I have received SO MANY questions about Addy's hair on r/americangirl. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but about once a week I get a question about how difficult Addy's hair is to handle. It's always Addy, never Cécile, or Nanea, or Rebecca, Addy. Addy is the only doll whose hair gets regularly asked about. And I'm quite fed up with it, because often times I get the feeling that people are asking about Addy's hair with the mindset of, "is Addy's hair difficult to take care of? because she's black, and black hair is hard to take care of".
I could just say this and move on, but instead I want to take some comments from r/americangirl and really have some evidence here to back up my claim. I'm leaving out usernames because this isn't a call out, and none of this is blatant prejudice. It is, however, interesting to look at. So, 4 months ago a user posted on the subreddit a picture of an Addy doll they got, and in the title they said "I may have to send her in for a head replacement, I don’t think I can fix this hair.". Ok, that's fine, hair gets beyond the point of repair sometime. The photos attached looked ok to me, a little tangled but not super thin or anything. Of course, I'm not there to see and touch the hair, but it looked brushable at least. The user did mention in some other comments that the wig was kind of thin and in what they thought was pretty bad shape. I commented and said "I recommend viewing our Hair sticky post before sending her in to the doll hospital, textured hair is restored just like straight hair. I think with a light conditioning and a little patience her hair could easily be restored.", the user then responded to me "I did read that. Seems really complicated with her, tbh". After that we moved onto talking about other restoration aspects, but I thought over that comment for a long time. "really complicated with her"... well hair restoration is complicated with any doll. Would this user be saying that if it was a white doll with matted hair? There are some rough TLC dolls out there, would this user say the same thing if it had been a doll with untextured hair? (side note, someone at the end of that thread commented "hentai", which I removed because I knew what their point was (if you don't then don't google it), but this was a post that was an... interesting? experience to moderate.) Obviously, I can't really prove the intent here, the user did not blatantly state that they thought Addy's hair was hard to take care of because it was textured and on a black doll, but you do have to wonder why those words were chosen, "really complicated with her", referring specifically to Addy.
Another user on that post also commented suggesting a wire wig doll brush and some plastic hair tools from Amazon. They had photos of the results and pulled out about a handful of doll hair... yikes. They admit that they didn't comb "incredibly carefully", but you don't need ANYTHING besides a wire wig brush and water to take care of Addy's hair! You don't need special tools from Amazon, you don't need a special pick from AG, you literally use the exact same things you use for every other doll!
I'd also like to talk about another post about Addy, this one from today, which that inspired me to write this blogpost. Someone said they had heard that Addy's hair was hard to take care of, and asked if that was true. Thankfully there were several users commenting with a general consensus that no, Addy's hair is not hard to take care of. One user, however, mentioned that "Her hair is intimidating at first just because there's so much of it!". My response to that though is, that's with every doll with long hair! Josefina has a TON of hair, and honestly I keep my Josefina's hair in a braid most of the time because when I do leave it out, the slightest moving or dressing can mess it up. My #61, Laika, has hair that is quite difficult to manage because it gets messed up so easily, and she has a LOT of hair. So does Marie-Grace, who has so much hair that I'm surprised more people didn't like her, as her wig has so many styling possibilities. Addy isn't the only doll with a lot of hair. (and yet people complain when they get dolls with thin wigs or short hairs in the back that cover up part lines...)
Now, some people complain that the hair on an old Addy doll is very thin or that it's matted. This can be true, Addy's hair does thin out and get roughed up with time just like every other doll, but often times people are only skeptical of Addy's hair because it doesn't look like a white doll's hair.
What damages my argument a little bit here is that I don't actually own Addy. I do, however, own Melody. Melody has the same textured hair as Addy, and I've worked with it. That hair works just like other doll hair, you mist it lightly with water and use a wire wig brush. You don't even need the hair pick, that's just a plastic piece of junk AG invented to sell more money.
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| Beautiful Melody (left) and Brooklyn (#58) during Christmas last year! |
So, you may be wondering, "if Addy's hair is easy to take care of, whose hair is actually most difficult to take care of?" It's not Cécile, it's not even Rebecca, it's dolls with super long hair and super curly hair. Josefina, Nanea, Caroline. Rebecca's hair is a little better because it's short, but she could fit in there too. Those dolls have hair that's going to get messed up a lot easier than Addy's hair. Even dolls with super curly hair like Cécile, those curls actually mean that they stay in place a lot better than dolls with super slippery, silky hair. I consider Cécile and #58 to be the easiest doll hair to care for, because I don't have to do anything to it often! #58's hair I only fully touch up about once every 6 months, sometimes even more time between touch-ups. Cécile's hair can be put into ponytails, buns and all sorts of styles, and not get tangled because there's only about 50 ringlets, versus 5,000 or however many long, thin hairs.
I'm going to link to a post by Nethilia, founder of the Ag Wikia, who did a much better job explaining this and some other misconceptions people have about Addy. If I were more knowledgeable I would love to talk about how this can also be representative of the stereotypes and misconceptions that white people in the world have towards black hair, however I am a white person who doesn't have any experience beyond the realm of dolls. If I can ever have an interview for the subreddit with Nethilia, I'll be sure to ask her about this so that we can discuss it further and show how the toy world feeds into the real world views people hold.
