"On the occasion of Tet, a customer sent me 30 Baby Three dolls at once and asked me to complete them within a week as gifts. I painted continuously all night long to finish them because I was busy selling food during the day," Phan Duyen (29 years old), living in Dong Nai, shared about her unique job, "making up" Baby Three, the type of doll that created a blind unboxing craze among young people since mid-2024.
Many young people are "crazy" about the cuteness of these big-eyed dolls, affectionately called "Baby Ba", not only spending a lot of money to buy them but also sparing no expense in beautifying them.
The order to do makeup for 30 Baby Three dolls before Tet brought Phan Duyen about 4.5 million VND in salary. She started painting the faces of Baby Three dolls in October 2024.
Phan Duyen's Baby Threes have their faces painted, eyes painted and accessories added.
As a lover of drawing, the first time Duyen painted the face of Baby Three doll was to please her niece. The child was very excited and praised her aunt's skills. Inspired, she drew more Baby Three dolls and posted them online.
"At first, some people criticized me, saying that drawing like that and then posting it online. But because I like drawing, I ignored it, just kept working and learning from my experience to improve. Then, luckily, a few clips became trends on TikTok, so many customers knew about it and sent me dolls to draw," Phan Duyen said.
In January 2025, she received about 250 orders to paint Ba's face, earning more than 37 million VND. Duyen charges a uniform price of 150,000 VND for makeup for each doll, regardless of whether the doll is big or small, difficult or easy. In addition to the cost of labor, customers also have to pay a lot of costs for sending and receiving the doll, so Duyen thinks this price is reasonable.
The "doll makeup artist" said the hardest part is communicating to understand the customer's needs. This job is not simply face painting but eye makeup to match the overall look. She often follows the impressionist art school, so most of the customers who come to her also have quite strong personalities.
Duyen has to spend time researching the decorative designs that customers request. It takes about 2 hours to make each doll; sometimes she spends that much time discussing and understanding the customer's ideas.
"Another difficulty I encountered during the face painting process was choosing the material. Baby Three's face is made of plastic, so using nail polish was the best and most economical. The first time I sprayed the paint on, it smudged, so I had to throw it away, buy a new one, and start over for the customer," Duyen said.
The number of customers is large so Phan Duyen always has to stay up all night to deliver the goods on time.
Through the beautification process, Baby Three dolls become unique and express the owner's personality.
Not only Phan Duyen, the Baby Three doll unboxing craze has helped many other young people earn extra income thanks to the service of dressing up this toy. Since December 2024, Nguyen Ha (30 years old, Ho Chi Minh City) has also taken advantage of her free time during maternity leave to try painting Baby Three's face and eyes.
She said: "I also really like cartoon characters so I wanted to try drawing faces for dolls. The cost of buying brushes and paints is about 1 million VND for beginners. When I first started, I had no intention of selling, just posting it online for fun, I didn't expect that many people would ask me to draw them later."
Ha usually charges between VND150,000 and VND300,000 for dolls, depending on their size. Face-painted dolls usually come in three sizes: original, 4x larger, and 10x larger. Sometimes, when her workload is too much, she has to ask her friends to help her pay her customers on time.
Her customers come from all over the country, from Ho Chi Minh City to the Central Highlands, Da Nang, Nghe An, Hanoi... In January alone, she received orders from more than 100 customers. Some customers even sent dozens of doll models to paint at the same time.
Many young people who are passionate about dolls spare no expense to refurbish Baby Ba.
Baby Three models are increasingly diverse.
"The job of painting doll faces is quite busy because there are many customers and mass production is not possible, each product needs to be meticulously painted. However, I am very happy because the Ba babies bring in a considerable amount of income in my spare time, and I also get to do the job I love: drawing," Ha shared.
HOANG HA - Vtcnew.vn
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