The creation of dolls that appear more realistic, lifelike, and more similar to a human child has become a current trend for collectors and hobbyists. Known as "reborn dolls," this trend is paving the way to a new market for hobbymakers and others involved in the collectable world. Being able to create lifelike dolls is consistently spreading throughout the community of craftspeople who have grown bored with the more traditionally-sold retail dolls.

In recent years the reborn dolls market has really taken off because of the expanding use of techniques that make the dolls more life-like. The popularity of the berenguer and preemie dolls that have been around for a long time seems to be driving the reborn doll craze. The berenguer and preemie dolls are very realistic in size and appearance.

Often, reborn dolls are created using a specific process that works to strip the doll of its artificial appearance and trappings to create a more realistic looking and feeling model. The process usually starts with the disassembly of the doll and the removal of the paint that was applied at the production facility. This stripping of the paint off leaves a plastic shell that can then be altered as needed.

A lot of methods are used while making reborn dolls to make them look more realistic. To make the skin color of the doll look natural a purple color is added to the inside of the plastic parts. This process adds color tones beneath the plastic. After that the outside of the doll is painted with many different skin colored paints. To make the doll look even more lifelike they even go as far to use other techniques and styles to add skin lines and blemishes.

Using real human hair or soft, humanlike mohawk faux fair, hair and eyelashes are added to the doll, causing the reborn dolls to have human-like characteristics. This process can take dozens of hours, since it is often done by hand and by strand. After application of the hair or hair-like features, the doll is reassembled with a softer filling and underbelly. Other additions may also be added, such as a breathing or heartbeat sound to create a realistic sense of the dolls being alive.

Reborn doll kits, which are ideal for those who wish to make their own reborn doll without a vast amount of work, are now available. However, the people who really want one have no problem spending upwards of a few hundred dollars to obtain one. The dolls are also popular gifts for mothers of new babies, as these dolls are reminiscent of their child's condition after birth.

The Berenguer and Preemie Dolls are partly to credit for the new trend in creating more lifelike dolls. Dolls can be taken apart to create Reborn Dolls which takes dozens of hours of work including painting the interior purple and using many shades of paint to create the same coloring as a human baby. Each strand of hair is added by hand and the doll is reassembled with softer filling. People are willing to pay as high as a few hundred dollars to have one made instead of making one from Reborn Doll Kits. New mothers are the typical recipients as a keepsake imitating their newborn child.