Eternally Beautiful: A G3 Cleo Roundup

I've already discussed how G3 Cleo de Nile is fantabulously gorgeous and incredible. So let's keep doing that!

I was never a G1 Cleo collector, largely because Cleo dolls had no inherent spooky details (everything mummyish was done with clothing), and she had few dolls I really felt compelled by...and I was disappointed by the two I got. Dead Tired Cleo had been purchased just to have a Cleo, but her hair was a gluey mess and the doll wasn't anything special. Boo York, Boo York Cleo had tons of promise with her gorgeous midnight-blue-and-copper color palette, but her hair was horrible, being a certain dry and coarse fiber that hurt every doll it was found on, like signature Jane, Kala, and ILF Iris. I was generally not super into many Cleo dolls besides. Her color palettes weren't as strong to me as her G2 and G3 offerings, which leaned toward more rich and earthy and authentic Egyptian colors. 

I got my first G3 Cleo with her Fearidescent doll. I encourage you to read the post where I discuss her.

Now, a history of Cleo. 

Mattel stock photo of signature G1 Cleo and Deuce. 

G1 Cleo de Nile went through a lot of character development. She started off as a snobby mean girl whose royal privilege gave her a big ego, and her initial redeeming quality was her close friendship with Ghoulia, though even that wasn't as initially obvious to onlookers, who saw Ghoulia more as her number two. Eventually, Cleo started to defrost and become a better person and other antagonists took the burden of that negative role off of her--bully Toralei Stripe in school, and Cleo's irredeemable adult sister Nefera in various scenarios. By the end of G1 and throughout G2, Cleo was lovably puffed-up and showed a true care and generosity for her friends. Late-G1 Cleo also had better ethics than the rest of her royal family...though that leaves it kind of a problem that she's not the heir to the throne because she would be the most likely to change things in her sphere for the better. Her older sister doesn't even seem to want the responsibility--a major thread of Boo York, Boo York is Nefera trying to break up Cleo and Deuce so Cleo will enter an arranged marriage to link up to another Egyptian family instead of her! While that's obviously not right and it's good that doesn't go through, Cleo is still clearly the pharaoh that ought to be crowned.

G2 Cleo was largely unchanged in portrayal, save for the fact that she basically started at the place G1 Cleo ended, and didn't have to go through her character arc. Cleo's key relationships weren't retained, since her sister and best friend didn't appear in the G2 fiction, and Deuce didn't really have the same dynamic with her in G2.

G3 Cleo is not a snob, but she’s still confident and asserts herself as a queen bee. She’s subject to more humiliating slapstick that essentially checks her character more often and prevents her from being unsympathetic, and isn’t an antagonist to start with. She's also not closely tied to Ghoulia or Deuce anymore, and she's teased as the romantic interest for G3 Frankie, developing a mutual crush on them. While the Cleo/Deuce relationship had a ton of great thematic aspects behind it (Cleopatra was Greek, the Egyptians revered snakes, Cleopatra was said in legend to have met her end by a snake), I'm definitely on board with G3 Cleo/Frankie for some representation of queer romance. G3 Cleo also has the unique touch of keeping her still-living heart in a canopic jar, which is a really neat concept for any mummy monster, and is a seriously welcome creepy touch for a character who originally came across as the most human and least deathly of the Original Ghouls. It seems like her upcoming refresh doll will actually have the heart jar included, though it looks like the heart might just be a design painted on the outside. In the cartoon, Cleo sacrifices her heart (and with it, her emotions) in an ancient tomb to retrieve a necklace artifact, and then gets a new one made for her to restore her. Another major G3 change is that Nefera de Nile is a good person rather than being an irredeemable antagonist, and any strife Cleo has with her comes from resentment of Nefera being the heir and so well-loved and respected. I just know a G3 Nefera doll would be absolutely stunning and I hope that comes sooner than later. Maybe she and G3 Iris are the two dolls I want to see the most.

Now, I want to be realistic for a moment and dispel the notion that Cleo is untouchably gorgeous in my eyes. She has been done dirty by some of her styling and color choices. Fa-Boolous Pets Cleo is one of those dolls, bringing in pinks and G1-esque purples in a really unfortunate manner, as well as having a really messy outfit design. And even one of the Cleos at hand today needs some revisions. But darn it if it isn't difficult to insult Cleo with a fashion choice. Fa-Boolous Pets Cleo is outsizedly unfortunate in her styling. 

The signature G3 Cleo doll has been on my list for ages now, and I knew I couldn't discuss the other doll in this project without going over the signature doll first, so I finally decided to get her. 

The clothing in Cleo's character art does not match the doll. More on that later.

