When people find out I have 30 American Girl dolls, they sometimes ask, “Don’t they all look the same?” Or, when I get excited about a new doll, my sister has asked, “Don’t you already have a doll that looks like that?” The answer to both of those questions is no, and this post is going to explore that. Please prepare yourself for a page full of dolly mugshots. I also want to say that my comparison will neglect the Girl of Today/My AG/Just Like You dolls, because I don’t collect them. That line offers even more hair/face/eye combinations, none of which I feel need to be added to my collection.
Let’s start with the biggest difference: there are dolls with different faces! American Girl has used multiple face molds through the years. Let’s go through them. I will follow conventional naming, naming the molds after the first doll that had them.
First, the classic mold. Pictured here on Kirsten, Felicity, Kit, Lindsey, Kailey, Emily, Nicki, Mia, Ruthie, Lanie, Caroline, and Saige.
I left Samantha and Molly out of this picture because my Samantha and Molly were made before the Mattel takeover, and I think they look different. Here are the first three American Girls: a pre-Mattel Molly, a Mattel Kirsten, and a pre-Mattel Samantha.
Felicity was the next doll released, and she shared the classic face mold. The next doll is Addy, who was released in the mid-90’s (after I got my first catalog, but before I picked my first doll). Addy is African-American, and thankfully she gets a new face mold.
A few years later, but still before the Mattel takeover, we get Josefina. She gets her own face mold, and since then many dolls have shared it. Some argue that it’s more popular than the classic mold (Chrissa and McKenna both sold very well), but I like the classic mold better.
Here are dolls with the Josefina mold: Josefina, Elizabeth, Nellie, Rebecca, Julie, Marisol, Chrissa, McKenna
To really see the difference, here are Julie and Kailey. They both have blond hair and brown eyes, but you can see how different they look:
In 2006, we meet Jess, who is half-Japanese. While at this point there was an Asian Girl of Today, Jess got her own mold. The same mold is used for Ivy and Kanani.
Even though these three dolls have the same face, there’s no denying how different they look from each other. In fact, for years I thought Jess and Ivy had different faces because Jess’s eyes looked more round than Ivy’s. As it turns out, Ivy’s face is painted to make her eyes look pointier.
Slightly creepy close-up of Ivy’s eye:
And Jess’s eye:
And I’ll through in a round eye (Josefina’s) for good measure:
Kaya gets her own face mold. She is the only doll who doesn’t show her teeth, because showing teeth is rude in Nez Perce culture.
Sonali is of South Asian descent, so she got a new face mold when she came out:
But now Cecile has the same face:
Here are my three Black dollies:
And finally, Marie-Grace has her own face mold.
Compare it to the Josefina mold (Chrissa) and the classic mold (Ruthie)
Marie-Grace has a pointier chin than Chrissa and fuller lips than Ruthie.
So that covers all the different face molds. Let’s look at some other differences. Look at these 3 dolls with blond hair and blue eyes:
Different hairstyles and different faces make for three distinct dolls. I think even their eye color is different:
Kirsten
Kit
and Elizabeth
Next let’s compare the redheads:
A beautiful rainbow, from strawberry to auburn. Let’s get closer.
Felicity (left) and Saige (right)
Emily (left) and Felicity (right)
Nellie (left) and Mia (right)
There’s so much variation in each of these wigs, that I wonder if you’ll even find differences among each Saige doll, each Felicity, etc. Each wig has multiple hues, and that’s what I love most about these redheaded dollies.
Here are all the dolls with freckles:
Nellie is the only doll with freckles who’s not a classic mold. I noticed right away that Kit and Lindsey have identical faces:
That was most noticeable because Kit was my second American Girl, released in 2000, and Lindsey was my third, released in 2001. Nicki and Saige have the same freckle pattern as Kit and Lindsey (here’s a closeup of Saige):
But Mia’s freckles are significantly lighter:
We’ve covered blondes and redheads, how about caramel? What is caramel-colored hair? I’d never heard hair color described as caramel until American Girl, but here it is. Nicki and McKenna have caramel-colored hair. It’s not red, it’s not blond, it’s not brown.
Let’s finish off with some buddy shots of dolls that are similar, but different.
Caroline and Lanie. Both have curly blond hair and green eyes, but Caroline’s eyes and hair are both much lighter.
Samantha has darker hair than Molly, but after 20 years or so, the frizziness looks pretty much the same color:
Brunette variation is easier to see on newer dolls Lindsey and Ruthie:
Of my 30, I think Chrissa and McKenna are the most similar looking. They both have blue eyes on a Josefina face mold, with straight hair and no bangs.
I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring the similarities and differences among my American Girl dolls. I wish the photos had more consistent lighting (I took them all today, indoors, with no artificial lighting. All color correction was done automatically by the camera. I did no editing.) so that the details were more clear. As of right now, I have decided I will stop collecting when they come out with a doll that looks like one I already have. But as you can see, that probably won’t happen soon. The possibilities for American Girl appear to be endless!
Oh, and here’s what one’s living room looks like after a 30-doll photo shoot:
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