Woman Getting Haircut Emoji
U+1F487 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F:haircut_woman:Skin tonesAbout Woman Getting Haircut ๐โโ๏ธ
Woman Getting Haircut () is part of the People & Body group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E4.0. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. On Discord it's . Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode. Pick a skin tone above to customize it.
Often associated with barber, beauty, chop, and 10 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
The woman getting haircut emoji shows a woman with scissors near her hair, representing a salon visit, a fresh cut, or a deliberate style change. But in practice, this emoji carries way more weight than 'I got a trim.' It has become shorthand for personal transformation โ the breakup haircut, the glow-up, the 'new chapter in my life' signal. Coco Chanel famously said 'a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life,' and this emoji is the modern-day version of that quote. People reach for it when they want to announce a reinvention: new job, new city, end of a relationship, or just a Tuesday where they needed to feel different. On TikTok, the #breakupglowup hashtag is inseparable from this emoji. It also gets used literally โ salon appointment reminders, hairstylist shoutouts, and beauty content. The dual meaning (practical haircut vs. emotional transformation) makes it one of the more layered person-activity emojis in the set.
Heavily used on Instagram and TikTok for before-and-after hair transformations, salon check-ins, and 'new hair who dis' captions. On Twitter, it signals life changes more than actual haircuts โ 'going through it ๐โโ๏ธ' is understood to mean a major shift is happening. Beauty influencers and hairstylists use it in every post as a professional marker. The emoji spikes in usage around back-to-school season and New Year (fresh-start energy) and reliably trends whenever a celebrity debuts a dramatic new look.
It literally means getting a haircut, but it's widely used to signal personal transformation, fresh starts, and glow-ups. If someone posts it after a breakup or major life event, it means 'I'm changing and moving forward.'
The self-care emoji family
What it means from...
Usually a heads-up that she's done something new with her hair and wants it noticed. 'Got a little something done ๐โโ๏ธ' is fishing for a compliment. The correct response is always enthusiasm, never 'I can't tell what changed.'
Often a pre-reveal: 'don't freak out ๐โโ๏ธ' before debuting a dramatic new look. Can also mean 'I need some me-time at the salon.' If sent post-argument, it might signal 'I'm making changes' in a broader sense.
Pure excitement about a new look, or coordinating salon visits. Among close friends, 'she got the breakup haircut ๐โโ๏ธ' is understood immediately as code for major life upheaval.
Usually literal โ updating parents about a salon visit or showing off a kid's first haircut. Moms texting 'took the little one for her first trim ๐โโ๏ธ' is peak wholesome usage.
Almost always literal: 'might be late, hair appointment ๐โโ๏ธ.' Occasionally used to compliment a coworker's new look in a group chat. Rarely carries the transformation subtext in professional contexts.
On social media, signals hairstylist content, beauty tips, or transformation videos. Hairdressers use it as a professional emoji in bios and posts. From strangers in DMs, it's often a compliment about someone's hair.
Flirty or friendly?
The haircut emoji is rarely flirty on its own โ it's too practical. But context shifts it: 'changed everything about myself ๐โโ๏ธ' after going quiet on someone carries emotional weight. 'Getting pretty for you ๐โโ๏ธ' is clearly flirty. In most cases, assume friendly unless the surrounding message says otherwise.
- โขFriendly: sent in a group chat about salon plans
- โขFlirty: 'you won't recognize me ๐โโ๏ธ๐' sent to a crush
- โขFriendly: sharing a before-and-after photo
- โขEmotionally loaded: sent right after a breakup without additional context
Usually that she's excited about a new hairstyle or is announcing a change. If she just went through something tough, it signals she's in her reinvention era. If sent to a crush, she wants you to notice and compliment the new look.
If a guy sends it about you, he's complimenting your new look or asking about it. If he uses it about himself, he's probably joking โ most guys use ๐ or just text 'got a haircut' without an emoji.
