Valletta Moreau - Disney's Belle
- wingedmermaid
- Mar 15
- 7 min read
Updated: May 2
You're probably thinking, "Didn't you just say you weren't a fan of Belle? Why did you get a Belle doll?" Well... There are a couple of reasons...
Over the past few months, I've been taking a look at my collection and trying to figure out what my plans are for some of my dolls. I have two areas where I display them -- a small area downstairs and a larger area upstairs. Downstairs is where I take most of my photos. I took two shelves of a Billy bookcase and turned it into an outdoorsy diorama, complete with fake grass and my AG Market. On one side, I can display two dolls at a time, and on the other side, I display some of my favorite accessory items -- food, mini books and trinkets, and lately, Disney sidekicks. I usually try to change up this display with the seasons and for different holidays.
Upstairs, I have a long display case shelf where I put dolls that are basically display-only -- Elizabeth, Samantha, and Kirsten, and dolls that are display-only for the foreseeable future like Cécile and Kanani, who need to be restrung badly. I might also add in some other dolls who probably won't change out of their signature outfits, like Ariel, Rapunzel, and maybe a few others.
There are some dolls in my collection that I really, really don't see myself parting with ever -- dolls that have a lot of sentimental value, like Lizzie; ones that were gifts and harder to come by, like Barbie; and ones that I spent a long time customizing, like Yuna. But there've also been a few dolls that I've changed my mind about. My mom has a couple of dolls that used to be in my collection -- Caroline, McKenna, and a re-customized Grace Thomas that now has Tenney's wig. I've sold and given away a few dolls, too. But I kind of like refreshing my collection over and over. It helps me keep just the dolls I really feel a strong attachment to and helps me have room to add new dolls when they're released.
I've been thinking of letting go of my Truly Me 86, Sophie, for a while. She's very pretty, but I really struggle with dolls that have brightly colored hair. Keira (Truly Me 89) is a little tricky, too, but her dark brown hair neutralizes her bright streaks to a point. Sophie's purple hair is more difficult to match up with a lot of the doll clothes I own.
I originally got her because she reminds me of some of my relatives on my mom's side of the family -- my Maltese side. At first, I was thinking of replacing her with a different doll and making that one my 100% Maltese-American girl, but I haven't really found anyone I like for the part, and I don't really want to make a CYO or try to super customize a doll. Both are high cost, high risk, and take a lot of time.
And here's where Belle comes in...
My mom, being the HUGE Belle fan that she is, ordered her Belle doll soon after the play line version was released. At the same time, a lot of people on AGIG were also getting their Belle dolls. Every. Single. One. was so incredibly gorgeous. I started toying with the idea of getting one, myself, but not making her Belle. Instead, I'd make her a Maltese- and French-American girl. Malta has a lot of historical connections with France -- not all of them very good (thanks, Napoleon), but even today, you'll find things like borrowed French words in the Maltese language. "Bonġu" (pronounced "Bon-ju"), for example, is a way to say "Good Morning" or "Hello" in Maltese, like "Bonjour" in French.
I had planned on waiting until I sold Truly Me 86 to potentially buy Belle, but between seeing my mom's doll in person and some pretty good discounts, I was persuaded to pull the trigger early.
I have to admit, when my doll arrived, I was a little disappointed. My mom ended up with a doll that has such a perfect expression. She's absolutely symmetrical, her hair is perfect, and she just looks happy and excited. She's super photogenic.
In a lot of the first photos I took of mine, she looked kind of sad or unsure from most angles. If I aimed my phone just right, I could make her look somewhat similar to my mom's doll, but not quite. It took a lot of comparing face-on photos of both dolls via transparency tool to figure out why. My mom's doll's head is a normal height compared to other Josefina mold dolls. My doll's head is slightly shorter. It's interesting, because in person, she's almost in between a Josefina mold and maybe a Classic mold. Even her eye sockets are ever so slightly shorter. But the biggest difference was in the arch of her eyebrows. From most angles, they were a little lower to my doll's eyes and also less curved. A similar thing happened with my mini me's new head. Her eyebrows were also less curved and slightly upturned toward the center of her face, giving her a more timid look.
