April Bennett - Custom Just Like You #7

I really love watching restoration videos. I'm always floored to see how Baumgartner Restoration can take the most impossible case paintings and bring them back to life, and Odd Tinkering has a gift for transforming filthy, discarded gaming systems into de-yellowed, functional devices. But my absolute favorites to watch are American Girl doll restoration videos. I love seeing dolls get a second lease on life.

I have a very bad habit of looking at older American Girl dolls on eBay "for fun" and wondering to myself, "Could I fix that one?" When it comes to true restoration, I'd consider myself a confident beginner at best. I can clean dirty faces and limbs, I know some good methods for cleaning and disinfecting doll laundry, and I'm pretty good at wig swapping and face paint, but I've never had enough confidence to touch the really tough stuff, like eye-swapping or completely restringing a doll. With all that in mind, I usually keep scrolling past the very loved dolls I see, hoping that they'll find their way to someone who can really fix them up well. There've only been a few instances where I've really considered buying any of those dolls, and twice where I've actually pulled the trigger.

The first was Elizabeth #2, who I sent in to the Care Center and received Elizabeth #3 a.k.a. Lizzie, my sewing helper and really, my absolute favorite doll in my collection.

The second was a doll with such a sweet expression, I kept going back and looking at her. She was listed as a Pleasant Company Molly, but I could see that her eyes were actually the light blue ones American Girl used to offer, making her a Just Like You #7. She had a Pleasant Company marked head, which always piques my interest, because I remember poring over the catalogs in the later half of the '90's, during the end of the Pleasant Company era. But most importantly, she had a wig with full bangs, which is something I've been wanting to add to my collection. Like I've mentioned before, I have Samantha and Kirsten, but I keep them display-only. I wanted a doll with straight-across bangs that I could change up with different clothes and hairstyles. At the time, I was even toying with the idea of getting a new Molly, but not keeping her as the character. But in the end, I still really liked the look of the older dolls better.

The only problem with the doll in the listing was her price. Other Just Like You #7s in similar condition were selling for roughly half of the asking amount. I could've easily gone with one of them, but there was something about this one's face that I absolutely loved. I saw that the seller was open to best offers, so I decided to try offering half. Luckily, they accepted! Judging by the sheer volume of items they were selling, I think this was a person who was trying to move as much inventory as quickly as possible, even if it meant settling for less money.

When #7 arrived, I was very glad I didn't offer more for her. She was a little rougher in person than she seemed in photos. Even the one below doesn't show the full extent of her grime, shine marks, and pink marker spots. Most disappointing of all, her hair was in worse condition than it had seemed in photos. It was dry, tangled, and as I'd later discover, missing chunks of hair.

We've got some work to do...

Time for a Makeover

I began by checking the doll all over for any particularly egregious marks or stains that might not have been pictured. Then it was time to address the two areas of greatest importance for me -- her hair and her face. I'd already decided I would be swapping her body with a doll I was planning to donate, so I removed her head and set the body aside. I did later take the time to really scrub down all of her old body's limbs and do a surface level wipe down of her torso. It had some pink marker on the back, but nothing particularly terrible -- definitely in good condition to be used by a new kid owner or a not-as-picky adult collector.

When I clean a doll's body, I tend to opt for dish soap and water. I find that magic erasers -- being essentially micromesh + soap pads -- tend to sand the limbs down a little and make them smoother than I like. I prefer the original texture of the AG doll limbs. I use Dawn dish soap and it seems to take care of most typical doll grime easily. If there's a stubborn mark left afterward, I do try to go in a with a magic eraser and see if I can scrub it off. In #7's case, she had a pink mark toward the back of her head that neither the dish soap nor the magic eraser could remove. It's really not noticeable, so I decided to just leave it.

Before I put the old body on the donation head, I checked for a shoulder tag. According to the way the holes were punched, this Just Like You #7 had been assembled back in October of 2006! I later used the wayback machine to see how she might've looked back then...

