Toca Hair Salon 2 Review

Toca Hair Salon 2 is a new app from Toca Boca, updating their hit app Toca Hair Salon, allowing players to now curl and add waves to hair as well as offer clients more accessories to experiment with.

As popular as Toca Hair Salon is, an app that I have reviewed here on GiggleApps, is, I am sure many readers are wondering what the difference is between the two apps, and if the new app is worth purchasing.

First, for those who do not know, the Toca Hair Salon apps allow children to cut, style and color a variety of characters' hair, including men, women, and animal-type creatures.

Looking at these apps side by side, a few differences do stand out, as I was surprised to see only four new characters in Toca Hair Salon 2 instead of six new faces as this is the case in the original app. I also do miss the opening of entering the salon fully setting up the location of this app. I do however, really appreciate the larger size of the new salon and the depth created, as one can see clear out the back windows to the cars driving by.

Another nice change in this app is how before when a tool was chosen, the selection would scroll left or right to make the tools become accessible, but in this new app, the background changes as well, moving the character into new areas of the salon such as a photo-taking area complete with a selection of backdrops where players can take a photo of the new look a client now has, an accessories station with bows, barrettes and the like, as well as another area dedicated to hair, glasses and other items to wear. I also appreciate bringing the client to separate sections to have their hair washed, colored or styled with heat.

The big change in the new app is the inclusion of a razor, straightening iron, and a curling iron and crimper, complete with interesting metallic sound effects as well as the old tools such as comb, scissors, buzzers and the wonderful magic G.R.O.W formula to grow back hair once it has been cut or shaved off.

The ability to wash and dry hair also exists for Toca Salon 2 as it does now in the original, but I would really like to be able to bring the characters original texture back to their hair with a shampoo as well as washing the color out if their hair, especially if one could see the colors wash away out of their hair. A special second product could be added after dyeing if users wanted the color to be permanent.

Those familiar with both apps will find other fun new details as well, such as being able to spray color into hair through the foam from the shampoo, but I do wish one could blow dry off the hair accessories in this new app as you can do so in the first salon application.

I really enjoy the look of the new app as I find it really polished, but I wish there were more precision in being able to style the hair, as it is not possible to curl just a small area without nearby tufts of hair becoming affected as well. I also have an easier time just adding streaks of color into the hair of the old characters.

Even with these notes, I am very impressed with the look and use of the new Toca Salon 2 app. The update will be welcome by Toca fans, I am sure. I asked my husband if he would have paid for this update and the answer was a definite yes, coming from a man not known for paying a lot of money on applications.

I do hope for more characters in a future update, however and I wish their personalities were not so accommodating as they seem happy all the time - even when I do terrible things to their hair, as this would not have gone over well with the characters in the original app who are not shy about showing their emotions, an element I love in many Toca Boca apps.

Having made these notes, Toca Hair Salon 2 is an intriguing app that fans as well as those new to Toca Boca will enjoy a great deal.

Although it is always fun to receive an update to an app that offers new content, I am happy to see that this is a completely new app - not an in-app purchase or paid add-ons that I find problematic and unappealing, as do many other parents.