Your hairstyle may be getting its very own emoji soon
Our hair is a big part of our identities. But when it comes to finding an emoji that represents us, there aren't that many options to choose from.
There's some hope on the horizon. The Unicode Technical Committee just added emoji for curly hair, white hair, red hair, and baldness as candidates for 2018's Unicode release. If accepted, they could be added to our emoji keyboards mid-2018.
The addition of these four new characters intends to provide "methods of representing white hair, curly (or afro) hair, and baldness," according to the proposal submitted to the committee.
The proposal involves the creation of four new, standalone emoji which would support skin tones and genders.
Jeremy Burge -- founder of Emojipedia and Unicode Emoji Subcommittee member -- says the earliest release date for the emoji would be mid-2018.
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Earlier this year, the possibility of a red-haired emoji was discussed at the Unicode Technical Committee meeting hosted by Apple at its campus in Cupertino, California. Several options were discussed, and it was concluded that the creation of a new, standalone "Person With Red Hair" emoji would be the most straightforward option. But this new development extends the representation to curly-haired, white-haired, and bald people.
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Sadly though, there aren't plans in this proposal to include "non-naturally occurring features, such as blue hair." So, if you're trying to find an emoji to represent your millennial pink balayage, you might have to wait a little longer.
Watch this space, people!
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
