The annual Hair Fair in Second Life raises money for Wigs for Kids. Every item sold donates a percentage to the project.
The six Regions* of Hair Fair are open from June 1st to June 16th. You can buy hair, hairbases, facial hair (like beards, brows, and lashes), poses, props, and hair accessories.
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| Map of Hair Fair: Note what looks like neat terraforming! |
If you aren't in the mood for hair, you can buy one of at least 60 styles of bandanas, or a cute Hare Toy, or you can just donate to a kiosk.
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| Some of the hares and bandanas |
If you join the Hair Fair Demo Group you can get a copy of every demo available. Even though not every Hair Fair merchant has provided a demo, my 'Hair Fair Demo 2024' folder, before unpacking, shows 50 items. Each item holds multiple subfolders.(Unpacking and trying on hair is going to take forever..)
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| Showing my 'Hair Fair Demo' folder and one of many demos. |
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About hair in Second Life: In Second Life you can't go to a barber shop or a hair salon to change your hair style - your prim or mesh hair is added to your avatar.
The Standard Second Life avatars usually come with hair, but you can take it off and put on other styles. You can buy hair inworld, or on the Marketplace. As of 6-3-24 there were currently 214438 hair items listed on the Marketplace. You can get hair as a gift at inworld shops and at some of the booths at the Hair Fair. You can also try uploading several of the Choose-your-avatars and swapping their hair around.
A note of caution: Some hair styles can be very 'primmy' - they use up a lot of computer resources. Two hair demos I tried brought my 23,000 complexity avatar up to 102,863 and 115,749 respectively.
Hair History in Second Life:**The original 'Ruth' avatar 's hair was part of the body and could be changed with sliders.
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| The original Ruth (wearing more modern clothing) |
Prim hair was some of the very first hair in Second Life. It was sometimes called "Helmet hair".
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| Left: This is a 'vintage''Asymetric Bob' by Truth Hawks from the SL Library. Hair color was changed by choosing different color wigs from inventory, or tinting. Right: Dark hair base. |
Later hair was made of regular prims, sculpted prims, flexi prims, mesh prims, or a combination of these. As avatars became more complex, hair became more complex and hair problems got more complex. ( for info about BOM problems, see this article.)
Some hair terms:
Hair Base: In your inventory System the hair base is shown as the symbol of a little wig. On mesh heads, you might have to use the HUD that came with the head to remove the hair base. They are usually worn so that your skin doesn't show through the hair, but are sometimes worn on their own. A hair base is a 'wear' item, meaning you can only wear one at a time and it can only be replaced with another airbase.
Hair tattoo: An item that colors your scalp as the same shade as your prim or mesh hair. In your inventory it shows the symbol of a tattoo, a sort of squiggle. It is an 'add' item, and you can wear more than one. You take it off by using the "Take off" command.
Hair HUD: Often is included when you buy hair and allows you to change the color, texture, or style of the hair you bought.
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| Hair with HUD that changes hair colors. ( Note clipping on top of arm.) |
Rigged hair:"Rigged" is a term that means that a model (your hair) is linked to the bones of your avatar skeleton and will bend and move with you. (Note that not all avatars have skeletons.)
Flexi hair: "Flexi" refers to a prim that can move or sway. Flexi hair may be added to mesh or prim hair to make it look more natural.
Clipping: When your hair (or other object) appears to go through your body. To avoid this try to buy the hair that is made for your specific body type. I try to always try a demo before buying and move around in it before buying.
Thank you to Lindal Kidd and other residents for most of the above information.
*Named Streaks, Brunette, Foils, Noirette, Redhead, Blonde,
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