Here's everything unpacked.

Cleo's first piece is an asymmetrical headband with a fan-shaped crest on her left side. The piece can tuck into the tied-off section of her hair. It came tagged to her head at each end, and doesn't fit the tightest when the tags are removed. If the doll falls over, the headband will fall off.

Cleo's hair is a blend of blue tones, mixing turquoise as seen in her Fearidescent doll with dark blue, and gold tinsel appears throughout the hair. 

In the cartoon, sig Cleo's hair is much higher-contrast, with dark hair and bright thick streaks of turquoise.

This hairstyle has only the gold tinsel in common with G1 sig Cleo. Her doll had brown and black hair center-parted with straight flat bangs across the forehead. Cleo dolls have pretty much always had tinsel, though G2 tried a compelling alternative with golden blonde streaks of hair to put the gold color in instead. Tinsel has more beautiful sparkle and it makes Cleo dolls feel more like walking riches, but the material doesn't behave or comb the same as doll hair, so I was open to the G2 alternative. 

The hair is side-parted, and some of the hair is tied off into a small ponytail to pull it out of the way on her left side. 

I haven't been able to find any consensus on what hair fiber this doll was given. Some have claimed different manufacturing variations of this doll have polypropylene vs. saran, but I've also repeatedly heard it's polypropylene on all Cleos, just with some kind of alternative treatment such that it feels like saran. I don't know if that's something Mattel can do, and if it is, why they aren't doing it for all poly dolls which can have less flexible hair fiber, but the hair feels pretty good. I took it down to boil out the kinks later.

Cleo's face is pretty as ever, with its reddish brown shimmery color and Egyptian-painted deadened eyes. This doll established that the Eye of Horus design on her left would be a staple for G3 Cleo. Previously, G1 Cleo wore it in her Boo York design. 

Cleo's lipstick is dark red like G1 sig, but has this really fascinating golden stripe down the middle of her lower lip. It looks really modern and striking, but also seems to abstractly evoke the shape of a pharaoh's beard, giving it an ancient and powerful feeling at the same time. I really like this touch. 

Fearidescent Cleo's eyes are side-glancing, but sig's are looking forward. Like all G3 sig dolls, the eyeshadow is pretty light.

Cleo's earrings are large triangular hoops styled after pyramids. 

Around her neck, Cleo has a classical Egyptian collar which clips on. I had already used a copy of this very piece when creating my cat mummy character Maupet A'Duat.

Cleo's costume is the only G3 signature doll clothing that outright does not depict the cartoon signature look. Cartoon Cleo has an off-the-shoulder top and long pants with bandages over them, but doll Cleo has a long-sleeved dress. 

I can't begin to imagine why this was. Have we regressed somehow and little girls are less open-minded to girls with pants (or, considering G3 sig Toralei's design discrepancy, short hair?) Or have Mattel just gotten really cowardly and feel the need to shove long hair, skirts, and PINK everywhere they possibly can in the toys, no longer being confident in even the tamest forms of bold or non-girly fashion design that previously sold well and made Monster High what it was?

As of writing, the cartoon-accurate sig Cleo costume has not yet been released on a G3 Cleo doll. Her Day Out budget doll would have been a great way to do that and throw people a bone, but nope. 

Cleo's dress is all made of very synthetic-feeling materials that aren't super pleasant. The arms are colored and printed to look wrapped in bandages like much of G1 Cleo's pieces, and the body of the dress is half-printed in pattern and is turquoise with a wide neck. Gold ribbon trims the neck and hem, but the neck is fairly wonky with the collar off. It might need to be flattened with some heat. 

Over the dress, Cleo has a fancy golden belt with a long tail and two simulated bead strands. 

Cleo's boots are not in the cartoon outfit, either, where she wears gold sandals. These are thigh-high pieces made to look mostly like off-white bandages, with gold detail on the front and red toe caps and golden heels. 

The splashes of red are a good touch, but the color is found nowhere else on the doll--her collar and headband are painted with a different shade that's clearly orange. The red feels great for an Egyptian character, so the shade being more balanced into the design would be nice. 

Cleo's extra pieces are her jacket and sunglasses. 

The shades are translucent yellow and have a bandage theme. 

This glasses mold is reused from G1 Cleo's Gloom Beach doll. Gloom Beach Cleo's shades were translucent teal. G3 sig Frankie also reused their G1 counterpart's Gloom Beach shades, but on Frankie, the color was unchanged.

The jacket is cropped, printed with a blue bandage design, and features ribbon fringe hanging from the arms to depict loose bandages. Close to the wrists on both sides, the ribbons hang in small loops amid the loose strips, and two ribbons hang over the right breast of the jacket.

