Piper Dolls Manga & Anime Style Sex Dolls | Mizuwali Interview
The following interview was given to us courtesy of Doll Forever:
"This is the first part of our interview with Piper designer & photographer - Mizuwali.
We truly learned something about the sex doll business and Piper Doll through this conversation, we hope you'll feel the same, we'll try to release the second part soon...
Why is Piper more expensive than other TPE sex doll brands & what are your selling points?
Mizuwali: We all know that the biggest character of Piper Doll is the seamless neck design, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the only brand offers such special design at this point. On one hand, I believe such a design makes the dolls look more realistic and integrated, but it also drives up the cost dramatically. Most of the doll fans may not know this but for TPE dolls, the possibility of the head suffering from surface defects during producing is much higher compared with the body. For traditional separated head and body design, it’s not a big issue, if the head turns out defective, we can just move on and produce a new one, the extra cost is fairly limited. For Piper Doll, however, that’s not the case anymore, if the head suffers from a small defect, the whole doll will be considered as defective and we’ll have to start all over. On top of that, the difficulty not only lies in producing, but it will also affect the following procedures as well, like trimming, cleaning, powdering, making up, packing and so on. In order to deal with all the potential issues, we have to spend longer time and hire more skilled technicians to do the job, it was all reflected in the tremendous increase of the company’s overhead when we first started. With all that added up, the prices of Piper Doll being much more expensive than other brands is really not a surprise.
Besides the cost of technics, material is a core part of our business too. We use the best TPE material we can get our hands-on, I believe all the Piper doll owners can back me up here. One thing that separates us from the average doll manufacturers is that we never use secondhand material (Formed TPE material can be fluidized and reuse), because the use of secondhand TPE material will decrease the quality dramatically (both softness and anti-tear resistance), it will also undermine the purity and odour of the material, that’s why we have a strict policy against the use of secondhand TPE material despite the higher cost on our end.
In addition, we believe the original style and design is one of our biggest selling points, despite the fact that Piper Doll is still a small brand, we can tell that more and more customers begin to appreciate what we’re offering, we’re deeply touched by that and we’ll continue to devote ourselves to making better seamless dolls.
Piper dolls have seamless neck design, is the quality good enough?
Mizuwali: The answer is yes, we’ve got a lot of positive feedback from our customers on TDF, I believe what the customers have posted is extremely fair and objective, saves me a lot of words here.
Besides the seamless neck design, is there any other special design on Piper dolls?
Mizuwali: As I mentioned earlier, we stick to the principle of original, it’s something really hard for the other Chinese doll manufacturers to do. I believe it’s a special character for us. We also pay close attention to the details, for example, the wigs, most of the doll manufacturers will go with the wigs easily available on the market, our wigs are all customized, that’s why they fit our dolls so well, it’s not a coincidence. Other than that, we spend a big chunk of our time improving the skeletons, we’ll try out new components to make the skeletons easier and smoother to operate. I’m a photographer myself and I know our customers enjoy taking photos for their dolls, we understand what an important role the skeletons play here. We’ll try some new technics to perfect the details in 2019, we really look forward to what Piper will be able to offer in 2019.
Many customers asked me if it’s ok to take a bath for the Piper dolls, is that ok? What should we pay attention to during that process? Will the water get inside of the doll? If that’s not possible, can you tell me why?
Mizuwali: I don’t have a certain answer to this question, it actually depends on what the customers want. In theory, it’s totally ok, but if I have a choice I won’t recommend the customers to do that, not because we’re afraid that water will get inside of the doll, the truth is we’ve applied a special design to our dolls that will solve this problem perfectly. The reason why I don’t want the customers to try that is that all the TPE material has holes on its surface, they’re invisible to the naked eye, of course, they will suck up the water and make it harder to fully dry out the doll. By the way, some manufacturers choose to use a piece of TPE material to block the bottom of each tunnel, from our previous experiences, it can’t prevent the water from coming in completely, if your doll is not a Piper, it’s better for you to ask the manufacturer for advice before you do anything like that.
Compared with silicone, what’s so special and difficult applying makeup on the TPE material? Have you and your team come up with some ways to solve these issues? Is there an easy way for the customers to redo the makeup if it comes off?
Mizuwali: Due to the higher density of silicone material, most of the silicone doll manufacturers use air guns to spray the makeup onto the dolls, followed by a special procedure (Like high-temperature heat) that will allow the makeup to stay for a very long period of time, the problem is we can’t duplicate the same procedures if we want to apply makeup onto the TPE material, it’s a challenge all the TPE doll manufacturers are facing up with right now. Like I mentioned before, TPE material has millions of holes on its surface when we spray the makeup onto it, it won’t be able to stay, it will be absorbed and diffused by the TPE material slowly but eventually. I know many TPE doll manufacturers use mark pens to do the makeup, but we won’t do that, I don’t think an explanation will be necessary here (Laughters). For now, all the makeup material we apply on our dolls is made for real human, it’s much safer for our customers and easily attainable. How the customers can redo the makeup themselves is a very good question, I think the biggest problem is the eyebrows, simply making them symmetrical can be a big challenge (Laughters)! For the Piper 140cm Ariel, along with the Piper 130cm Phoebe and 150cm Eirian, we’ve sculptured the eyebrows onto the moulds, in this way the customers can see and feel where the eyebrows are supposed to be and redo the makeup accordingly, it’s barely a challenge anymore. About the rest parts, maybe we can make some tutorial videos to show our customers how to redo the makeup as a temporary solution.
Will more vagina options be available soon?
Mizuwali: Yes, more Piper Doll vagina options will be available soon in 2019. (It was 2018 when this conversation took place, the new Piper Doll vagina options are already available at this point).
Piper series dolls have great photos, but we’ve heard some customers complained about the real dolls not being as pretty as the photos, what do you think about it? Do you have any suggestions for the customers to avoid such problems when they’re shopping for dolls?
Mizuwali: The official photos of Piper dolls must be the most realistic I’ve ever seen (Laughters). This question is actually very subjective, I don’t think it only happens to Piper dolls, lots of the products from our competitors have great photos too, but the photos released by the customers were just horrifying, I can only say that all the official photos you saw on our websites were taken by me and none of them were touched by any photos processing software. For starter, I don’t know how to use the software, I also don’t see what benefits we’ll be able to get if we use them to sugar up the dolls, we just spent a lot of time on the lighting, makeup and doing whatever it took to bring the dolls to life. Other than the natural looks of the dolls, the owners’ willingness to dress up them plays a key part too. Some owners don’t even bother to run a comb through the doll’s wig before they take the photos, of course, the doll will look awful under such circumstance. As the designers, we can only design and produce a sole body for the dolls, it’s what the owners choose to do that will give the doll a soul and make a real difference.
Wigs, facial expressions, outfits and postures are all very important when we’re interacting with the dolls, isn’t it the truth? Nobody will show any interests in a doll messed up in every single way, at least I can’t do it (Laughters). Of course, every doll is unique, all the makeup is 100% handmade and there will be slight difference every time we do it, we’ll try our best to minimize the difference, but we’re people, not robots, you know.
To be continued..."