Review: Girl of the Year 2018, Luciana Vega, from American Girl

On the 15th of last month, I turned 15! And I received Luciana, Luciana's Accessories, Joss's Cheer Practice Outfit, and with birthday money I bought the WellieWishers doll Kendall! Today I'll be reviewing Luciana! Let's start off with her packaging. 

She arrives in a white box with a colorful lid. At the top, it says "✩American Girl". Below is a techno/galaxy pattern that fades from green into blue into purple, The center has Luciana's constellation logo and Luci's name logo: Luciana is written in blocky white letters, with the "i" being a satellite. Vega is written in a handwriting font, with the words fading from white into purple. Below is an image of Luciana with the "Girl of the Year" logo to the left of it.

The lid lifts up to reveal Luciana. Her book sits in a tray on top of her.

The side of the box shows the Girl of the Year logo once more, and more of the techno pattern.

The back has some information. I noticed the note about Luciana, and was quite intrigued. My sister's Joss doll's box had a similar note about Joss being available past 2020. I mean, I knew that the GotY's are available multiple years now, but I didn't expect it to be printed on the box now! 

Luciana has the Josefina face mold in medium vinyl. She also has pinwheel style brown eyes, and arched eyebrows, unique to her and Lea. Unlike Lea, I really like these on Luci! I felt that they made Lea look angry. She has medium length dark brown hair with side bangs and a purple streak.

From the back, her hair is fairly even, even if it doesn't look like it. Her ends like to flip out a bit. It's very different from Truly Me 23's flip, which drove me crazy because of how much it flipped. Luci's looks nice, and behaves, so I'll leave it alone. 

Luciana also has a purple weft of hair sewn into her wig cap. In her book, she dyes it with her friend Raelyn, who has a matching streak. She calls it a "stripe of friendship". Because it's sewn on a lower layer of hair, it doesn't show often, although if you twist a section away it shows well.

Luci's bangs are actually a separate weft of hair sewn in place. I'd expected them to be like Lanie, Girl of the Year 2010's bangs, which were just a section of the wig that was cut. Although, it appears that some later editions of Luciana dolls had cut bangs instead of set bangs. I love side bangs- they're my favorite style of bangs- but Luciana's are quite difficult to maintain. They like to fall over her eye a lot, and unless you want an Emo Luci™, they can be quite frustrating to handle at first. However, once you get the hang of styling them, they look quite nice.

Luciana has the standard American Girl body, with a vinyl head and limbs and a cloth torso. You might notice that she doesn't have a body tag. I used tweezers to pull it out of the seam carefully, so it now appears that she never had one. Her hands are interesting. The two middle fingers are fused together, while the index, pinkie, and thumb are spaced apart. My Luciana has the so-called "good" body fabric. For a while, from about 2017 to late 2019, American Girl started using a different body fabric than the one they'd been using for years. The new, or "bad" fabric was a bit thinner and had a different texture, which caused the neckline to pucker horribly around the zip tie. My Felicity doll originally had that body, but it was defective and caused her head and limbs to squeak when moved, so American Girl replaced it with a better torso for free. It's sad though, because those bodies matched the vinyl better. Luciana's torso is a few shades lighter than her limbs, while Felicity's is a bit too orange-toned. If only I could have a body that didn't squeak AND matched the dolls limbs.

Starting with Lea in 2016, American Girl began attaching doll's heads with a zip tie sewn into the torso, instead of the white string that hung out the back that they had been using for decades. This was done for a number of reasons, and I'll list a few. First off, American Girl had started selling dolls in other countries, and the dolls now had to meet the toy standards of not only the United States, but also Europe, Mexico, AND the United Arab. Second, kids usually cut the strings off, making the dolls head fall off, horrifying the child and the parent who will have to pay to have it fixed. Zip ties don't fall off, and are difficult to cut off. 

Personally, I prefer zip ties, because they don't get caught in the hair or Velcro, and don't look funky when a doll wears a low-backed outfit. However, with neck strings a doll can easily be opened for repairs. Collectors often prefer them, because I guess they rip their heads off often? If you prefer either the strings or the zip ties, feel free to mention it! I'd love to talk about it. However, zip ties are often pushed sideways in the neck channel, making the neck pucker in strange places. See how the bump from the zip tie is to the right of the seam?

 One new thing that I noticed about the new dolls, is that her arms and hips now have a... secret code... serial number... thing. I'm not sure when AG implemented this, but my Felicity (August 2019) doesn't have it, while my sister's Joss (February 2020) does. It's weird, whatever it is. Her right arm says R224*, her left says L532*, her left leg says L380, and I didn't check her right leg. The stars/asterisks have been on the limbs since Mattel slimmed the limbs down, so around late 2000 to early 2001. The numbers seem to have a meaning. L and R probably mean "Left" and "Right", but the numbers meanings are completely random. 

For some reason, this is the only full picture I got of her outfit. Luciana wears a short-sleeved cotton dress that goes to just above her knees. She also wears a red purse-belt combo, and holographic boots with black soles and laces. She also has a holographic choker that matches her boots, and a red star necklace on a black cord, which is made from the same material as her shoelaces. Finally, she wears pale pink underwear with white trim. This is the outfit wears on her first day of space camp.

The necklace is supposedly adjustable, but I have had zero luck with it. Unfortunately, this means that it always hangs down to her waist when she wears it. In her book, she mentions that she received it on her first birthday from her parents, and only wears it for special events, like her first day at space camp.

Luciana's underwear are pale pink with white elastic edging. They snag easily. Seriously, they were snagged when I opened her! They feel like swimsuit material. I prefer the cotton style underwear, but they are chunky and look bulky under leggings, so I like this pair to go under clothes better than the other ones. Interesting fact: Girl of the Year dolls used to arrive with unique underwear, often with their logo. This began with I believe Kailey, and ended after Lea. Odd, but interesting.

Luciana's purse belt is red, with white lining and a silver buckle. It attaches with Velcro. The purse has a little loop on the back which slides onto the belt, so it can be removed, or moved around. I like having it to the left of the buckle, where most advertisements have it on the right. In prototype images, (The most notable one being on the back of Luciana's Accessories box) the purse belt has taken on a few different looks. On the back of the accessory box, it has a metal clasp/button to close it. The actual mass produced version has no clasp and closes with a small square of Velcro.

Here, you can see the prototype Luci from the accessories box.


Overall, Luciana is a beautiful doll, and I recommend getting her before she retires, which I have a feeling will be soon. Here is my rating:
Doll: A
Meet Outfit: B+
Book: C+
Quality: A-

The doll is really cool, and I like her unique wig, but her bangs are quite difficult to manage, and at the time I'm finally writing up this post, about a month after I took the photos, the purple streak is shedding. A more minor complaint is that her torso is much lighter than her limbs, causing a strange disconnect where they meet. Her meet outfit is, unfortunately, a single-piece dress, but it mixes and matches well, and is nicely made. The boots are AMAZING. Where can I get myself a pair?! The necklace has story-significance, but unfortunately is extremely difficult to adjust the length. The choker matches her shoes, which is a neat bonus. I wish the purse was a tiny bit deeper, so that the space log from her accessories would be able to fit, and have the pouch close while it's in it. Fingers crossed that AG will release another doll with plain jeggings like Gabriela again! I haven't finished her book yet, but it's... odd. It's about robotics instead of space, and Luciana can't follow a single rule to save her life. The quality is much better than my Felicity, but her underwear came damaged, and she's losing purple hair fast.

Do you have Luci or are considering getting her?

'til Next Time! - JCole