the uneven cut, I always thought that was normal for dolls whose hair comes in braids (they cut the hair once it is braided so that it looks even in its intended style). My Kirsten and Molly are from the early '90s and both have a similar cut, although maybe not quite so drastic, so your Josefina may have had a slightly slack styling job.
Grrr
ReplyDeleteHow disappointing! One of my four daughters has a pre-BeForever Josefina and hasn't had issues with her hair. It is uneven when out of the braid, but not terribly so. There aren't any bald spots. She also has Molly, who has lost a fair amount of hair. Her remaining hair is kept in braids and left alone. One of my other daughters has Kanani and is very disappointed with her hair. It's been falling out ever since she removed her from her box and poor Kanani is mostly bald now. It falls out if you just touch it. My daughter used her Christmas and birthday money to buy Kanani direct from AG and was so anxious to receive her. She still plays with her, but leaves what's left of her hair in a ponytail and tries not to touch it. She wants to send Kanani to AG's doll hospital to get a new head, but is apprehensive about it. I've suggested buying a new wig for her and replacing her wig ourselves. My daughter isn't sure what she wants to do with Kanani. She only has the one AG doll and doesn't want anything bad to happen to her. My oldest daughter has Felicity and Elizabeth. They've both lost some hair, but not too much. I noticed that the hair quality of AG's dolls declined since my oldest daughter got Felicity and my third daughter got Kanani. My fourth daughter wants Samantha and I'm hesitant to get her a new doll from AG if the quality has continued to decline.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry this happened to you! If it were me, I would return her unless she has great sentimental value. Madelon
ReplyDeleteI bought Josefina over the Christmas sale. I originally saw this and thought...oh no. Back in 2013, Caroline was my daughters first doll and our first experience with AG doll hair. I brushed Caroline's hair. I wet the hair every time, and brushed a section at a time. After each section, there was hair in the brush, and to this day there still is. I didn't think that was normal so I called AG CS, who assured me that this was normal. As we expanded our doll collection, we didn't have hair in the brush like Caroline's hair. Caroline's hair is not good; I am hoping with the tips on LADL and Ticia's styling tutorial that we can get it to be shiny and curly. I thought then and I still think the wig was bad on the doll we have. At this point, I can't switch the dolls out, because that is her Caroline. She has Ashlyn, WW, who developed a creak sound in her leg that we exchanged and she was so sad before the exchange, and she couldn't be at the counter when I exchanged her.
ReplyDeleteI have seen when people cut and paste or copy from certain devices or software to another, that characters, like the ?, will be inserted, so it is likely that they cut and pasted the letter and didn't proof read. Then that covers the double words ( the the, is because is).
I'm not a hair stylist, but surely there is some way of styling the hair such that the middle hair isn't all clumped into one of the three strands of hair to make the braid.
I went and looked at my Josefina, and while she is also a Pleasant Company version, she is at least 7 years old (maybe more, I have lost track at this point!) She was a rescue who came with matted hair that I had to heat straighten so she definitely wasn't played with gently before coming into my care.
ReplyDeleteHer hair is also uneven. She has longer "wings" on the sides. This, of course, comes because the final trim is done when the hair is in a braid which results in an uneven unbraided look.
Her wig cap is a gray/black at the top and not skin colored or quite as dark as her hair. Her hair is very thick but depending on where I put the part, some spots look bald. Near the top of her head, the hair is almost rooted looking. Only towards the back and sides does it turn into a black mesh wig cap with tracks of hair. The wig cap at the top is definitely a different material. In your picture with the bald spot, it looks like your part goes a bit sideways rather than down the middle which leaves less hair on the one side for coverage.
In short, I don't think manufacture of Josefina has changed significantly in recent years and it doesn't look like yours is far off the norm. Perhaps if you straightened out the braid bump in the middle, the center hair would get a little longer and not look so uneven (though really, even on mine, it is significantly uneven). It is also impossible to re-braid the hair and have it as even at the end as when it was new so I wish they wouldn't do that final trim as a matter of course.
i bought a beforever Josefina a couple of years ago her hair was a little uneven on the ends but nothing like this. If this is the norm now for her hair than they need to fix this customers pay a lot for these dolls.people should be able to take her hair down with out it looking like this.
ReplyDeleteI had a pre BF Josefina which had glue pieces stuck in the scalp toward the front which I only noticed when I took the hair out of the braid. It looked like dandruff. One piece of hair was stuck together so I couldn't really comb through her hair in that spot. Since this was around the time of the switch to BF, my new Josefina exchange was a BF one, and it had the same glue issues. And the unevenness was the same as yours. Customer Service pretty much said that since Historical dolls aren't really meant to have their hair styled the way the modern ones are, this was to be expected.
ReplyDeleteI just came across this forum as I was brushing out my Marisol's hair, and I noticed the same thing that you described here. That there's a little bit at the top of her hair that looks like it's almost dandruff and I went through it turned out that it's glue, and there are some bits that are stuck together . It's not super noticeable unless you actually pay attention super close up. It's obviously too late to do anything about it for me, because the doll came out / was available in 2005 and it's been 12 years since then.
DeleteOh come on now, that letter is just embarrassing! I would send that to them immediately and ask them how on earth they could let something that be sent out.
ReplyDelete