Picking Bones, Part 3: Monster High 2025 Dia De Muertos Skelita Calaveras by Mattel

In 2023, I did a run of discussion on Monster High's Skelita Calaveras dolls, including, in my second feature regarding Skelita, her first two dolls made to celebrate the Dia de Muertos holiday--2016's standlone collector doll, and the first Howliday Skelita doll in 2023. Now it's time for another one, which I decided to group into my previous posts as a belated installment in their series!

Left-2016 collector Skelita.
Right-2023 Howliday Dia de Muertos Skelita.

I liked the 2016 and 2023 dolls, but also decided to sell them both afterward. Skelita means more to me personally as a mainline character than as a holiday decoration because I'm not Mexican and I appreciate, but do not celebrate, Dia de Muertos and I ultimately liked my Scarnival copy the most. As such, I've kept the mainline Skelitas I reviewed. 

When I was discussing the previous collector Skelitas, however, I expressed an interest in Howliday Skelita becoming an annual release format with different designs, and in seeing a new Howliday doll with a La Catrina-inspired fancy hat. 2024 proved both of those things were happening as I wanted...so why didn't I discuss her?

2024 Howliday Skelita.

Well, frankly...this doll just felt a little bland. I respect her dress returning to visuals of her G1 signature doll, but I didn't find this doll as visually engaging as her previous collector dolls. I was disappointed to not see a spectacular new color scheme or especially dramatic design for Skelita, and her calavera makeup didn't impress me all that much even though it objectively looks well-done. And her Catrina hat is fine, but really just called for a more fancy and stunning costume below it. Why does this doll add up to such an understated look? I've seen pictures of her looking nice, but the stock photos certainly do nothing for her. 

She looks much better in this boxed stock photo, but also looks good in some in-hand pictures I've seen.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is the only collector Skelita with no airbrushed color-masking over her skull. 2016, 2023, and 2025 all have that element and it does a great deal for them! I also feel like this Skelita is begging for a fancy shrug jacket to complete her costume.

So my interest just wasn't there for the 2024 doll. Honestly, the 2024 hat on the 2023 doll, maybe with a low bun, could be kind of something, but I'd only attempt it if I hadn't sold 2023 Skelita. 

Mattel discontinued their Monster High Howliday label after last year. This means we never got a third Valentine couple and aren't getting a winter doll this year. No big loss for the latter, but a duo of Lagoona and Gil in Valentine theming, the most likely third pairing, would have been fun. It seemed pretty clear the winter Howliday dolls were struggling to sell, so I can understand the decision, but I think maybe Mattel really just needs to learn something about their pricing- 

Anyway, the end of Howliday dolls fortunately didn't mean the end of the annual holiday Skelita dolls. I wasn't sure what would be next for Dia de Muertos Skelita...nor do I think anybody could have predicted what we got. Because 2025 Skelita isn't what one would immediately expect for Dia de Muertos regalia. She's Aztec! And her face is gorgeous. 

Everything above the neck made this doll look potentially more expensive even pre-tariffs because the paint is really really strong, but I was on board. Turns out, I was correct that this Skelita is more expensive than prior editions, but at least she makes an excuse for it with her detail level. It's still absolutely indefensible when you see MGA pumping out designated collector dolls for under $40 with far more intricate production.

Shadow High is back. And Shanelle might have to be back here, too! Price: $32.99, it seems!!!

Yeah, it's not pretty for Mattel. Shame them, MGA! But within Mattel's warped standards of production/extortion, 2025 Skelita does look worth more than the 2024 and 2023 dolls. 

This is the first time a Skelita doll has reflected pre-Spanish Mexican history, and I can't say how much sense it makes for her Howliday concept, but the result is striking, and there is precedent in G1 of Skelita's Aztec skeleton ancestors being depicted. 

Screenshot from G1 webisode "Scare-itage".

The doll's description also explains that this costume theme is an extension of Dia de Muertos as a celebration of ancestors, which works nicely. Skelita's extending her ofrenda to generations long before the holiday even formed. And why shouldn't she?

2025 Skelita's box is bluish, and looks to be the same size as the prior Howliday Skelitas', but she fills out the space better with her big headdress and long, wide skirt. It feels less like a waste of the box's dimensions here.

The doll's box is trilingual, with priority rightfully being given to Spanish as the first rendition of the text where it's repeated. The next language listed is English, then French...which is kind of funny, because I don't imagine Dia de Muertos imagery having a huge pull with a French-speaking audience, European or Canadian, but perhaps I'm wrong, and there's definitely nothing wrong with providing more languages in packaging.

The borders of the box are decorated with the Aztec Skullette motif which mimics Skelita's own head and headdress and also appears in her costume design. This is what the sides look like.

