The red hair character is an emoji component used to indicate red/orange hair in person-related emoji. Its Unicode code point is U+1F9B0 (commonly referred to as “red-haired”). It can display as a standalone pictograph (often a tuft or swatch of red/orange hair), but it is primarily intended for Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ) sequences that modify a person base emoji. Typical sequences look like: person (U+1F9D1), man (U+1F468), or woman (U+1F469) + optional skin tone modifier + ZWJ (U+200D) + red hair (U+1F9B0), producing a single, fully composed “person: red hair,” “man: red hair,” or “woman: red hair” emoji. The skin tone applies to the person base, not to the hair component.
In supported environments, the joined sequence renders as one emoji, and the red hair component itself does not appear separately. On Apple/iOS, U+1F9B0 shows visibly as a red/orange hair tuft when sent by itself, and in ZWJ sequences it modifies the person emoji to display red hair; on unsupported systems, users may see the parts unjoined or a missing-glyph box for the component. Introduced alongside other hair components (curly hair, white hair, bald) to improve representation, it broadened hair-style/color options without overloading the base person emojis. This character is not a skin tone (Fitzpatrick) modifier and is not a variation selector; it is an emoji-presenting component that participates in ZWJ composition. In plain-text contexts or fonts without color emoji support, it may appear as a monochrome glyph or as a fallback symbol.
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