You can definitely tell this was almost 20 years ago!

I can't say I'm a fan of that particular meet outfit, but I do kind of love the old website menu bar. But let's get back to the restoration...

I did a cursory clean of her face with the Dawn dish soap, and then I focused my attention on her hair. She had quite the hair restoration adventure, which you can read about here, and in the end, even though her original wig ended up looking nice at a glance, up close it still had a lot of issues. I decided to give her a new wig, and I'm really glad I did, because the new one is so soft and fun to brush! It feels a million times better than her old one.

A Tale of Tresses

Saving Face

Once her face was clean (and before I swapped her wig), it was time to address her shine marks and scratches. I went over and over and over and over each spot with different grades of micromesh and magic eraser. In the end, I think I was able to diminish the look of most of the marks, but there are definitely angles where you can still see shine marks on her cheeks. There's a particularly shiny spot on her left cheek and a longer line that reflects at just the right angle.

After all the scrubbing, I went in with very watered down acrylic paint and tried my best to redo her cheeks. That was actually a lot more difficult than I expected! It was hard to get the areas of color to match on both sides of her face, and I had to go back and lighten some of the paint with magic eraser to get it just right. I'm pretty happy with the final result, though, and the paint helped hide some of the leftover shine marks and scratches.

For her lips, I took some less watered down acrylic paint and carefully traced over her original paint, making sure the coat was even and there were no bubbles in the paint. The final color looks just like her original lip paint but slightly more pronounced.

A Span of 19 Years

It's crazy to think that this doll is made up of parts that span 19 years! Her head is from 2006, her body is from 2016, and her wig is from 2025! And yet, that's one of the things I love about American Girl dolls -- you can swap their parts as necessary and transform them into practically brand new dolls! As much as I will always love Magic Attic Club dolls, you can't repair them as easily. They're much harder to restore -- especially when it comes to restringing them. But if one day your little cousin comes over and gives your American Girl doll unwanted tattoos and a haircut, there are ways you can fix her. And if all else fails, there's the Care Center. More toys should be made as easily repairable.

Did someone say "'90's"?

...Make That a Span of 29 Years!

The last things Just Like You #7 needed were a meet outfit and a name. For the outfit, I knew exactly what I wanted her to wear -- one of my favorite meet outfits of all time, the "First Day" outfit that came with the American Girl of Today dolls back in 1996. It's so loud, but so very '90's, and I remember wanting one of the girl-sized "shirtjacs" so badly! One of these days, I want to try sewing my own (I should've done it before Joann's went out of business so I could have an easier time matching the colors of fleece. Oh well... 😕).

For her name, I wanted something that was fairly common in the '90's. I don't want her to be a historical doll, but at the same time, it's fun having her sometimes straddle the line between the late '90's and present day. I narrowed my choices down to April, Danielle, and Natalie, and got some great input from my husband, my mom, and my fellow AGIGers. In the end, I went with April because it had been one of the first names I'd liked the sound of, it sort of reminded me of April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I had bought her back in April, so it seemed really fitting. Her last name, Bennett, came about because when I had tried a red wig on her, she reminded me a lot of Emily Bennett and I thought about making them related. ...And I also really like the name because it reminds me of Pride and Prejudice. 😅

I can definitely say April has been my most difficult restoration yet. Her hair alone took several days. At the very beginning, I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew, especially when it seemed like I wasn't getting anywhere with some of her shine marks. But I'm really glad I kept going. Because I've put so much effort into her, she really means a lot to me, and I'm excited to try new looks with her.

Work with me here, iPhone!

Speaking of difficult, my iPhone really doesn't like trying to capture this bright yellow jacket against the rest of my "outdoors" backdrop! I can't tell you how many times I've tried to take photos of April in this outfit and have it read correctly on screen! So if the photo above looks a little off, that's why. 😅

Anyway, welcome, April!

#AprilBennett