Disney Princess Royal Salon & Palace Pets apps allow users to play as stylists

Disney Publishing has released a new app this month that is sure to be a hit with Disney Princess fans, if my 8-year-old daughter’s excitement is any indication.

The Disney Princess Royal Salon app allows users to play as Royal Stylists for four of the most popular princesses: Cinderella, Belle, Rapunzel and Ariel. Once the stylist chooses the princess who will receive the benefit of her cosmetology skills, the stylist chooses her subject’s destination. Among the parties are a royal ball, a masquerade, a holiday celebration and a special occasion.

Then the stylist can put her skills to work on her subject’s hair. Tapping first the wand and then tapping near the princess’s head makes a hairstyle appear. Users also can brush individual sections of hair, which is a little more difficult, to create unique looks. The Fords’ Royal Stylist prefers up-do’s for Ariel.

Next, users can choose their princess’s wardrobe and accessories. When her subject is finally ready to go, the stylist can use her device’s camera to take a photo, which can be added to the app’s scrapbook or emailed to friends and family.

Disney Princess Royal Salon is available for iOS devices and costs $4.99 in the iTunes Store.

You can see AllEars Senior Editor Deb Koma test the Disney Princess Royal Salon app at the D23 Expo:

Earlier this summer, Disney Publishing released its free Disney Princess Palace Pets app, presumably to sell the Disney Princess audience on a related franchise. Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for a Disney pet tie-in to come to market. It seems like a perfect match.

The Disney Princess Palace Pets app could be considered a companion app to the Royal Salon app, though it is not being promoted that way. In Palace Pets, the user also visits the salon, but this one is for the royal dogs, cats and even a horse.

Palace Pets offers a bit more back story about each animal at the beginning of the app than does Disney Princess Royal Salon. Then pet stylists actually cover the animals in soapy bubbles, rinse them and put them under the dryer, before the styling begins. Of course the user brushes the animal’s coat and then the stylist picks out accessories, such as a flashy collar or a tail that mimic’s Ariel’s mermaid tail. This app does’t have the scrapbook feature, so users will have to take photos themselves on their device, which is not difficult.

Palace Pets is available for iOS devices and is free in the iTunes Store.

My daughter thoroughly enjoys both Disney Princess Royal Salon and Disney Princess Palace Pets and would recommend them to other kids who love to play dress-up or have an interest in fashion and hair styling. On her wish-list when the apps update: To be able to move the styled pets to the Royal Salon app so they could be reunited with their owners.