2013, Simulator
WISE Score
A Toca Boca salon where the customer is anyone you photograph, from a sibling to the dog, and their face winces and winks as you cut.
A standout in the Toca Hair Salon series, because the customer is a real face. Kids photograph a sibling or a parent, then give them purple hair and a shaved side while the photo makes faces back.
It is a one-time $4.99 purchase with no ads or in-app purchases. The one thing to decide is about the photos: kids take pictures of people and can share the results, so agree on whose pictures are fair game.
Apple rates it 4+, and preschoolers can handle the tools. Common Sense Media suggests 8 and up, mainly because of the photo taking and sharing. In practice it fits about 4 to 9, with a parent helping with the camera part for younger kids.
Silly, warm play: kids give a sibling or a grandparent a purple mohawk while the photo winces and winks back. No winning, losing or pressure.
Fully open-ended styling with no right answer, and the real faces turn every session into a little comedy kids direct themselves.
A one-time purchase with no in-app purchases or third-party ads. It uses the camera and photos of real people, and finished looks can be shared, which is worth a family rule.
Builds creative choice-making and some fine motor control, plus a first feel for editing a photo. Not a learning app.
Toca Hair Salon Me came out in November 2013, between Toca Hair Salon 2 and Toca Hair Salon 3, and it swapped the cartoon customers for a photo. A kid snaps a picture of a sibling, a parent or the dog, or picks one from the camera roll, then lines up the eyes and mouth. From there the face winces when the scissors come out, smiles at the blow-dryer and winks at the finished look.
Giving Grandpa rainbow hair and a mustache is funnier than styling a stranger, and the reactions on the photo make every cut a small comedy.
The kit covers washing, rinsing, blow-drying, curling, straightening, crimping, shaving, trimming and spray-painting hair any color. Hats, sunglasses, clips and mustaches finish the look, and a photo from your own library can become the background. A bottle of G.R.O. grows cut hair back, so no snip is permanent. There is no score, no timer and no right answer.
It is a one-time $4.99 purchase with no in-app purchases, no chat and no third-party ads. Small icons promote other Toca Boca apps, behind a birth-year gate. The one thing to plan for is the camera: kids photograph real people and can save or share the results. Common Sense Media puts it at 8 and up for that reason, while Apple rates it 4+. A simple rule (ask first, and ask again before sharing) covers it.
The app was last updated in 2023. For a kid who would rather invent characters than style real faces, Toca Hair Salon 4 is the newer salon, and Toca Life World is the big open world. More in our guide to Toca Boca apps.
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