ok so i really love this style, i think it looks super cool... but! like a number of wearables that have beeen coming out lately, the colors are very... gray. the shading is literally just gray and it dulls the colors so much, making them look unpleasant and honestly i could not bring myself to use them. i was curious what this hair would look like with more harmonious shading, and when i applied some simple edits, i found myself thinking this hair would be so fun to use if only the coloration could be brought more in line with something like this - obviously having access to the isolated lineart, the original artist could easily re-add a proper black outline & achieve more color depth, but this is just my little experiment.

[edit] since those seem to be too saturated (i admit i did go pretty hard on the saturation, as i am wont to do - but like i said they're just a general example of more harmonious shading, not a literal suggestion of what anything should look exactly like), these edits are a little more blended with the originals:

i think that the original shading on these hairs is meant to look natural (like roots)? it doesn't really ping as 'muddy' to me, and it looks far more saturated than similar style shading has been as of late.

as someone with this hair type (and color) irl, whenever my roots get more than a centimeter or two long, because of the way kinky hair looks in its unstraightened state and the way lighting on it works, it starts looking pretty much the same as these.

i think there should be less heavy shading towards the ends (similar to what you have), but the colors don't necessarily need to be more saturated, especially if they're trying for a pastel thing which is what i thought was the case.

Given how strict the rules are for CWs to not have gray lines, oopsie-daisy!

I actually like the more natural look of the original ones, rather than the super saturated edit, but that's probably just me D:

I am leaning toward what Ossuary is saying for these particular items. The colors look good to me, especially compared to some other items that have been released, such as the beaded necklaces, shirts and bottoms that came out very desaturated and with kinda blurry lines. I think these hair styles are more vibrant and the colors and shading make sense, and they don’t need to be super saturated. Not that I’d say no to more saturated naturally curly styles! Yes please give me neon curls! But I personally wouldn’t criticize the colors of these items in particular. I really like the gradient they have going, and I like them way more than some of the other muted and desaturated items we’ve gotten this summer.

I think the colors on these look nice with the darker bases, and might look fake / yarny if they were too saturated with the darker bases (which is wholeheartedly who I feel they're meant for ;) )

That said I wouldn't mind a second set of this wig in those colors for people who do want the more saturated colors, but I do hope the original set is not changed. That nasty sap green of the Aloe one is my favorite and I don't want a bright pretty green personally. =P

i mean i definitely don't think they need to be as saturated as i made them and i adore pastels, but the level of contrast in lightness & saturation between the base color and the shading looks really bad imo... it's like when you're coloring with crayola markers and your light color smears the black outline all over the picture.

idk, am i really the only person who thinks a lot of recent wears (particularly hairs) look super gray lately? especially those that are intended to be pastel...

Every single item you've listed (as far as I'm aware) appears to be drawn by and I believe that's just their personal style :)

I personally think this style lent really well to this wig. People keep bringing up that "so many" of the items are muted recently but they are still outnumbered by more saturated items 10 to 1.

i really only agree that the new evil eye toning conditioner is gray looking, the others just have lower-saturation shading (and even in that case, i think it's mainly because blue picks up on gray tones very, very easily).

color picking the wigs told me that most of the shading is at the midline of the picker, which while not the best method of shading is readable, and doesn't blend into one solid, desaturated mush with no discernable highlight like.. well..

some other things.

some examples of real kinky hair/why i don't think its desaturated

those images actually prove my point... the pink should be shaded with a deep fuchsia... the turquoise should be shaded with dark blue. not straight black at a lower opacity, which is what they have now and which is what makes the hair look gray.

or maybe i just see things differently based on the way my brain translates colors from photos to "if you painted this, color theory states you should use colors from here, here, and here on the color wheel"

examples of drawn/painted kinky hair - the style is obviously more painterly, but the principles in choosing color would be the same.

SPOILER (click to toggle)

(source)

this is what i mean [IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/2evdy4z.png[/IMG]

the colors aren't as desaturated as you seem to think, and are closer to middle-saturation. the other image has colors closer to the saturated end of the range, but this gives a less natural result (they're also cooler toned and pop a little more because of it). i don't believe they're meant to be super-vibrant, and as a natural-ish pastel the colors work fine. it's less 'hot pink' and more like the rose gold color that's been popular the last few years.

to be clear i'm not, like, mad, and i do think more saturated versions would be nice! i also think the shading could be a little less stark. i just don't think the intention behind them is to be super bright, and i want to be sure i'm explaining myself well.

its also worth noting that i have this type of hair and dye my hair routinely irl, and i find these are pretty close to the color i end up with once my roots have grown in more (which is why i made that comment before), as well as the charcoal being pretty similar to my natural hair color in the light.

i think the issue is the HA overlay and the image of the bottles arent really... color matched? i think they should either match the HA or the other way around, maybe thats what's throwing some people off? the gradient of the base item is great but i think the shading needed to be adjusted slightly

I definitely like the originals more than the more highly saturated versions, sorry. The colours and shading of the originals looks more natural.

I'm gonna put my vote in for liking them as-is. The ones you adjusted have lost their sense of existing in a 3D space, while the original shading and colors actually impressed me with how much of depth they have. The top and the back of the head are more in shadow from what I'm interpreting out of the shading and highlight positions.

I like your second edit the most of the three. I also think some recent examples look very much gray shaded and therefore off even if their real world counterparts suggest that it isn't all too weird to begin with.