ADDENDUM: Why does it take so long to render?

Think of a tennis ball that you throw at the nearest wood. Let's presume you are Superman and can throw that ball with indefinite energy.

• If there are only a very few trees, the ball might hit one, bounce off this, then hit the next and bounce off to hit the next, until it has, by a few bounces, passed the tree line after a few moments.

• But if there are MANY trees in the wood, the ball would bounce off again and again and again because there are just so many trees. One tree is always in the way of the straight trajectory. So it will take a whole lot longer for the ball to bounce off all those many trees before it finally has passed the wood.

Those "trees" are your hair strands, and the ball's "bounces" multiply your render time. You can reduce this (partially) by reducing the "Raytrace Bounces" in the render settings to 1 or 2.

However, it comes with a decrease of quality. And if your character is wearing spectacles, or you have a glass (or a mirror) in your scene, you MUST set the Raytrace bounces higher than 3 (even 5 or 6!) - with disastrous results to your render time.

There are other factors too which have an effect on a hair's "realistic look", but discussing this here would be way to complicated for this clumsy forum with it's limited ability to upload files and screenshots.

...But at least it now supports "Emojis"... XD

Hope that helped

K