My Experience with Hair Color Try On
Look, I’m not a salon person. I don’t have time for a three-hour dye session and a hundred-dollar bill. I was using some other virtual color app, but it took forever to map my hair and the colors looked fake. I saw a post about Hair Color Try On on a forum last Tuesday night and figured, why not? I’ve had it on my iPhone 14 for a few months now. My main goal was to see if a dark espresso brown would look professional for client meetings, or if I should just stick with my natural color. The first time I used it, I was impressed by how quickly it loaded and recognized my face. I got my answer in about two minutes—espresso was a yes—which is exactly the kind of efficiency I need. I even contacted support once when a color glitched on my sideburns, and while they did fix the issue, I had to wait almost four days for a reply. For someone who wants answers now, that wait was annoying.
Features Worth Noting
The speed is the best feature, hands down. You open the app, point the camera, and bam—your hair is a different color. The live preview is genuinely useful. I could walk into my kitchen under different lighting on a Saturday morning and see how a coppery red looked in natural light versus my dim living room. That side-by-side comparison slider is also a killer tool. It lets you drag between your original look and the new color, which is way more effective than just seeing two static photos. The range of normal, professional colors is solid. I found about five shades of blonde and brown that actually looked plausible, not like a cartoon filter. I saved a few of the better ones to my camera roll to show my partner before I made any real decisions.
What Needs Work
The advertising model is absolutely brutal and completely ruins the user experience. You try on three colors, and then you’re hit with a 30-second unskippable ad for a mobile game. It completely shatters your focus. I was trying to decide between two ash browns last week, got interrupted by an ad, and by the time it was over, I’d forgotten which one I liked. It feels punitive for using a free app. Also, while the color mapping is fast, it’s not always precise. On shorter hair or around the hairline, the color can bleed onto your forehead or background a bit, which makes the final result look sloppy. For a quick visualization it’s fine, but don’t expect salon-brochure perfection.
Pricing
It’s free, which is the right price for what it is. They do offer in-app purchases to remove ads and to get “premium” color packs with fantasy shades like mermaid green. I have zero interest in looking like a unicorn, so the premium colors are useless to me. The only thing that might be worth paying for is the ad removal, but they want a recurring subscription for that. I’m not paying a monthly fee for an app I use maybe once every couple of months. I’d consider a one-time fee of a few bucks, but a subscription to try on hair colors is ridiculous. The value is in the free core tool, but you pay for it with your patience.
Developer Notes
The app is updated fairly regularly, which I noticed because my phone auto-updates apps weekly. I can’t say any update blew me away with new features, but it hasn’t broken either, so that’s something. The support experience, while slow, was at least competent. They didn’t send a canned response; they actually addressed my specific glitch. That tells me there’s a human somewhere behind the app, but they’re probably stretched thin. It feels like a side project for the developer, Toon Tech Ltd—functional and maintained, but not a top priority for rapid innovation or customer service.
Security & Privacy
This was a minor concern. The app asks for camera and photo library access, which is obviously necessary. I checked its App Store privacy label before downloading. It says data like your photos might be used for “app functionality” and isn’t linked to you. I only ever used the live camera mode because I didn’t want to upload personal photos to some server. It processes the live video on the device, which feels safer. I wouldn’t use this app to try on colors for a sensitive or private photo, but for a quick selfie session, the risk seems low and standard for this type of utility.
How fast does the Hair Color Try On app work for previewing a new color?
The app is very fast—it loads and recognizes your face in seconds, letting you see a new hair color in about two minutes. This makes it perfect for quickly testing professional shades like dark espresso brown before a meeting.
Does the app have a live preview or comparison feature?
Yes, it offers a live preview that shows how colors look under different lighting, like natural light versus indoor dim light. There's also a side-by-side comparison slider that lets you drag between your original hair and the new color for a more realistic view.
What should I do if a color glitches or doesn't map correctly on my hair?
You can contact the app's support team, and they will fix the issue, but be prepared for a wait—one user reported a four-day response time. For a quicker fix, try adjusting your position or lighting in the app to see if the glitch resolves on its own.
Are there too many ads in the app, and how do they affect the experience?
Yes, the ads are a major downside—after trying on just three colors, you'll face a 30-second unskippable ad that interrupts your focus. This can be frustrating if you're trying to compare multiple shades quickly.
How does Hair Color Try On compare to other virtual hair color apps?
Unlike some other apps that take forever to map your hair and produce fake-looking colors, this one maps quickly and offers realistic shades like plausible blondes and browns. However, its ad model is much more aggressive than competitors, which can ruin the flow of testing colors.