The back of the box has a photo portrait of the doll and a first-person statement from Skelita discussing her costume as a tribute to her Aztec scaritage and the Aztec deity Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent.

Interesting that Skelita names only a single Aztec ancestor, unless that's a typo and it's meant to say "ancestors". The grammar of the sentence works in either case, but I find it slightly odd and improbable that Skelita would only have one identifiable Aztec ancestor.

Here's the backdrop slid out of the box.

The background art is very soft and watercolor-styled, depicting an ofrenda piled with marigolds in front of the moon. Skelita's pink Art Class vase has appeared in the scenery in all three of her Howliday dolls' backdrops. I think it loses a little novelty as a recurring element. Why not put in other familiar G1 Skelita pieces for each artwork?

The flowers are copy-pasted graphics (and who can blame the artist?) but I didn't see signs of AI generation. 

Skelita had some head tags to cut from the plastic tray, but it looked like there were more than there were because some of the tags here were inside, pinning her headdress to her head. Despite the headdress having a perfectly circular molded loop on the back, none of the tags go through it. Odd.

Bands and the clipped heads of plastic tags. What's that hole for if the factory didn't tag through it?

Skelita had a plastic sleeve around her legs as well as a plastic torso and skirt form shoved up her clothing.

Skelita's certificate was in the back. The 2023 certificate put English first after the box was Spanish-first, but here, Spanish is placed first in accordance with the rest of the text design. 

Despite multiple saddle-stand designs since 2023 Skelita, Mattel have learned nothing and stuck her with the same 2023 design that didn't work. I guess they were too attached to that custom stand base (which was designed for a waist-grip pole to begin with!) and didn't want to spend any on making Skelita's display proper.

And no wonder this stand has issues. Not only is the center of gravity imbalanced with the stand pole having nothing bracing behind it, but the cradle doesn't even hold Skelita's pelvis securely. I only realized now that she shifts off to the side of the cradle here! I'm jumping ahead, but just look:

She DOESN'T.👏FIT IN.👏THE STAND.👏

Mattel, please...

I continued to struggle with this stand not holding her well. The Inner Monster saddle stand wasn't much better, nor the Thronecoming saddle stand. This doll wants a waist-grip because clearly there isn't a saddle I can trust her in. Ugh. It's fine enough, and I have gone back to using it with the doll, but I just wish it was more reliable.

Still, though...

Bam.

She really looks like her own separate character, like an ancient temple priestess, which does seem to have been a possible role for Aztec women. This doll has gotten a bit of a "best Skelita ever" reputation, and that's not entirely fair because she's a fairly specific context-restricted design and far from "everyday"...but damn, she's impressive. It's not hard at all to call her the best Howliday edition on looks alone. I know it. I've been obsessed since first glimpses!

Mattel has leveraged their current accessory-printing technology to the utmost with Skelita's headdress. It's got to be the most detailed paint/print job on a Monster High costume piece yet.

The headdress has an iconically Aztec silhouette with its grand fan of feathers that add height and width to the silhouette, and mixes a spiderweb frame and a Skullette in while icons of Quetzalcóatl symmetrically trim the piece. The print is elaborate, with gradient yellow to pink on the feathers, intricate Aztec square designs on the Skullette, and flames on the candles in the piece, as well as red on the serpent feathers  and yellow and white on the teeth. 

Quetzalcóatl himself is coded with a teal color that Skelita has used well enough previously, but here, the color makes her feel greener than any other Skelita doll, which crosses off one of the things I wanted from Howliday editions--the sense of Skelita getting different color palettes. 2023 felt like her "purple" doll to me, while this one gives me a strong presence of green. It's not her dominant color here, but it's enough and feels different in a way that changes the rest of the colors in the design. 

The headdress on the 2025 doll has excellent detail, and it feels like Mattel putting forth an argument for this doll's higher price. To think I was oohing over the paint on 2023 Skelita's headpiece!

Still good, but it does feel a bit like the coughing baby to 2025 Skelita's hydrogen bomb.

Of course, this comes at a cost, and the back side of the headdress is unprinted and looks unfinished and hollow.

I'm lenient enough not to call this "unacceptable", but it is disappointing, to be sure. Just a little bit of printing, even if only on the backs of the feathers, would have helped polish this up more.

The headdreess arc is attached to a horizontal headband of marigold blooms with is open at the front of the forehead, and has strings of beads sculpted hanging off the sides. This portion is unpainted but looks okay. The band fits really well around Skelita's skull and the bottom of the arc hugs the top of the skull nicely. I'm glad the piece fits well. I think I remember 2023's headband being slightly easy to dislodge.

