Consultation guide
How to photograph your hair for a consultation: three angles that show what the mirror hides
The front, a small turn, and the top of your head. The third one is the shot almost nobody takes.
Three photographs carry almost all of the information a hair consultation needs: your face on, a small turn to one side, and the top of your head looking down. The first two are easy. The third is the one people skip, and it is the one that carries the most.
Every mirror you own shows you the front of your head. Nothing in your bathroom shows you the crown, which is where a widening part, thinning and colour regrowth all appear first. Someone standing behind you sees it every day. You have possibly never seen it.
What follows is how to take the set, what each angle is for, and the handful of mistakes that make a set impossible to read. This is a different photograph from the one an AI try-on needs, and the difference is explained at the end.
Three angles, and what each one is for
Keep the set small. More photographs of the same angle add nothing; one photograph of a missing angle costs the whole reading.
The front, taken at your own eye height with your hair down and your face square to the camera, shows the hairline, the part, how the length falls on both sides, and whether the two sides match. Asymmetry at the front is common and normal, and it changes how a stylist cuts.
The small turn, roughly a quarter turn to one side, shows the profile of the length, how the hair sits against the ear and the neck, and the side of the part you cannot see from the front. It is also the angle where a difference between the two sides of your head becomes obvious.
The top of the head, taken looking down with the camera above you, shows density, the width of the part, regrowth at the roots, and what the scalp is doing where you cannot look. If you take only one, take this one.
The crown shot, and why it is worth the trouble
A part looks wider over years, not weeks, which is why nobody notices it happening. A photograph fixes that: take one now, take another in six months, and put them side by side. That comparison answers a question no single photograph can.
It also shows regrowth honestly. Hair grows about 1 cm a month, so a colour line 2 cm from the root is about two months old whatever anyone remembers, and a reading can work from the measurement rather than from memory.
Taking it alone is awkward and doable. Hold the phone above your head, tilt your chin down toward your chest, use the front camera so you can see the frame, and take five. One of them will be usable. A second person and the rear camera gives a better picture, and a hand mirror held in front of you while you shoot over your head works too. Part your hair in the usual place first, then take a second photograph with the part moved to the other side, because a part that has been in one place for years flattens the hair around it and can exaggerate what you see.
Light: face the window, do not stand in front of it
Daylight coming from in front of you is the whole trick, and it costs nothing.
Stand facing a window with the light on your face. Do not stand with the window behind you, because the camera then exposes for the bright background and your hair becomes a dark shape with no detail in it. Ceiling lights are the other common problem: light from directly above puts the eye sockets in shadow, drops a dark band under the jaw, and hides exactly the surface of the hair a reading wants to see.
Skip the flash. A phone flash flattens texture, blows out shine into a white patch, and reports a scalp as pinker than it is. If the room is too dark for a photograph without flash, the room is too dark for the photograph.
For the crown shot, keep facing the window and tilt your head forward. Standing under a downlight for that one is tempting and it makes the scalp look brighter and the hair look thinner than it is.
Hair down, unstyled, and on the second day
A blow-dry is a performance. It is a version of your hair produced by a professional with two hands, and it hides exactly what a consultation is trying to see.
So: hair down, no clips, no ties, no fresh styling. Nothing added for the photograph. If you normally use a leave-in, leave it in, because your ordinary hair is what the routine has to work on.
Day two after washing is the right day. Day one shows you at your cleanest and your flattest, and it hides how fast your roots turn oily, which is the single fact that decides your wash frequency. By the second day the roots have told the truth. Do not use dry shampoo before taking the photographs. The American Academy of Dermatology describes dry shampoo as particles that absorb oil without cleaning the hair, so it removes the evidence and leaves the cause in place. Oily roots and dry shampoo has the rest of that argument.
What a wet-hair photograph hides
Wet hair photographs badly for this purpose, and the reasons are worth knowing because people send wet photographs thinking they are being helpful.
Wet hair clumps into fewer, thicker sections, so density reads as lower and the scalp shows through in places where it does not when dry. It also sits flat against the head, which removes volume, removes frizz, and removes the actual texture. Colour reads darker wet than dry, sometimes by a noticeable amount.
There is one case where wet is worth adding: curl pattern. A photograph of clean, product-free hair while it is still damp shows the shape the hair grows in, without any styling on top. Send that as an extra rather than instead of the dry set.
While wet hair is on your head, handle it the way your hair type wants. The AAD's advice splits: comb textured hair and tight curls while damp with a wide-tooth comb, and let straight hair dry partly first. Wet hair is the state in which most breakage happens.
Filters, beauty settings and the edits you did not ask for
Turn every filter off, including the ones the camera applies without telling you.
Beauty modes smooth skin, which erases flaking at the part. They sharpen and brighten, which turns dull hair shiny. Some phones apply skin smoothing by default on the front camera, so check the camera settings rather than assuming you have none on. A reading built from an edited photograph is a reading of hair you do not have.
Do not crop tightly either. Leave the shoulders in the front shot so the length has something to be measured against, and leave space around the crown so the whole top of the head is in frame.
One more, and it catches people out: do not take the photographs over several days and send them as a set. Hair changes between washes, and a fresh front shot next to a day-four crown shot reports two different heads. Take all three inside ten minutes.
The mistakes that make a set unreadable
Here are the ones that come up most, roughly in the order they happen.
