Hairdo Ponies

The three Hairdo Ponies were the latest iteration of Hasbro's hair-styling ranges of ponies. Each pony was coated in a pearly sheen, and each had two plastic twisties (officially called 'bendies', but that sounds even weirder!) attached - one in the mane and one at the top of the tail. The plastic here was soft and coated over wire to make it literally twist, in order to enable hair styling. They are a bit like alien tentacles! They can sometimes break, showing the wire inside, lose the bow on the end of the mane twisty or come out of the pony completely. This has a significant impact on the pony's value. As can be seen on the promotional images, they also had strange 'fringes' instead of equine forelocks. These can easily get brushed back under the mane.

The "bendies" as shown on the box

These three ponies were sold in the UK and in Europe, probably also in Australasia. They were not sold in North America. One of the ponies, Starlight, was based on the Seven Character pony, who was also on sale the same year. The other two were new characters. All three were earth ponies.

The Hairdo Ponies were sold with a unique type of comb which was a mirror - these are shown below. The combs were also given away as a free gift on the pony comic at some point in 1993. My sister and I both had pink combs, belonging to Starlight, but I am not sure whether all three combs were offered.

Hairdo Pony Combs

I had Bangles as a childhood pony and purchased Beautiful Bows direct from Hasbro UK in around 1994. Her box was no different from any other hairdo pony box, and was in English. It is likely that German and French boxed versions of these ponies also appeared in the UK. The boxes were in lurid pink as was standard for all ponies in the 1993 line, and was translated depending on distribution area. The story on the back of the box was the same for all three ponies, and each package had a name sticker on the front identifying who the box belonged to.

Mint in Box Beautiful Bows
UK, 1993
Image from pikaboo