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.

The market for reborn dolls has absolutely exploded in the past five years, thanks to a widespread implementation of art techniques that allow for more realistic-looking dolls. The berenguer and preemie dolls that have sold for years can be credited partially for the craze brought on by reborn dolls, as they began the trend of lifelike qualities and expressions that make them reminiscent of a real human baby.

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.

Reborn dolls will then have real human hair or soft human-like faux hair added for the hair and eyelashes, often by hand and strand by strand, to help create the human look. This can take dozens of hours. Once the hair is completed, the doll is put back together again. At this point softer fillings and other items, like sound boxes to create the illusion of breathing, or a heartbeat, may be added to make the completed doll seem even more life-like.

For the people who would like to create one of reborn dolls by themselves, there are kits designed to let the buyer make one without too much effort. Those who truly desire one, however, will buy one no matter the cost, even if it is several hundred dollars. The new trend is to give these dolls to brand new mothers as a memento of their child's 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.