Emoji combos
Origin story
The haircut emoji traces back to Japan's early mobile emoji sets in the late 1990s, where beauty and grooming symbols were essential. Japanese women texted about salon visits constantly, and carriers like SoftBank and DoCoMo included haircut symbols to serve that market. When Unicode standardized emoji in 2010, the haircut made the cut (pun intended) as part of a 'personal care symbols' block. The original design showed a gender-neutral person, but most platforms rendered it as female by default โ reflecting the cultural assumption that 'getting a haircut' in emoji context meant a salon visit, not a barbershop trim. The explicit woman variant came in 2016 with Emoji 4.0's gender ZWJ sequences. What nobody anticipated was how the emoji would evolve beyond literal haircuts. As the breakup-haircut phenomenon went mainstream on social media โ powered by Coco Chanel's endlessly quoted 'a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life' โ the emoji absorbed all that symbolic weight. Today, seeing ๐โโ๏ธ in someone's story makes you wonder what just happened in their life, not which salon they visited.
The base Person Getting Haircut emoji (๐) was approved in Unicode 6.0 in 2010 under the name 'Haircut' and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. It originated from Japanese carrier emoji sets โ SoftBank and DoCoMo both included salon-related symbols in their early proprietary sets for Japanese mobile users, where beauty and personal grooming emojis were in high demand. The woman variant (๐โโ๏ธ) was added as a ZWJ sequence in Emoji 4.0 in 2016, combining ๐ Person Getting Haircut + Zero Width Joiner + โ๏ธ Female Sign. Unlike fantasy emojis, the haircut emoji supports all five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers. Windows famously displayed this emoji as just a comb and scissors (no person) until a 2018 update finally aligned it with other platforms.
What people change after a breakup
Around the world
In East Asia, where the emoji originated, it reads as a practical salon emoji without much subtext. In South Korea especially, regular salon visits are a normal part of grooming, and the emoji is as mundane as ๐ฝ๏ธ. In Western cultures, particularly the US and UK, the breakup-haircut association is strong โ a woman posting ๐โโ๏ธ is assumed to be going through something. In many African and Caribbean communities, the emoji connects to a rich hair culture around braiding, locs, and protective styles that goes far beyond 'getting a trim.' In some South Asian contexts, hair cutting has religious significance (mundan ceremony for babies, hair offerings at temples), adding a spiritual dimension the emoji wasn't designed for but sometimes carries.
Not officially, but culturally โ absolutely. The breakup haircut is such a well-known phenomenon (69% of women change their hair post-breakup) that the emoji has absorbed that meaning. Seeing it in someone's story often makes people wonder 'what happened?'
It's a play on 'new phone who dis,' a slang phrase used when someone gets a new phone and pretends not to know who's texting them. Applied to hair, it humorously suggests the person is so transformed they're unrecognizable.
Most-used beauty & self-care emojis
Who uses ๐โโ๏ธ most?
Often confused with
Scissors alone is the craft/cutting tool emoji, not a haircut. People sometimes use โ๏ธ for haircuts when they can't find ๐โโ๏ธ, but it reads more as arts-and-crafts or 'cutting someone off' metaphorically.
Scissors alone is the craft/cutting tool emoji, not a haircut. People sometimes use โ๏ธ for haircuts when they can't find ๐โโ๏ธ, but it reads more as arts-and-crafts or 'cutting someone off' metaphorically.
The barber pole emoji represents a barbershop, not a salon. It skews masculine and traditional, while ๐โโ๏ธ skews feminine and modern. In practice, hairdressers use ๐โโ๏ธ and barbers use ๐.
The barber pole emoji represents a barbershop, not a salon. It skews masculine and traditional, while ๐โโ๏ธ skews feminine and modern. In practice, hairdressers use ๐โโ๏ธ and barbers use ๐.
๐ is the gender-neutral base (most platforms render as female), ๐โโ๏ธ is explicitly a woman getting a haircut, and ๐โโ๏ธ is a man getting a haircut. The woman variant is by far the most commonly used.
