LOL Surprise! dolls may be top of your kid’s Christmas wish list this year, but some parents have been put off buying them after one mum revealed what you really get for your money.
Natalie Harrison and her partner Chris Root, who live in Sheffield, bought the £84.99 LOL Bigger Surprise! dolls for their two daughters, Amber, six, and Brooke, three.
After unwrapping the toy (to take a look before Christmas) Harrison took a photograph of the contents and uploaded it to Facebook, writing: “Anyone thinking of buying the LOL Bigger Surprise! for £84.99 this is what you get...”
Although the 30-year-old didn’t criticise the product, which was released after a sellout of the £59.99 limited edition LOL ball in 2017, other parents were not happy with the contents of the gift.
LOL Surprise! dolls have been on the UK market since April 2017. Targeting the same area of the market as Bratz dolls, tiny dolls with big eyes for children aged between five and 12 years old, they cost about £10 individually.
Then there are the additional accessories and big sets, which leapt to fame with the help of YouTube ‘unboxing’ videos, which just see kids unwrapping presents like the LOL Surprise! dolls. By Christmas 2017, like Hatchimals the year before, LOL Surprise! dolls were on the sellout lists and mums and dads struggled to get their hands on them.
This year, four days after Harrisons original post, there are more than 10,000 comments from angry parents claiming they won’t be making a purchase.
One mum wrote: “It’s daylight robbery isn’t it?”, and another agreed: “It’s a big con!”
Another mum said: “I’m disgusted that they could even consider charging that sort of money.”
Others said they would still be buying the toy, but one added that it will “break her heart” to part with the money.
“I’m disgusted that they could even consider charging that sort of money."”
One mum even said she had taken hers back to the shop as she was “disgusted” with what she had got, and bought a collection of other products instead.
Some were more accepting of the cost for the product, explaining that they had already bought this for their children’s birthdays earlier in the year and they’ve had hours of play from them. “A lot of the price is in the packaging and opening,” one dad wrote. “My little girl loves these and plays with them to death! She absolutely loved opening the £60 one, took forever to open it all too.”
HuffPost UK has contacted MGA Entertainment, the toy manufacturer for the LOL Surprise! dolls, for comment and will update this article when the company responds.
Will you be buying a LOL Surprise! doll set for your kids this year? Let us know in the comments below.