I think this jacket might have been better if the print was orange or yellow instead of blue. The bandage effect would look more realistic and the blue print offers no clear advantage to the color palette.

I had worried the jacket wouldn't play well over Cleo's long sleeves, but it's better than I thought. Her elbow hinges are resisted by the thick fabric, but it doesn't seem like the sleeves of the dress are getting bunched up inside the sleeves of the jacket. 

Cleo's backpack is loosely pyramid-shaped and features a large hinged panel that flips down. It cannot fit some of her larger accessories due to the unusual shape. 

Cleo's drink is a thermos shaped like a canopic jar, and the lid and thermos both have handles, suggesting the lid can be turned upside-down and filled as a cup.

The cup would not be able to be placed down on any surface while filled, though. 

Cleo has a gemstone-shaped compact makeup palette in a turquoise green color that appears nowhere on the doll. The colors inside don't match what she's wearing on her eyes.

Cleo's snack food is a great joke--she's eating a wrap! 

The piece is sculpted with a bandage-like braid pattern that would be very pretty but probably not possible or practical to make "in real", and it looks to be stuffed with some beans, lettuce, and tomatoes. 

Cleo's phone is gold with an Anubis motif. 

Cleo's pet completely changes from G1 precedent, unlike the rest of the cast. Rather than the classic Cleo pet, a turquoise crowned cobra Hissette, G3 sig Cleo has a metallic blue pharaoh jackal named Tut. 

I gather this change was quite understandably unpopular, and it seems like Mattel either always knew it would be, or reacted quickly enough to take Tut out of the picture, because he feels like he's being quite downplayed after this doll release. Tut has never appeared in the cartoon, and in the Fa-Boolous Pets doll line, Hissette makes her return alongside Tut, suggesting an attempt to try giving Cleo two pets to smooth over the issue without having to awkwardly pretend Tut never happened. However, Hissette is the only pet who's appeared in the G3 cartoon, and it also looks like Hissette is set to be Cleo's pet in her 2024 refresh-signature release, so Tut might have very little future ahead of him and they might quietly phase him out altogether.

I didn't try too much restyling because I like this doll enough as she is, but I did check out Fearidescent Cleo in the G3 sig outfit, and it works really well as a low-contrast look.

Since this doll's costume doesn't reflect her cartoon design anyway, I keep her displayed with the jacket on, but not the shades. I think that makes for a good complete mummy queen-bee ensemble.

I wish this doll had been given the screen-accurate costume she deserved, since there was zero good reason for her not to have it. I also wish Tut had been thrown out entirely. The lack of the correct trousered costume and the new less scary pet make it feel like Cleo was really unfairly targeted for "un-girly" aspects that Mattel wasn't brave enough to include in the toy. But this doll is pretty and I'm glad to have her. 

Now my next doll. 

G3 Cleo doesn't have a doll that directly replicates her signature G1 look, but there is one doll that seems to intentionally come close in multiple aspects, and she's one I had already wanted before I made that connection--her Skulltimate Secrets Series 1 doll. This doll has long hair with straight-cut bangs just like G1 sig, as well as a similar studded headband, a choker, and a top and shorts with a brownish bandage pattern that feel closeish to her G1 signature bodysuit. There's no tulle halter wrap piece that resembles the G1 Cleo element in any of G3's dolls save for the glittery and wide-silhouetted Monster Ball overlay that isn't shaped the same and wouldn't pair well with the costume, so I'd have to figure something else out, but I wanted this doll pretty much always and she was the key to an Old-Skull Cleo redesign. 

Here's the box.

The Series 1 lockers have a straightforward spiderweb design for the doll-door sculpt, and the Skullette in the middle is untextured. The border of the doll door has a riveted stud pattern which matches the body of the box. Since the rest of the series using this box concept shared every box sculpt except the doll door, Fearidescent and Neon Frights' lockers retain a bit of the Series 1 studded design. Series 1 has no translucent glittery doors on the right side. 

Here's one locker from each series with this design lined up--left to right, series 1-3.

Here's the doll door open. The locker-door artwork is less packed and not super interesting to me for this series.  The Series 1 instruction sheet is less folded, and so it's spread along the floor and two walls of the doll compartment. Series 2 on folded the sheet in a small rectangle that only covered the spot under the doll's feet.

Here's Cleo and her backdrop out. 

This Cleo's hair is about the same texture as sig's, but more of it is black and midnight blue, making it dark and striking...and more authentically Egyptian! 