Do's and don'ts
- โUse it to announce a new hairstyle or salon visit
- โPair with โจ for glow-up energy
- โUse in supportive responses to friends going through changes
- โInclude in beauty content and hairstylist portfolios
- โDon't use it to comment on someone's hair uninvited โ it can feel judgmental
- โAvoid pairing with ๐ฌ when someone shares their new look (they want hype, not cringe)
- โDon't assume it always means a breakup โ sometimes it's just a trim
- โDon't use it to pressure someone into changing their appearance
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Type it as text
Fun facts
- โขCoco Chanel's quote 'a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life' has been shared millions of times on social media and is the most-quoted line alongside this emoji.
- โขResearch shows 69% of women and 41% of men are likely to change their hair after a breakup โ making the breakup haircut one of the most universal human responses to heartbreak.
- โขWindows displayed the haircut emoji as just a comb and scissors (no person) until October 2018, confusing users who expected to see a human getting a cut.
- โขThe emoji originated from Japanese carrier sets where salon-related symbols were essential โ Japanese mobile users texted about beauty appointments far more than Western users in the early 2000s.
- โขBritney Spears' 2007 head-shaving moment, which she later described as 'almost religious,' permanently linked dramatic haircuts with emotional liberation in Western pop culture.
- โขThe #breakupglowup hashtag on TikTok has over 2 billion views, and the majority of those videos feature a hair transformation as the centerpiece.
Common misinterpretations
- โขSome people read ๐โโ๏ธ as 'I'm cutting you off' (ending a relationship or friendship) because of the scissors imagery. While creative, this isn't a widely understood meaning โ most people just think haircut.
- โขIn professional contexts, sending ๐โโ๏ธ to explain being late can be seen as oversharing. A simple 'running late' works better than broadcasting your salon schedule to the team.
In pop culture
- โขCoco Chanel โ 'A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life' โ the quote that became inseparable from the emoji
- โขBritney Spears (2007) โ shaved her own head at a salon in LA, calling it 'a big F you to the world' in her memoir The Woman in Me
- โขTikTok's #breakupglowup trend (2022-present) โ hair transformation content scored to emotional songs, always captioned with ๐โโ๏ธ
- โข'New hair who dis' โ adaptation of 'new phone who dis' that became the default caption for every hair reveal post
- โขRapunzel (Tangled, 2010) โ Disney's hair-cutting climax gave a new generation a visual metaphor for sacrifice and transformation
Trivia
For developers
- โขCodepoint sequence: U+1F487 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F (Person Getting Haircut + ZWJ + Female Sign + VS16)
- โขShortcodes: :woman_getting_haircut: (GitHub), :haircut_woman: (Slack)
- โขSupports Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers (append U+1F3FB through U+1F3FF after U+1F487)
- โขBase emoji ๐ (U+1F487) was in Unicode 6.0 (2010); the ZWJ woman variant was added in Emoji 4.0 (2016)
- โขWindows historically rendered as comb+scissors (no person) โ test cross-platform rendering on older systems
Microsoft interpreted the 'Haircut' codepoint as the tools rather than the activity. They didn't add a person to the design until October 2018, years after Apple and Google had established the person-getting-a-cut interpretation.
Yes! Unlike fantasy emojis, the haircut emoji represents a human activity and supports all five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers on platforms that support emoji skin tones.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What's the real reason you got your last haircut?
Select all that apply
- Emojipedia โ Woman Getting Haircut (emojipedia.org)
- Emojipedia โ Person Getting Haircut (emojipedia.org)
- Refinery29 โ Post-Breakup Haircut Stories (refinery29.com)
- The Psychology of the Break-Up Cut (sakishears.com)
- Britney Spears Head-Shaving Moment (today.com)
- Correcting the Record on the First Emoji Set (blog.emojipedia.org)
- Coco Chanel Quote (goodreads.com)
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