Welcome to How to Be a Redhead 
Big News: Redheads are on the agenda at the next Unicode Technical Committee meeting, hosted by Apple next week.
If you’ve been following our Redhead Emoji updates, you know Apple recently rolled out several gender and race-inclusive updates to the emoji family.
But, redheads are still missing from the mix.
Us redheads have long been petitioning for an icon that better represents our auburn locks.
According to Emojipedia, The Unicode Technical Committee meeting, which is hosted by Apple, will see the Emoji Subcommittee determine an approach to implement a redhead emoji in future IOS updates. They tweeted this morning saying:
This could range from simply creating a new “person with red hair” emoji, or going as far as creating a custom hair tag that could be applied to several existing emojis.
The lack of a redhead emoji has been the most frequent complaint from Emojipedia users in the past three months (go redheads!).
With 1-2 per cent of the population born with red hair, that means as many as 138,000,000 iPhones are crying out for a ginger-inclusive update. That’s a lot of people!
That’s also, not to mention, the people who are redheads ‘by choice’.
In short, where are our ginger emojis, Apple? These days, emojis are the only way to describe your feelings, and a whole demographic of people are missing out.
It should be noted that no formal decision has been made on whether a redhead emoji should or would be approved at all.
With Unicode 10.0 just months away from release, the Emojipedia reports a redhead emoji would likely appear in 2018 at the earliest.
But… there is some good news! Two mermaid emojis were approved to be released in June 2017 by the Unicode Technical Committee meeting:
Let’s hope an update isn’t too far away.
UPDATE: March 23, 2017
A mermaid emoji is on its way and *let the fireworks begin*… she’s a REDHEAD!
She, along with a set of 68 other new emojis are being considered for release this June, and will include such fun characters as a bearded man, a hedgehog, a breastfeeding woman… and a redhead MERMAID.
Follow us on Instagram: @HowtobeaRedhead
Does this count for a formal redhead emoji? Not quite, but it’s good enough in the meantime!
According to Emojipedia, while there is no guarantee all 69 emojis will be released, a number of the emojis were proposed and voted on by users via site emojirequest.com earlier this month.
UPDATE: May 18, 2017
In a series of tweets yesterday, Jeremy Burge from Emojipedia shared a number of possible designs of a redhead emoji. And, possible “representatives” such as Ed Sheeran and Jessica Chastain for a complete “team redhead”.
They’re set to come in 2018 and this is what he shared:
UPDATE: August 4, 2017
In a tweet yesterday, Jeremy Burge from Emojipedia shared a new hair proposal that encodes new code points. Included in the proposal: a person with red hair!
The first document’s option 1 (preferred in ESC) proposed encoding 4 characters:
- Person with red hair
- Person with white hair
- Person with curly hair
- Person with bald head
Though these could have gender and skin tone variants, these hair options could not be applied to other emoji people characters. Option 2 in the document proposed using ZWJ sequences with existing characters or newly encoded swatches (which would not be useful on their own).
See the entire proposal here.
During a recent meeting of the Unicode Technical Committee, Unicode president Mark Davis announced more than 65 new, potential emojis. One of them is a redhead!
The release date is June 2018.
PROGRESS.
UPDATE: JUNE 3, 2018
Business Insider is reporting redhead emojis will be released on Tuesday, June 5, 2018. The report says: “Emoji depicting ginger people are making their way onto the internet in a few days’ time with a major update that starts rolling out on Tuesday.”
Other outlets say, “The new emojis, though, won’t appear on your phone automatically; it’s still up to companies like Apple and Samsung to design their own versions of the emojis and roll them out to devices in the form of a software update.”
All June 2018 H2BAR Box subscribers received their Redhead Emoji themed subscription box! Join in on the fun! Use code: REDHEADEMOJI for 10% off your 1st subscription.
UPDATE: October 2, 2018
iOS 12 became available on all iPhones last month. Sadly, after the update, redheads discovered there was no redhead emoji. According to Emojipedia, Apple has today confirmed the iOS 12.1 will support Emoji 11.0, which includes redhead emojis.
Apple has today confirmed that iOS 12.1 will be the release with support for Emoji 11.0. Here's every new emoji in this release 📲 https://t.co/JsQAkiL3ZN pic.twitter.com/4qceecOEKl
— Emojipedia (@Emojipedia) October 2, 2018
“iOS 12.1 is in beta now, with a public release expected by mid-November 2018. No official release date has been set at this time, and as with any beta, designs shown here are subject to change prior to a final release,” Emojipedia shared on their website.
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