The tinsel really sparkles against the darker colors. The bangs are rooted in a thin front row and my copy has a visible gap in the middle, which was frustrating. I later tried to pull some hair over that spot and boil and trim it, but it didn't really make a difference. The bangs were not gelled, suggesting that this hair (and sig's) is polypropylene--poly dolls are never gelled, from what I've observed. The bangs also didn't look level at this point.

Cleo's face still has subtle eye makeup, done in thin pale turquoise. 

Her lips are hot pink, which is a color choice I disagree with pretty heavily. It's not Egyptian and it's not very Cleo. Not all Cleos have the pharaoh-stripe lip design, but her refresh doll is set to, which I appreciate. This is one of the dolls that doesn't have it. Skulltimate Series 1 Cleo's eyes are looking forward.

Of my three G3 Cleos, Skulltimate Series 1 has the least red-toned skin. Fearidescent is the reddest.

Cleo's first costume is a top and a skirt. 

The top is black and tight-necked with no sleeves and a cropped edge trimmed by a two-tailed gold ribbon. The fabric is printed with bandages and gemstones over black. A pair of shorts directly matching this top are forthcoming in this set, and they're what I'm using to evoke the G1 bandage bodysuit. The skirt is sparkly turquoise and gathered in the front and back to shape the top and bottom in Egyptian-esque fashion. 

Cleo has thigh-high golden sandal boots with powder-blue serpent platforms and turquoise scarabs on the front. 

These aren't much like her shorter G1 footwear, but they suit this doll's stock because the pieces that evoke her G1 bodysuit have short legs, meaning longer shoes balance things out.

The Series 1 Skulltimate Secrets keys have no extra texture on the Skullette heads, and each doll's are painted with black temporary wash-off paint. Series 2's keys all had silver temporary paint, and Series 3's keys had temporary paint matched to one of the doll's main colors--the same as their glowing neon color for seemingly everyone except Frankie.

Cleo's first key matches the darker blue door, which is second down from the top. 

The Series 1 Skulltimate Secrets packages are solid colors with the same personalized heart design and Skullette question marks. The question marks face the correct direction here, too, meaning only Series 2 had these misprinted in reverse.

This package contained Cleo's jewelry--her golden headband, her choker, and her earrings.

Here's everything on.

Cleo's headband is golden with turquoise painted jewels studding it, and is inspired by the less visually-prominent G1 signature doll's headband. The piece is rigid thick plastic and fits very tightly on her head. That's good. The headband has holes toward the end where plastic tags would be placed...but this piece isn't packaged on this Cleo's head. Maybe Mattel are thinking ahead for if another edition reuses this mold and does have to have it secured on her in packaging...though I would be shocked to find that necessary with how tightly this piece fits on her, and I shudder to think how difficult pulling tags out of this would be with that tight fit.

Her choker is also inherited from the G1 sig design, though this piece is powder blue with a lotus decoration on it. 

Cleo's earrings are hot pink (big no) and are dangly, but unlike much of this doll, they're not actually the closest G3 Cleo has come to G1 sig. The closest G3 earrings to G1 sig's would actually be the sculpt used on Fearidescent Cleo. 

That orange color isn't ideal, either. I don't think I'll be taking them from Fearidescent. Day Out Cleo reuses these in turquoise, but gold is really the only earring color I think would work for my plans here.

Cleo's next key is golden, so the next door down...and no joke, turning the key ripped the door right off its hinges!

Fortunately, the doors can pop in and out (and swap across lockers) very easily with no damage, so it was just a funny accident, not a sign of damage or a defective product!

In this compartment were Cleo's short shoes and her keyring.

The shoes are pink strappy sandals with golden pyramid heels, and while the design is great, the color is not. And one of the shoes was pretty warped. She's not wearing these. 

The next key was light blue, so the very top door. This contained her alternate clothing pieces-- a huge-shouldered metallic gold shrug jacket, a blue and yellow top, and the shorts that match her first top.

Here's a quick messy try-on. 

The shrug can be a little confusing to put on because there are two arm holes you need to navigate inside the big sleeves, and the top portion of the sleeve flares being an open loop doesn't help too much in figuring out the correct orientation. 
The blue and yellow top could stand in quite well for the clothing Cleo wears in her cartoon signature look, but there are still no matching pants that would allow collectors to complete Cleo's onscreen costume. 
The shorts don't look great without the matching top. 

Cleo's last key was hot pink, going to the lower door containing her food. She has another wrap, this one made to look wrapped in paper and foil and with a slight jackal-ear shape, a cup with falafel branding (presumably a drink from this place and not a bizarre form of packaging falafel itself!) and a bottle of hot sauce!

