Soft Vinyl Dolls - the Play Doll of today

Vinyl was really the material that doll manufacturers were searching for since the inception of the doll industry. It was unbreakable, soft and pleasing to a child's touch, and inexpensive to manufacture. Also, vinyl dolls could have rooted hair instead of wigged, which greatly enhanced play value of dolls, making doll's hair sturdy and easy to comb and brush.

What is Vinyl?

According to the dictionary, vinyl is "any of various compounds containing the vinyl radical, typically highly reactive, easily polymerized, and used as basic materials for plastics." It was an innovation for its time and revolutionized many consumer products, including dolls.

Vinyl dolls were first produced in the mid 1950s. At that time, nearly all dolls were made of hard plastic. Hard plastic was an innovation in its own right because it was unbreakable, but the dolls were very hard to the touch, they still required wigs and they were also prone to splitting at the seams. So, almost immediately, companies including Madame Alexander and Ideal made the jump to vinyl for nearly all play dolls. Vinyl is still the preferred material to make play dolls today.