Toca Boca Hair Salon 4

Review by eFreeware

Toca Boca Hair Salon 4 is a free creative game from Play Piknik, the studio behind the Toca Boca line of digital toys for children. It sits in the Educational category on Google Play and is rated for Everyone, which fits its audience: kids who like cutting, coloring and dressing up characters.

The main reason to consider it is the range of tools packed into one salon. Hair, makeup, outfits and a photo booth are all part of the same space, so a child can move from a haircut to a full makeover to a finished picture without leaving the app. It is open-ended play rather than a challenge to beat, and that is the appeal.

A salon with several rooms to work in

The app is built around stations, each handling a different part of the makeover. The hair and beard station holds clippers, curling irons and dyes in a wide spread of colors, and the developer describes trimming beards, regrowing hair and trying different textures and styles. That combination of cutting and growing back is what makes the station feel like a toy rather than a one-way edit.

The face station covers makeup and face paint. Mascara, eyeshadow and blush are there for a polished look, while face paints let a child draw directly on the character. The style station then handles clothes, stickers and accessories, so a new hairstyle can be matched with an outfit before the character leaves the chair.

The photo booth closes the loop. A background is chosen, the character strikes a pose, and the picture is saved, which gives the session a result to keep.

How a session tends to unfold

A typical visit starts with a character who needs work. A child picks up the clippers or a dye, changes the hair, then moves to the face station for makeup or face paint. From there the style station supplies an outfit and accessories that fit the new look, and the photo booth turns the finished character into a picture.

The shampoo station is the reset button. Washing removes makeup, face paint and dye, and then the character is toweled off and blow dried, ready for a fresh design. I would expect younger players to lean on this more than older ones, because it means nothing has to be permanent and a look can be abandoned without losing the character.

Because the tools sit in separate stations, a session can be short or long. A child can do one quick haircut and stop, or work through every station in order. That flexibility is useful when the app is handed over for ten minutes at a time.

What brings children back

The replay value comes from the number of combinations. Hair can be cut, dyed and grown back, faces can be painted or made up, and outfits can be swapped, so the same character can be redone in a different direction each time. For a child who enjoys makeover play, that is a lot of material to work through.

The photo booth adds a collecting instinct of its own. Saving a picture gives a finished result to look back at, and it also creates a natural prompt to start again with a new idea. I would expect the app to work best for children who are happy to invent their own goals, since the fun comes from deciding what to make rather than from being told what to do.

The developer also frames the app as a digital toy that can be played together with a parent, which is worth keeping in mind. Sitting alongside a younger child and suggesting a color or an outfit turns a solo activity into something shared.

The Piknik subscription and what the app costs

The app itself is free to download and it carries ads. It also offers in-app purchases, and the developer places it inside Piknik, a subscription service that bundles children's apps from Toca Boca, Sago Mini and Originator under an Unlimited Plan. The sensible approach is to look at the purchase options inside the app before deciding whether they are worth it.

Toca Boca states that its products are COPPA-compliant and that the studio builds games without third-party advertising. That matters to parents weighing a free download, and it is a claim the developer makes about its own design standards rather than something a review can verify. It holds a 3.8 average from 175,964 ratings, which suggests a mixed reception among the people who have left scores.

Install numbers are high, with more than 50 million downloads since the game arrived in March 2020, and the most recent update in December 2025 was a set of bug fixes. That combination points to an app that has been kept working rather than one that has been left alone.

What to weigh before downloading

The ads and the in-app purchases are the two things a parent should think about first. Neither is unusual for a free children's game, and the developer's subscription sits alongside them, but together they mean the experience is not simply a one-off download. It is worth looking at what the purchases offer before handing the device over.

The other consideration is the kind of play on offer. This is a styling toy, so a child who wants objectives, scores or progression may lose interest once the novelty of the tools wears off. A child who likes choosing colors, cutting hair and dressing characters will find plenty to do.

The 3.8 rating is a reminder that not every family has been won over, and the app's appeal clearly depends on the player. For the right child it is a generous set of creative tools with a photo booth at the end; for others it may be a short-lived novelty.

A styling toy for young makeover fans

I would suggest Toca Boca Hair Salon 4 to parents of younger children who enjoy makeover play and are comfortable with a free app that carries ads and offers purchases. The four stations cover a lot of ground, the shampoo station makes every look reversible, and the photo booth gives each session something to show for it.

It does not try to be a game with a finish line. The value is in the freedom to cut, paint, dress and photograph a character over and over, and for a child who likes that kind of open-ended play, the tools here are broad enough to keep them occupied. Anyone weighing it up should start with the free download and see how the ads and purchase prompts sit with them.

What's new in version 3.1

Bug Fixes :)