Here's what Cleo looks like with the matching top and shorts. 

I knew I was missing one key ingredient to finish a nostalgic restyle--the wrap! However, it didn't take me too long to find a piece which could work: LOL OMG Winter Disco Dollie's bodysuit (for which I had to get a copy of the doll itself, which I customized in this post). It's wrapped over itself like the Cleo halter piece, and if I dyed it dark blue, it'd feel in line with the color palette and would feel high-fashion and evoke the old piece. I thought it would be easy to trim off the "undies" portion of the piece to just have it as a chest wrap.

Here's the bodysuit itself. It's black and white, and half-printed with a houndstooth pattern.

And here it is dyed. 

To give this doll earrings, I just used the second pair of G3 sig's that I've had ever since making Maupet. Her copy of the G3 sig collar had been sold alongside the G3 sig earrings, so I had spares that were perfect for this doll. She needed gold earrings.

I also took Cleo down for a lip repaint because that pink had to get outta here. I decided to paint her lips dark blue and give her the "pharaoh stripe" in metallic gold because I loved that feature so much and it was the perfect look to bounce the colors around. Dark red would be more G1-faithful, but I really wanted to ride the dark blue vibe of this doll and I thought that would make the overall ensemble stronger. The new lip colors also bring out the gold in Cleo's eyes quite strongly.

I also threw in a spare Clawvenus bracelet.

All dressed up, and I'm stunned. Like, more than is typical for Cleos. 

The structure of the look with the hair, headband, wrap, and bandage pieces all feels G1-classic, but the moody colors of black, dark blue, and gold add a dramatic and even goth tone to Cleo that looks absolutely incredible. I'd loved and been burned by her Boo York doll having horrible hair and letting down the drama of midnight blue and copper colors, but I think I brought that back here and just traded in for gold. I love Cleo being rich and saturated, but this unlocked a whole dark-Cleo aesthetic that I'm obsessed with. As with my Ghoulia restyle, this strikes me as a viable, compelling way they could have designed the character's G3 sig edition. Even back with the Fearidescent doll, I proclaimed that I found G3 Cleo to be better than G1, but this take on the same look is direct support for that sentiment. This doll is more spooky, more mummy, and more genuinely gorgeous and put-together in my eyes than G1 sig Cleo, who felt more like she was effortlessly playing off a slight mess. 

Sitting with this for a bit demanded a few tweaks, though. The wrap piece created a big block of solid blue up top that doesn't feel quite as ritzy or active as it should. To fix this, I brought the wrap downstairs and added metallic gold paint to the borders of the piece. 

Not only did this give the piece more visual interest and threw the gold into an area where it was needed, but lining the borders of the piece made it more accurate to the G1 equivalent, which had high-contrast black edges. The edge color also makes the interacting folds of the wrap way more apparent, which suits the mummy-costume theme. I also thought I'd bring the Skulltimate choker back in. The color is balanced by the soles of her boots, and the presence of the choker should push the look closer to the reference.

Now here's the true final Cleo. 

The big structural differences with this costume vs. G1 are the length of the legs and boots, and the shape of the earrings. This costume doesn't have a vinyl belt, either, but the trim on the top stands in for the belt well here and would make it hard for a belt piece to layer nicely. This G3 Cleo also doesn't have a cell phone holster on her leg, but I don't expect her dolls will ever be getting one, so that's just something I'll have to let go.

Here's all the restyled main ghouls now. Only one left to go!

And then I took her for some portraits. I have a Playmobil treasure-chest playset box that made for a good ornate tomb wall.

I liked the way her eyes stood out in this photo. 

She's maybe my new favorite G3 restyle, and she's definitely my new favorite Cleo. That dark blue and gold palette is mesmerizing. 

Here's my Cleo trio. Sig is my least favorite of the three, though I still enjoy her. It's just impossible to compete with the fabulousness of the other two and their nicer clothing.

Well, Cleo's done it again. Skulltimate allowed me to get a version of Cleo that replicates the classic look while also making me like that styling way more than the G1 doll ever did, and she's one of my most beautiful dolls now. Sig Cleo doesn't impress me as much and it's clear next to the other Cleos that she's lighter, more inoffensive, and more youthful than later G3 dolls. It's valuable to have her on hand, but she's not one of the sig dolls who holds equally to one of my Old-Skulls in my mind. As with Ghoulia and Lagoona, I'd prefer to display only my restyle. 

So that's that for Cleo...for now. I expect to get refresh Cleo if I get no other edition, and my restyle is going to take custody of Hissette once that happens. Otherwise, I'm very pleased. I've created a great edition of Cleo as a restyle and just as her own ensemble.