Skelita has never had earrings because...well, she's never had ears. This doll finally gets around that issue with pieces that hang from the side of her headdress in the manner of earrings, depicting symmetrical hoops that are Quetzalcóatl in a circular curl. These are separate pieces that dangle freely.

The headdress holes for the earrings look like the hole on the back of the headdress, but as far as I know, there wasn't some third piece of jewelry attached to the hole in the back. 

Here's the headdress removed.

Skelita's hair is far from the star of the show here, but it's pretty nice. This edition does not have a unique hair-color combination, using the same black with teal and orange that her Art Class and 2023 Howliday dolls have used. It's long and slightly wavy, with two teal streaks and one orange.

G1 Skelita's done black and orange, black and teal, magenta and teal, and teal and orange, but magenta and orange in the black remains a combination exclusive to her G3 signature design, whose corresponding doll has been revealed!

This is only the second Skelita doll with no teal in her hair!

I feel like I'm counting down the seconds to this doll release; she's beautiful (it took me a good few seconds to register this was the G3 doll and not some surprise G1 collector edition!) and I'm beyond ecstatic we're finally getting a G3 character with fully unique detailed body sculpting. This isn't the G1 sculpt! I'm so curious to see what changes may be present in her body design (does she still have skeleboobs and a butt or is she more realistic to actual bones? I know her face isn't!) and to see how they negotiated a torso joint in. I want so badly for this Skelita to be a sea change in G3 doll design; the necessary watershed to open the floodgates for body sculpting going wild. (Lots of water phrases there!) Robecca was that doll for G1, and she's going to be in the G3 doll line soon too, so I really hope G3 Skelita indicates that Robecca's detail will be allowed to reach the same heights as G1. Alright, that's enough yearning for this other doll. Back to the one we have right now!

I didn't realize until combing her hair, but the front of 2025 Skelita's center part is held down, with the locks separated and tied together with an elastic behind her head so the front stays in place and tidy. There were a couple of hairs to fuss with in the tied section, but it looks good.

The spectacle continues with Skelita's face, which was what really got me obsessed. Best collector Skelita faceup, hands-down.

The Aztec theming takes it quite a bit away from classic Dia de Muertos calaveras, but it's just gorgeous. I'm in love with the greenish teal airbrushed mask over her face, and Aztec geometric designs in teal frame her jaw and chin. More geometric forms in purple come from under her eyes and the top of her hairline, hidden under the tied-down parting, with yellow forms in the middle. Her upper eyes are framed with swooping white spiderwebs with geometric tails, replacing her eyebrows altogether, and purple dots down her nose with white dots under her eyes. Her eyes are subtly but dramatically shaded darker around the edges, and bold gold eyeshadow trims her eyes and forms a stripe and flare down from her grey lip. Instead of skeleton lip liner, her skeleton lines are only at the corners of her mouth. The paint is stunning, and it's pretty graphical and simple up close, but looks so elaborate and artsy from a distance.

There's a healthy amount of color in this faceup, but it's done in a way that makes the face look smartly grounded within the splendor of her design. Her collar and headdress have a lot of vibrant tones while her face reads more muted and elegant with its predominance of green, gold, black, grey and white. There's enough color there to match the rest, but the face has a gravity and calmness that works beautifully with the boldness of the rest. It also perfectly flatters the presence of flat black in the hair and dress. This design is right on the balance of all of its elements.

Here's the face next to a G1 Skelita. As with 2023 Howliday, the eyes are smaller and make the doll look more mature.

Here's a face comparison from my second Skelita review, showing the two collector dolls I had then with standard G1. The third doll in the row, Skelita's first collector doll, is a G2 doll with some subtle G2 face changes. Her eyes are the biggest!

It feels like Aztec Skelita might actually have the smallest-painted eyes out of all of these, but I can't be sure. 

The only issue I have with the faceup on my doll is that some elements don't seem perfectly centered on the bridge of the nose and forehead. I understand this has to be a challenge to achieve, but it's got some hiccups.

The skull falls between the headdress and the necklace in a striking bust portrait within the full doll design, as the necklace collar mirrors the headdress with elaborate paint and Quetzalcóatl imagery. This piece is cast in pearl gold. The neck clip-on is tight, but the fit is relatively loose once clipped on. The shape makes it easier to keep in place than most MH necklaces, though.

The design is smart in leaving the top of Skelita's dress entirely black, and backdropped by Skelita's black hair, so the head, headdress, and collar float in a clean black space where they can pop as their own ensemble. It makes dramatic portraits easier, too!

The dress itself is mostly a satiny material, though not the silkiest or most flexible, and is black as a base color, being all black above the waist. Ignore my camera turning the black into purple as it likes to do. It's black. The sleeves are puffed and sheer, and the shoulder silhouette is perfect. Skelita's neckline is a square cutout shape.

