I’m a doll hobbyist, and while I was looking for doll parts on AliExpress, I stumbled upon this head. I showed it to my wife, and she quickly recognized the Barbie Mermaid sculpt. This is how I discovered that this head is from the Barbie Star Trek 50th Anniversary doll. Originally, she looks like this:

Image

I think they somehow managed to get unused heads from the factory, because I saw several listings of this head, and some of them even had (badly) handmade hair.

So I decided to buy one. Among doll hobbyists, it’s common to buy blank heads to paint them and add hair (the process is called “rooting”). Except in this case, the head is already painted, I just need to root it. I won’t be able to replicate the original hairstyle, but it should be fun 🙂

I also found this author on Flickr who purchased and rooted several heads (you can scroll two pages). Originally, I was planning to use black hair, but from the pictures above, white also looks kinda nice 🤔

I also think a dark red color will look great, similar to Poison Ivy from DC. I also considered a dark green head, but couldn’t find saran in this color (it’s the best material for doll heads). What color would you use?