Gingers, rejoice! Redhead emojis — plus emojis with curly hair, white hair and no hair at all — are now on screens near you.
ADVERTISEMENTIt took a while, but you can now personalize your emojis with hair colors ranging from black to blond to red.
Fiery-haired emojis were the last hair color to be officially released. The gingers, along with a few other emojis, made their debut on Tuesday, June 5, however it's up to individual companies to integrate them into their software.
"Redheads have been a highly requested addition," Jeremy Burge, the founder of the reference website Emojipedia and a member of Unicode's Emoji Subcommittee, told TODAY Style in an email.
In fact, redheaded emojis were Emojipedia's most-requested addition last year, Burge said. So what caused the delay? It came down to some tricky details.
"The implementation raises questions like which emojis should be able to have red hair, and if red hair is added, what about other hair colors or styles?" Burge said. "The current approach is to use a flexible system, which could allow any emoji to be given red hair, although no recommendations have yet been made on which emojis should be given a red hair option."
Burge submitted a proposal for how redhead emojis could possibly appear, along with other common hairstyles like curly hair, white hair, and baldness.
Burge noted that "in the past, the majority of emoji candidates have been approved," so we're excited for all of the possibilities.
Burge added that unnatural hair colors such as blue or green could be added down the line if there is "sufficient demand," but said that for now the "proposed entries for red hair, curly hair, white hair and baldness do appear to cover the majority of requests."
The ginger emojis should be especially welcome news to one of our favorite redheaded celebs, Jessica Chastain, who has spoked out about her trademark strands.
The actress revealed that she was teased for her hair shade growing up, but now embraces her gorgeous natural color and refuses to dye it for roles.
"Whatever you are ridiculed about that makes you different is what you'll celebrate in the future," she told Refinery29. "If I wanted to dye my hair, I could, but I realized that's who I am, and my differences (make me) special."
And, plenty of celebs who were born blonde, brunette or raven-haired, including Ariel Winter, Shakira and Aubrey Plaza, have embraced red locks. ("Redheads have more fun!" Shakira recently proclaimed).
Of course, "redhead" can encompass a variety of shades, from bright orange to auburn to strawberry blond, and one day, it would be amazing to see all these lovely hues represented in emoji form. But in the meantime, the new emojis are a major step for all gingerkind!
