Stardoll Dress Up Teen Stars app review: create your star

Introduction

Just about every kid dreams about being a star at some point. Stardoll Dress Up Teen Stars allows your child to create the next big star in their own image. They get to choose the look that they think makes the star. It’s a whole lot of fun for any child, although there are a couple of little issues that take away from this one. It’s a free app and it’s compatible with the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod touch.

Dressing for Success

Kids like to play dress-up and while playing with dolls is still a favorite past time, many kids like to play dress-up on tablets and smartphones these days. There’s a whole host of apps in the App Store designed to cater to this desire. They all have their own different angles to appeal to a child’s needs, but Stardoll Dress Up is a unique app. It lets your child give makeovers to teen stars.

This app is just plain fun. Kids look up to the stars they see on TV and in music videos, and giving them a chance to makeover their favorite stars is a great idea. What I didn’t like about this app was the amount of in-app purchases required to make this app useable. Some of the teen stars are completely locked: you can’t make any changes to their wardrobe. It’s understandable that the developer would want to make some options only available through in-app purchases, but it’s very disappointing to find some stars completely unavailable. There are also pop-up ads in the app, but they weren’t very frequent so I didn’t find them to be a big issue. This app is actually quite large at 59.8MB.

How it Works

When you open the app you’ll be able to choose from five different teen stars to dress up. Once you make your selection, you’ll notice several different tubes on the left side with different clothing options you can choose from to dress up your star. That is, if any of them are unlocked. In the free version only two of the five stars have dress-up items that are unlocked, and even they have limited options available. In fact most of the app is blocked in the free version. This is definitely a big disappointment.

The selections that are available work very well, and there are some cool sound effects when you change a clothing item on your star. You can also change the background that the star is surrounded by which is a nice little feature. Once you’re satisfied with your star's look you can share your creation with social media, email it to a friend, save it, or print it. They’ve pretty much got all options covered here. Overall it works well, but there aren’t enough options available in the free version to keep your child occupied for very long. If you want to get the most out of this app you’re going to have to bite the bullet and purchase the full version.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• The app works smoothly and has some cool sound effects
• There is a lot of choice in the full version
• There are great options for sharing through social media

Cons

• Most options are locked in the free version
• Pop-up ads appear from time to time

Final Words

If your kids love to follow their favorite teen stars they’ll love this app. The app is fun and works well; it’s just too bad more options are not available in the free version.