I've been trying to find a hair that looks like the picture above - chin-length or slightly longer, short, fluffy and wavy with side-swept bangs and looking a bit airy, like gravity is optional.
Unfortunately, the closest thing I've been able to find despite specifying TS3 in my searches is this hair for TS4. And I haven't bothered trying to find a conversion of it since I'm looking for hair that looks like actual hair and it's one of those TS4 hairs that looks too much like it's made of plastic...
Has anybody seen something like what I'm looking for?

These are more similar to the link for the Sims4 hair

Maryjane has this one https://maryjanesims3.tumblr.com/po...D%20MESH%20EDIT

This one here https://modthesims.info/d/471025/li...th-genders.html

and this one https://chazybazzy.tumblr.com/post/...rsions-all-ages

None of those are quite what I'm looking for. I thought about editing the Plumblobs retexture of Newsea's Chain Reaction to be shorter but for some reason the textures are missing.

I have no idea about messing with Hair lol I would probably blow up my game if I tried. Sorry they weren't what you are looking for. I didn't see very many short hairs that aren't either just spikes or like the ones I posted.

Here is chazy's retexture of it. Not sure if has what you are looking for in it. https://chazybazzy.tumblr.com/post/...rsions-all-ages

Would newsea's blossom story hair work? https://www.google.com/amp/s/chazyb...ersions-all/amp
It's poofy and has bangs

I saw that one while I was searching a couple hours ago, it's not really what I'm looking for either. It's "fluffy" in a way, but if you ask me it looks more wet than airy. It's a bit difficult to describe? I don't know if you've had/currently have short hair but mine I prefer not to let reach my shoulders. After I wash my hair I've always towel-dried it to get most of the moisture out before blow drying. After towel drying my hair its dry enough that it fluffs up but still wet enough that despite being "fluffy" it still looks kind of limp. Blossom Story looks like that to me.
What I'm looking for is more of the after blow drying look. My hair is thick so despite being short to get all the layers dry I have to point the blow dryer up and dry it from below, so it ends up with that airy gravity-is-optional look. That's what I'm trying to find.

I actually tried that one. I've always had really bad luck with chazy. Every hair I've downloaded from them have either been missing textures or had some issue. This one's the same. I've found about 10 different retextures of the hair so far and they've all been missing the textures when I open them. And the original is behind a pay wall.

Newsea Pinocchio?
https://poisonfireleafs.tumblr.com/...stom-thumbnail/

Are you opening them in TSRW? Have you tried opening them with s3pe?

No, that one is way too flat.

Yes, I use TSR Workshop. I have tried opening them in S3PE too though. It was the first thing I did when workshop told me the textures were missing to see if they were actually missing or if workshop was just being buggy and I could extract them to import into their appropriate slots. It wasn't finding them either.

this ones a bit long https://www.tumblr.com/nightosphere...or?source=share

Newsea Labyrinth: https://ageiha.livejournal.com/22216.html
Bellakenobi Shining Nikki Spring Nature: https://bellakenobi.tumblr.com/post...4/update-220823

It definitely has the feel of what I'm looking for and I could edit it to make it shorter, but the part and bangs wouldn't be so easy to fix. The part would need to be more to the side with how low it is on the forehead and the bangs would need redone.

Those are actually both pretty good options and very close to what I want. The bangs on Labyrinth are perfect and all the wispy stray strands of hair really help to give it the feel that I'm looking for, but the inward curling at the bottom makes it a bit of a hard sell. And Spring Forest is the right shape overall and the right length. It has a bit of that airy look but not as much as Labyrinth. The part is more centered but it's high enough that it shouldn't be too much of a problem if I try adjusting the bangs.
I wish I could just combine the two because then they'd be basically perfect...

If you're that particular about the hair, you will probably have to learn to make/edit it yourself.

Even the TS4 hair you linked to in the first post looks nothing like the one you're looking for.

I know it doesn't. I said it was the closest thing I managed to find, not that it was the closest thing to what I'm looking for. It doesn't matter how specific I am or whether I use quotes, pluses or minuses, search engines just don't give good or remotely accurate results these days.

hmm...I don't know if any of these two will finally hit the spot, but I tried anyway..
https://carversims.tumblr.com/post/...n-female-custom
https://chazybazzy.tumblr.com/post/...s-unisex-custom

..and I totally get you about the search results part. Everything is now getting hijacked by ts4 results which is reaaaally frustrating. Have you tried looking in a cc finds site with an organized tag system, like this one
https://katsujiiccfinds.tumblr.com/tagged/hair:short
or this one
https://xto3conversionsfinds.tumblr.com/tagged/h:short

I know it's tedious looking through page by page, but at least it's all ts3..

Neither of those are it either, but thank you.
And yeah. I've checked emily, simshairs and the hair spreadsheet. I frequently check at xto3 for various cc, but everything there is converted from other games to TS3 so they don't really have any of the hairs that are TS3 originals.