I thought about exchanging my Belle, but for one, it really wasn't exchange-worthy. "My doll's face is shorter" isn't the same as something like "My doll's wig is defective" or "her eyes don't function properly." And for another, there was no guarantee that the next doll I got would be better. There are a LOT of Josefina mold heads with uneven eye sockets, and at least mine were symmetrical. I'd had a good outcome when I'd fixed my mini me's eyebrows, so I thought I would try to fix my Belle's, too, and see if that helped.
Like with my mini me, I extended the individual hair lines lower to help create more of a curve. I also angled the front. I tried to use non-acetone nail polish remover to remove the top parts of the brows and help bring the curve down toward the center of her face, but for some reason, it didn't work at all! I'm not sure if the remover is old or if they're using some kind of new paint that doesn't come off as easily. Instead, I mixed a few colors of acrylic paint I had on hand, and carefully painted over the tips of the brow lines where I would've otherwise used the remover. It worked pretty well! It's hard to see the paint even close up in person!
I do wish I hadn't brought her brows quite so close to the center. I hadn't planned to. I'd wanted to add two tiny hairs at the ends the same way Belle's original brows end at the center, but the lines didn't turn out very well and I had to extend them a little more than I would've liked. They're not terrible, though. Maybe someday I'll try a fresh bottle of remover or something a little stronger and see if I can adjust them. Or maybe I'll just leave them as is. They do definitely give her a unique look.
In addition to changing my doll's eyebrows, I also changed her hairstyle completely. That was a bit of an adventure, too! It was easy enough to undo the rubber bands in her hair, but parts of her hairstyle were also sewn into her wig. There are still some brown threads I was unable to remove completely.
It seemed like parts of her hair had some kind of leave-in conditioner? Maybe just something to help with the styling of her hair. By contrast, the ends of her hair are really dry. The top of her wig is a little odd when combed out, too. It almost comes to a point. This seems to be how all of the wigs are, but at first, I wondered if mine wasn't put on correctly.
Overall, I think I'm happy with her? I'm still a little torn, honestly. I really hoped to get a Belle like my mom's and just keep her hairstyle different. On the other hand, between my doll's slightly shorter head and the way I've altered her eyebrows and hair, she doesn't even feel like she started out as a Belle doll sometimes. She has a very elegant look now and I feel like she'd look really good in historical wear, too.
I'm still coming up with her backstory. So far, I think she'll be really into learning about different flowers and sketching and painting them. One of her favorite things will be to visit botanical gardens and capture different plants in her sketchbooks. I see her getting lost in her daydreams and maybe being a hopeless romantic, too.
As for her name, I think I've settled on Valletta Moreau, Letta for short. She's named after the capital of Malta, which I thought would work because names like "London" or "Paris" have gained in popularity over the years, and I've always thought it sounded pretty. And "Moreau" as a last name for her French heritage.
I'm sure at some point I'll be completely satisfied with her. Even with my mini me's new head, I think I kept making minor tweaks over the course of a few weeks, so don't be surprised if Valletta continues to look a little different over time, too.
Edit: I decided to try doing her brows again the next day, and I'm really glad I did! At first, I tried to remove the paint I'd added and the factory paint by using nail polish remover (non-acetone), and it wasn't doing a very good job at all -- in fact, in some areas, it was smearing the paint. I didn't want to use acetone, so I consulted the internets to see if there were any other good options. Lots of people suggested magic eraser, so I decided to try that. It worked really well! The only issue I had was not realizing I hadn't gotten enough water out of the piece I had wet and a small drop of water fell into one of my doll's eyes (hopefully I got enough of it out x_x).
Once the area was clear and dry, I carefully attempted to paint on the brow hairs again -- this time aiming for something a little more like the newer Josefina dolls' brow shapes, and I think it worked! I'm much happier with this new look!
