BJD Epiphany

Every doll will yellow. It's inevitable. Unless you cycle your collection with new dolls every few years, your dolls will turn yellow. And it's okay.

Do my dolls entering their teenage years look as good as good as their brand new counterparts? Probably not but that doesn't make them any less special to me. The new dolls will look like them in 10 years anyway.

 

Recently, I was watching a BJD YouTuber who had an extraordinary collection of dolls, and I was shocked that my first reaction wasn't envy, but... dislike? Distaste? What's the word I'm looking for?

Anyway, I didn't like it. I didn't like the look of all of those dolls. Instinctively, I knew a collection that large would be too many for me. NOTE - it wasn't the dolls themselves that I didn't like. The dolls were *gorgeous.* Breathtaking. It was the fact that there were so many of them. It was like - how could I enjoy each doll if my collection was also that large?

Overwhelmed. I felt that the collection was overwhelming.

So now, I keep telling myself - no more. No more BJD purchases. Once the dolls I've already paid for all arrive, I'll have all the BJDs I want for a collection. I'll have a range of SD, MSD, and YoSD. I'm good. I'm set. I don't need any more. (Plus, I have a fairly massive playline collection to sell off now, but that's another story.)

And then Supiadoll runs a sale, or Granado advertises a new mature tiny, and HRRRNNNGGGHHH!

No! No more dolls!

I had no idea that this hobby would force me - REALLY force me - to learn to budget my time and finances, and make me exercise serious amounts of self-discipline in a way I don't think I ever have before. That I would start to seriously refocus on my side hustle in order to make more money to fund this hobby. Or that it would incorporate (and challenge) all of the odd arts and crafts skills I've dabbled with over the years. So yeah. Had no idea that getting into this hobby would be so ... life-altering.

 

I started collecting BJDs during summer 2005, and at the time was still very much into vinyl fashion dolls, so I thought it would just be an additional doll type to collect.

Then one morning at the start of March 2006, it suddenly came to me that I was done with the vinyl dolls, and wanted to devote my attention to BJDs. It was an oddly liberating feeling!

Over the next 6 years, I culled my vinyl collection down to a sentimental "core" group. Gradually I've added back in some vinyl dolls (Momoko, Barbie, Integrity), but it's with more deliberation than in my vinyl-collecting heyday. Barbies became more articulated, but you could say it was too little, too late -- I've always liked articulation, and the BJDs satisfied that so much more.

 

I realized there is such a thing as too many dolls! I went wild for awhile buying every cheap doll I could get my hands on and had such a rag tag collection that I couldn’t afford to dress properly or get nice wigs or shoes for and didn’t really enjoy any of them. I cut my collection way back to 15 dolls and I’m so much happier with them. I thought I’d love a whole town of characters, but I learned that having a few main characters shelled was better for me.

 

When I was still new to the hobby, a lolita group I participated in went gaga over a Volks Momoko doll up for auction. I got sucked into the hype, yearned to get her, ached how I couldn't afford her... Then I realized I didn't want the doll, just to look at her. I kept a copy of the photo on my computer for years. Never again felt the urge to buy a Momoko, which is fine by me.