The 1980s were packed with iconic toys, but few captured the messy, imaginative fun of childhood quite like the Play-Doh Mop Top Hair Shop. Long before kids were styling digital avatars or watching YouTube makeover videos, they were sitting at kitchen tables squeezing neon-colored dough through plastic heads and creating wild, gravity-defying hairstyles that defied every law of style and taste. If you grew up in that decade, chances are you remember the satisfying feeling of cranking that lever, seeing Play-Doh sprout like magical spaghetti, and then hacking away at it with tiny plastic scissors like some deranged preschool barber.
Simple, colorful, and endlessly entertaining, the Mop Top Hair Shop became one of Play-Doh’s most beloved sets—and one of the most nostalgia-charged toys of the era.
The Origins: Play-Doh Gets a Makeover of Its Own
Play-Doh had already been around for decades by the time the Mop Top Hair Shop debuted, but the 1980s were its golden age. The decade saw an explosion of themed playsets, many of which tried to give kids experiences they couldn’t easily have in real life: running a kitchen, running a workshop, or—in this case—running their own hair salon.
The Mop Top Hair Shop arrived right at the height of this creativity boom. Play-Doh had always been tactile and sensory, but the Hair Shop elevated it into a hilarious concept toy. Kids weren’t just rolling and sculpting—they were creating characters, squeezing out hairstyles, and cutting them off so they could start all over again. It was creative, chaotic, and perfectly aligned with the 1980s toy philosophy: give kids a world, let them run wild, and don’t worry too much about the carpet.
The Set: A Plastic Salon With Plenty of Personality
The classic Mop Top Hair Shop came with everything a budding stylist—or accidental Play-Doh butcher—could want:
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A plastic salon chair that served as the “extruder”
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Several hollow figurine heads (customers)
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A crank to push the Play-Doh upward
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Child-safe plastic scissors
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A barber’s razor and comb
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Molds for accessories like bows, hats, and mustaches
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And, of course, the real star: multiple cans of bright, smell-of-childhood Play-Doh
The heads were the heart of the set. Each one had dozens of tiny holes on top; when kids packed Play-Doh inside and turned the crank, the pressure forced the dough up and out, creating long “hair” strands. Some kids used as much force as possible just to see how long they could make the hair before it drooped under its own weight. Others used several colors at once, creating psychedelic hairstyles that made their figurines look like they were ready to join an ’80s glam band.
The Play-Doh scissors were hilariously dull but extremely satisfying to use. Kids felt like real barbers as they snipped away clumps of dough, often giving their customers bizarre, lopsided cuts or completely shaving them down to start fresh. And because Play-Doh was endlessly reusable, every haircut could be undone and tried again minutes later.
Why Kids Loved It: Sensory Heaven Meets Creative Play
Part of the Mop Top Hair Shop’s magic was how it appealed to multiple senses and play styles at once.
1. The sensory delight
The resistance of turning the crank, the soft texture of the Play-Doh squeezing upward, the sound of plastic scissors snipping through clay—it created a unique sensory experience other toys couldn’t match. Kids who loved hands-on activities flocked to it.
2. Creativity without rules
You could make realistic haircuts… or turn the heads into wild cartoon characters… or give them mullets, mohawks, Muppet-style fur, or three-color pom-poms. There was no “wrong” way to play.
3. Instant gratification
Unlike most art projects that required planning or drying time, the Hair Shop delivered immediate results. Turn the crank—boom, you have hair. Cut the hair—boom, you’re a barber. Squish it down—boom, blank canvas.
4. Storytelling spark
Kids built worlds around their salon. Some invented customers. Others pretended to run chaotic barber shops with long lines and disastrous haircuts. The toy encouraged imagination just as much as it encouraged shaping and cutting.
5. The universal appeal of destruction
Let’s be honest: half the joy came from cutting, squashing, and mutilating the Play-Doh hair with joyful abandon. Kids love creation—but they also love smashing.
A Walk Through a Typical Mop Top Hair Shop Session
If you were a kid in the 1980s, a play session went something like this:
You pick which customer needs a makeover today: perhaps the round-faced guy, the one with the cartoonish grin, or the lady with the slightly bewildered expression. You roll a ball of Play-Doh, shove it into the open base of the head, and place the head firmly into the salon chair. With both hands, you crank the lever, watching as neon strands of dough slowly emerge like a Play-Doh Chia Pet.
Once the hair reaches an absurd length, you stop and admire your work. Then comes the real fun: sculpting. You use the plastic scissors to give the customer bangs, or a bob, or a mushroom cut. Maybe you go for a punk rock mohawk or a zig-zag pattern. Maybe you shave the whole thing off in five seconds just to watch it happen.
Finally, you decorate. The molds let you add bows, hats, mustaches, glasses, and other accessories. Your customer ends up looking like a cross between a cartoon character and someone who walked into a salon and said, “Give me something experimental.”
And when you’re done—when your creation is perfected or ruined—you pull off the head, scoop out the Play-Doh, and start again.
Expansions, Variants, and the Later Revivals
The success of the Mop Top Hair Shop inspired multiple spin-offs and updated versions over the years. Throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s, Hasbro and Play-Doh released new characters, new molds, and even full “beauty salon” versions with more accessories. Some featured animal heads so kids could groom Play-Doh puppies and ponies. Others modernized the chair mechanism, making the hair grow faster or more evenly.
The set would later be revived in the 2000s and 2010s, proving that while technology had evolved dramatically, the joy of squeezing dough through a plastic head remained timeless.
The newer versions looked sleeker, but the core idea never changed: crank, grow, cut, repeat. Kids still loved it, and adults who remembered the original felt a wave of nostalgia when they saw it on store shelves again.
Why the Mop Top Hair Shop Left Such a Mark
Most toys from the 1980s fall into one of two categories: imaginative playsets or tactile toys. The Hair Shop was both at once. It offered open-ended creativity with a hands-on experience that set it apart from more structured toys. And unlike some of the more complex or expensive toys of the decade, it was accessible and simple enough for any kid to enjoy.
It was also a great equalizer: boys and girls played with it, older kids and younger kids played with it, artistic types and destructive types all found something to love. That universality helped cement it as one of Play-Doh’s most iconic sets.
Conclusion
The Play-Doh Mop Top Hair Shop wasn’t flashy. It didn’t talk, blink, or connect to anything. But it embodied everything magical about 1980s toys: creativity, messiness, humor, imagination, and the joy of making something weird and wonderful with your own two hands.
Even today, just thinking about turning that crank and watching neon hair sprout from a plastic head is enough to bring a smile to anyone who grew up in that era. It’s a reminder that sometimes the simplest toys—the ones powered by imagination rather than batteries—are the ones that stick with us forever.
