Toca Hair Salon Me

Common Sense Media says

Kids play hair stylist for mom, the dog, or even themselves.

Age(i)

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Quality(i)

 

Learning(i)

(i)
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Toca Hair Salon Me gallery

What parents need to know

Ease of play

It's very easy to create hairstyles and take photos, although inserting the images and lining up the eyes and mouth to animate the face may take a few tries before kids can master it. 

Violence & scariness
Not applicable
Sexy stuff
Not applicable
Language
Not applicable
Consumerism

Other Toca Boca apps are promoted in a kid-protected area of the site (adults need to enter their birth year to access it), and a small icon ad for another Toca Boca app appears in the right corner of the main screen.

Drinking, drugs, & smoking
Not applicable
Privacy & safety

No personal information, such as name or email address, is required to use this app. Photos manipulated on this app can be shared. Toca Boca's Privacy Policy is posted on its website, as is a link to opt out of the anonymous analytics the app collects. 

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Toca Hair Salon Me is a creative hairstyling app that lets kids insert their own photos or those of friends, family members, and pets onto the app. As the third in a popular series of Toca Boca hairstyling apps, Toca Hair Salon Me animates these personal photos to create movement in the faces' eyes and mouth while kids are styling the hair, making them similar to the digital characters on the previous Toca Hair Salon apps but personalized. As kids are washing, coloring, blow-drying, cutting, and accessorizing the hair, the faces wince, smile, wink, and more. If kids cut too much, there's a can of G.R.O. at the ready to fix the mistake with more hair instantly. Kids also can insert different backgrounds, take photos of their creations, and share them. 

What kids can learn

Subjects

Hobbies

  • fashion

Skills

Thinking & Reasoning

  • decision-making

Creativity

  • imagination

Self-Direction

  • self-assessment

Emotional Development

  • identifying emotions
  • perspective taking

Responsibility & Ethics

  • embracing differences

Tech Skills

  • digital creation
  • using and applying technology

Engagement, Approach, Support

Engagement

Highly engaging, as kids use their own images and those of people and pets in their lives. With so many choices for styling, this app can keep kids in the hairstyling business for multiple, extended, and focused play sessions. 

Learning Approach

Kids learn by using technology to be creative and by making decisions about how they want the person in the photo to look. Kids can view their creations and assess their work. 

Support

Toca Boca apps encourage free play with very few directions, and Toca Hair Salon Me is no exception. A visual example and a few more tips on how to size images and line up the eyes and mouth for certain effects would be a nice addition. 

What kids can learn

Subjects

Hobbies

  • fashion

Skills

Thinking & Reasoning

  • decision-making

Creativity

  • imagination

Self-Direction

  • self-assessment

Emotional Development

  • identifying emotions
  • perspective taking

Responsibility & Ethics

  • embracing differences

Tech Skills

  • digital creation
  • using and applying technology

Kids can learn how creating hair styles on images of themselves and people they know can change a person's look using Toca Hair Salon Me. As kids make decisions about which tools to use and how they want each head to look, they're learning about their own fashion preferences and creativity, as well as gaining a new perspective on the preferences and styles of others. The process of taking a photo, then sizing it to fit the app's tool to make the hair and facial expressions look as realistic as possible, also provides a lesson in using and applying technology to create new digital images. This creative app empowers kids to envision wild styles on themselves and others with no long-term bad hair days.

This Learning Rating review was written by Dana Villamagna

What's it about?

Tap "play" on TOCA HAIR SALON ME's main page and select a photo from your device's camera roll to style. Choose a head shape and pinch or expand your fingers to size the image to the head. Tap the green arrow to move onto the mouth- and eyes-sizing and centering page. When complete, start styling! Cut, curl, comb, color, and more by tapping and moving your finger around. Swipe the bottom of the screen for more options.

Is it any good?

QUALITY
 

Toca Hair Salon Me is a creative app experience that's as sticky as super-strong hair gel. Just as with the other Toca Hair Salon apps, there are so many styling options, but this app takes the fun to a new level because kids are actually styling themselves and people (or pets) they know. Some creations and the facial expressions the images respond with are laugh-out-loud funny. Sizing the images just right, and lining up the eyes and mouth to assist the app in getting the facial expressions properly placed, likely will be difficult for many kids on the younger side of this app's target audience, and they may need assistance. Some older kids may need a few tries before mastering the process, but it's worth the practice time and patience. Kids who loved the first two Toca Hair Salon apps may find this one a bit more of a technical challenge, but it's just as much fun and has just as much open-ended creativity.

Families can talk about...

  • Discuss with your kid how hair styles can help express a person's unique identity and fashion style. Is it fun to make the hair on someone you know (or yourself) look completely different on this app from what it would in real life? 

  • Remind younger users that it's not advised to cut their own hair and to reserve scissors for paper only. G.R.O. is not a real product! 

  • Explore together what each of you could do in real life to take a perhaps less extreme but still fun fashion risk to express yourself creatively.

App details

Devices:iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Price:$2.99
Release date:February 2, 2014
Category:Entertainment
Size:78.70 MB
Publisher:Toca Boca
Version:1.01
Minimum software requirements:iOS 5.0 or later

This review of Toca Hair Salon Me was written by

Dana Villamagna

About our rating system

  • ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
  • PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids.
  • OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
  • NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids of any age.

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Quality

Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

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Learning ratings

  • Best: Really engaging, great learning approach.
  • Very Good: Engaging, good learning approach.
  • Good: Pretty engaging, good learning approach.
  • Fair: Somewhat engaging, okay learning approach.
  • Not for Learning: Not recommended for learning.
  • Not for Kids: Not age-appropriate for kids; not recommended for learning.

Find out more

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