Things Get Very Real When SL Users Describe Their Tastes in Virtual Hair

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Last week I asked NWN readers to describe how they like to wear their virtual hair, and something about the answers really took me by surprise. It turns out that when you ask people how they like their avatar's hair, the answers sound a lot like someone talking about their real hair. Maybe that only surprised me because I framed things more in terms of flexi and mesh than I did fringe and mousse, but, well...

Here's what I mean:

Commenter Selena Anansi wrote, "I change my hair color ever 6 months or so it seems, but I always stay with longer layers-no bangs with a bit of a wave to them." Meanwhile CronoCloud Creeggan's response to the post was something I've heard coming from the chair next to me a hundred times. "I don't want my hair too messy or piecey," Cronocloud wrote, "A little bit is fine." Adeon Writer, on the other hand doesn't care about the specifics. All his hair needs to do is go "under a hat."

"[S]ome amazing styles look awful on my shape and great on others," Aradia Enoch said in her comment, echoing something I've felt many times in RL. Rose Mackie also expressed something similar: " I just don't have the forehead for an unnatural hair line." Most of us have probably spent a few minutes unhappily flipping through the magazines at the salon/hairdresser, trying to pick out something flattering with all of our little flaws in mind. It turns out that Second Life isn't that different.

Then again, there were a good number of 'only in SL' comments as well. Shirc DeSantis, for example, prefers dreadlocks while wearing a bipedal avatar form, and Arwyn Quandry draws the line at styles that aren't tintable in the object editor. In those ways, virtual hairdos will always have the upper hand.

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I'm not surprised...but I tend to describe SL fashion/hair/skin in RL terms anyway. I'm always saying something like:

"I'd like that dress better if it had a 21 inch hemline rather than a 16-18." or "Not every heel in SL needs to be a 160mm with platform for the Slink high feet. How about a "kitten foot" for some 65mm heels."

Then again...I once took a picture of my SL avatar's haircolor into a RL salon just so I could point to it and say "get as close to this color as you can". Didn't help...came out a touch too coppery in parts for my taste.