Around her waist, she has a golden belt with symmetrical sculpted cords and Quetzalcóatl images. Oddly, this is a loose clip-on piece open at the back rather than closing with a pin and loop.

I wouldn't have minded this belt closing in the back. This is the only aspect of Skelita that stymied me with giving her a waist-grip stand. While, of course, her skirt would be pressed against a pole, it's not like it hangs that voluminous anyway. The issue is that the belt is actually right where a waist-grip wants to go, but it can be used to kind of hide the grip by laying over the waist in a particular way.

I'm very surprised this doll was not given even a single bracelet. If there's any part of her that feels lacking, it might be that. A matched chunky bracelet on each wrist could do a lot here.

The skirt has a long, wide pink panel down the middle trimmed with a line of golden fringe on the bottom, which starts at the exact line of the hem where the lace trim also begins. This pink panel is only stitched at the top, and features gold print ending in a headdressed Skullette and more geometric forms.

The rest of the skirt is black with colorful print, including another headdressed Skullette under the pink piece, and two Quetzalcóatls frame the skirt along the hips. The skirt is printed all the way around with detail that is made to look like embroidery, but obviously isn't actually.

The illusion of embroidery.

To have truly embroidered the dress as such would likely take the doll's price up a large amount by Mattel's grading (though something tells me MGA would get it done without taking the doll over $100). I guess I don't expect real embroidery from Mattel...because what can I expect from Mattel's clothing production? I know not to hope for much from them, and true to form, there's nothing much about the costume which feels especially grand production-wise. It looks pretty, but I feel like there are fabric choices that would feel less cheap (A matte fabric with more drape would be gorgeous here) and I'm not impressed with the hang of the skirt. I love its length and width, but it hangs with no depth, not puffing out in front and behind the doll. Surely a good tulle petticoat wouldn't hurt you, Mattel. 

Again, I look at collector Shanelle releasing for what looks like half the price of Skelita while looking twice as finely-crafted, and I can't ignore the disparity. Mattel wins at body design and sculpt diversity while MGA wins at clothing craft, but these days, is Mattel really holding onto the former claim anymore? They still sculpt great, but Monster High engineering has been spotty and is running into problems with restrictions in the neck joints, deliberate and not, even though they fixed the G1 elbows. Mattel's got a killer team of sculptors and designers, but their factories and budgets and pricing scheme are embarrassing them. I always have to consider that Mattel's production circumstances may be more comparatively ethical than MGA's, and maybe there's something sketchier going on with MGA that shortchanges the labor more in order to deliver more for less. But on the face-value consumer view of things, it feels unfair for Mattel to ask so much for their dolls. I like the character of Mattel's content more than MGA's perpetual focus on trendiness over soul, but in this moment, MGA is able to style all over Mattel with the kind of quality it's offered in its price ranges.

Aztec Skelita's dress is trimmed with a long soft lacy strip. 

This is the one area where 2016 Skelita is undeniably the champion--her custom calavera-patterned lace was incredible.

Aztec Skelita's shoes are her least visible feature, but they're golden sandals with Quetzalcóatl heels.

I stalled on photos for this doll until autumn was truly showing outside. Once it did, I had fun putting her against the different foliage and colorful leaves. I also threw a wooden festive skeleton and the most recent LEGO calaca woman in as props for her.

This colorless photo came out incredible.

The hydrangeas in my garden have gotten redder and redder during their bloom this year, and looked great behind Skelita.

Then I got some pictures of her kneeling in a carpet of yellow leaves. Her skirt looks so much better when it's spread across the ground and a little bit stuffed. As a flat triangle above the ground when Skelita stands up straight, it looks less graceful.

Here she is against some green leaves to explore her greener notes.

I then did a few candlelit photos with an indoor tableau to add to my collection of photos from the previous collector Skelita reviews.

This doll's visual design is impeccable. She's intelligently coordinated and mapped out with bold colors, stunning detail, and a keen sense of balance to give the design its best impact. My only critique of her look would be the absence of bracelets. Her production is about half as good as her look. The unpainted back of her headdress is a letdown I expected, but still bad. Elements of her faceup designs are not aligned properly. Her skirt feels like it should be more puffed than flat, her stand just doesn't work reliably, and her dress is a cheap satiny material and fakes its embroidery effect. I'd probably prefer a more expensive doll with higher quality so she could do better justice to her own concept, because the actual design is perfection. Mattel has been raising their prices while also seeming to raise their design quality, but I'm expecting the Us and Alien Skullector dolls to stand on their prices a bit better than this Skelita does. She's an incredible visual, but I just wish she had more polish. 

The visual always wins me over, anyway.