A Shore number can be useful. It can also become one of those wonderfully compact marketing numbers that appears to explain an entire product while quietly explaining much less.
For realistic dolls, the useful question is not simply “What Shore is it?”
The useful questions are:
- which Shore scale;
- what material was tested;
- under what conditions;
- whether the value applies to the finished product, a sample slab, or one material layer;
- and what else in the construction changes how the finished doll actually feels.
Shore hardness is an indentation test
ASTM D2240 describes durometer hardness as an indentation-hardness measurement for elastomeric and related materials.
A shaped indentor is pressed into the material under defined conditions. The reading depends on how far the indentor penetrates and on the material’s elastic and viscoelastic response.
That gives a repeatable test value when the method is controlled.
It does not turn softness into one universal number that can be compared without context.
The scale matters
ASTM D2240 includes multiple durometer types, including Shore A, Shore OO, Shore OOO, and others.
Those scales use different indentor geometries and forces for different material ranges.
ASTM explicitly notes that there is no simple relationship between measurements obtained with different durometer types.
So these two statements are not equivalent:
This material is Shore 10 A.
This material is Shore 10 OO.
A listing that publishes only “Shore 10” without the scale has left out part of the measurement.
A Shore number is not a realism score
Indentation hardness is one material property.
It does not directly encode:
- whether the surface is matte or glossy;
- whether a TPE formulation feels oily or dry;
- whether a body uses a gel insert or soft core;
- how thick the outer material layer is;
- how close the skeleton or internal structure sits to the surface;
- whether the shape distributes pressure over a wide or narrow area;
- or whether two different materials recover from deformation in the same way.
Two products can therefore carry similar hardness numbers and still feel meaningfully different in the hand.
That is not a contradiction. It is what happens when a single material-property test meets an entire assembled object.
Test context matters
A defensible hardness comparison should preserve as much of the measurement context as the source actually provides.
Useful details include:
- Shore scale;
- test method;
- specimen or layer tested;
- temperature if published;
- material thickness or specimen geometry if published;
- whether the number is a manufacturer specification, seller claim, owner measurement, or independent test;
- exact body, head, revision, or option to which it applies.
If those details are missing, DJP Dolls does not invent them.
A sparse number stays a sparse number.
“10% softer” needs a method
Percentage softness claims deserve extra suspicion because the percentage can hide the test itself.
If a manufacturer says a new material is “10% softer,” useful follow-up questions are:
- 10% softer by which measurement?
- Which Shore scale?
- Compared with which previous formulation?
- Same specimen thickness?
- Same temperature?
- Same probe, dwell time, and test method?
- Is the percentage from a measured hardness change or from an internal subjective comparison?
Without that context, the safe public wording is simply that the manufacturer claims the newer material is softer.
The percentage should not be promoted into independent technical fact merely because arithmetic looks serious on a product page.
Finished-doll softness is a system property
The outer elastomer is only one part of the feel of a completed doll.
The internal design can change how much material compresses before the user encounters firmer structure underneath it. Product-level factors can include wall thickness, foam or hollow regions, gel or soft-core inserts, breast construction, skeleton stand-off, and local geometry.
This is why DJP Dolls separates:
material hardness from finished-product feel.
The first can sometimes be measured with a standardized instrument.
The second may require product-specific construction evidence or actual hands-on observation.
Manufacturer value, seller value, and owner measurement are different evidence
Suppose three sources publish three hardness numbers for what appears to be the same doll.
That does not automatically mean somebody is lying.
Possible explanations include:
- different material revisions;
- different body regions;
- different scales;
- different specimen thicknesses;
- seller transcription errors;
- a sample material value being presented as a finished-product value;
- owner measurement conditions that do not reproduce the manufacturer method.
The evidence should stay separated until the difference is explained.
Averaging the numbers together would create a cleaner table and a worse fact.
A practical buyer checklist
When a listing uses Shore hardness as a selling point, look for:
- The scale: A, OO, OOO, or another named scale.
- The exact product: body, head, revision, or material option.
- The source: factory, retailer, owner, or independent tester.
- The comparison basis: what previous material or product is being compared.
- The test context: any published method, temperature, thickness, or specimen information.
If only one number survives that checklist, treat it as limited evidence rather than a full prediction of feel.
Ask for the scale and test context, not just the number
A useful hardness answer identifies what was actually tested and how the value relates to the product being sold.
Technical reference set checked for this preview
This guide follows the framing of the DJP Dolls materials-science primer and was cross-checked against ASTM D2240, the active standard test method for durometer hardness of rubber, thermoplastic elastomers, gel-like materials, and related substances.
ASTM D2240 describes the test as an empirical indentation-hardness method, notes that the result depends on material behavior and test geometry, and warns that measurements from different durometer types do not have a simple direct relationship.
That is enough to support the central buying rule here:
Always keep the Shore scale and test context attached to the number.
Everything beyond that has to be earned by the evidence for the actual doll.