A window behind you, so the hair is a silhouette. Ceiling light only, so the scalp is bright and the length is dark. Hair tied up or half pinned, so the length and the part are both hidden. A phone held too close, which distorts the proportions and makes the crown fill the frame with no context around it. And hair freshly styled, which answers the question of what a professional can do with your hair rather than what your hair does.
There is a sixth that is harder to see. A photograph taken in a bathroom with warm bulbs and a coloured wall reports the wrong hair colour, which matters if anyone is judging regrowth, brassiness or fade. If colour is part of the question, take one photograph in daylight next to a white towel or a sheet of white paper, so there is a neutral reference in the frame.
What the photographs can and cannot show
Be clear about the ceiling. A good set of photographs shows curl pattern, density, where the part sits, how oily the roots are, where the damage is and what kind, colour regrowth, and the condition of the ends. That is most of a reading, and it is more than a two-minute conversation at a basin usually produces.
What it cannot show is anything that needs touch. Strand width is judged between finger and thumb. Porosity is judged with water and time. Elasticity is judged by pulling one hair. A photograph correlates with all three and proves none of them. If a reading claims to have measured your porosity from a picture, it guessed. The tests that actually work are on hair porosity and hair density and thickness, and they take five minutes at home.
A photograph also cannot diagnose. Flaking at the part can be dry skin, dandruff or psoriasis, and the AAD's own guidance is to see a board-certified dermatologist when over-the-counter products do not fix it.
This is not the try-on photograph
Two photographs get confused because both involve a phone and your head, and they want opposite things.
A hairstyle try-on needs your face. It has to see the hairline, the jaw and both ears, so it wants hair pushed back off the forehead and clear of the ears, taken at eye height with a level chin. That set-up is covered in how to photograph your hair for a try-on, and it is a good post to follow if a rendered hairstyle is what you are after.
A consultation photograph needs your hair. It wants the hair down and untouched, because how the length falls and where the ends sit is the information. Pushing it back for this one removes the answer.
If you want both, take both sets. They take a minute each and they are not interchangeable.
Letting the phone check the angle
The awkward part of all this is that you cannot see your own head while you are photographing it, so you find out the crown shot was tilted after you have sent it.
The Kurli AI Specialist handles that by keeping the camera open on the page and checking the angle as you move. It tells you when your head is turned the wrong way, and it takes the picture itself once the angle is right, so you are not guessing from a thumbnail. That check runs in your browser, which means a photograph it rejects never leaves your phone. The three shots it asks for are the same three described here: your face, a small turn to one side, and the top of your head.
Whoever ends up reading them, keep the originals. A set from today is worth far more next year than it is this week, and the comparison is the part you cannot recreate later.
Common questions
Should I wash my hair before a consultation?
Not the same day. Arrive, or take your photographs, on the second day after washing, with no dry shampoo. Freshly washed hair hides how quickly your roots turn oily, which is the fact that sets your wash frequency. It also sits flatter than usual, so it under-reports your volume and your texture.
Does hair look thinner when wet?
Yes, and it is a reporting problem rather than a real change. Wet hair clumps into fewer, thicker sections with gaps between them, so more scalp shows through and density reads lower than it is. Judge density on dry, unstyled hair, in daylight, at the part and at the crown, on a day you have not used product.
Does hair look thinner when oily?
Yes. Oil makes strands stick together and lie flat against the scalp, so the hair takes up less space and the part looks wider. This is one reason a day-two photograph is still the right one to send: the reading should see your ordinary hair, and the person looking at it knows to allow for the oil.
Does hair look better second day?
For many people yes, because the hair has some grip by then and holds a shape rather than sliding. For a consultation photograph, better looking is not the goal. Day two is the right day because it shows how fast your roots turn oily and what your texture does without a fresh blow-dry, which is the information a routine is built from.
Why does hair look greasy after washing?
Usually conditioner too close to the roots, shampoo that was rinsed out before it did its work, or product buildup that a normal wash cannot shift. Hard water leaves a residue that reads the same way. If it happens after every wash, try one clarifying wash and keep conditioner from the mid-lengths down before changing anything else.
Should you be able to see your scalp through your hair?
Some scalp is visible on almost everyone, especially along the part and under bright overhead light. What matters is change over time, not the fact itself. Photograph the same three parts in the same daylight every six months and compare. A part that has widened in your own photographs is worth raising with a doctor.
Does hair look thinner when longer?
It often does at the perimeter, because the ends have been through more washing, heat and styling than the roots and have tapered or snapped. The hair on your scalp has not changed. Cutting the worn length off usually makes hair look fuller, which is why a photograph of the ends is part of the set.
Why do I photograph so badly?
Most of it is light and lens distance rather than your face. Light from above puts your eyes in shadow, light from behind turns you into a silhouette, and a phone held close exaggerates whatever is nearest the lens. Face a window at arm's length with the camera at your own eye height and most of the problem disappears.
Does hair look darker when wet?
Yes. A film of water on the surface reflects less light back to the camera, so the same hair reads several shades darker wet than dry. If anyone is judging your colour, regrowth or fade, send a dry photograph taken in daylight with something white in the frame as a reference.
Does hair look thicker when shorter?
Usually, for two reasons. A blunt end is wider than a tapered one, so the perimeter looks denser, and removing length removes weight that was pulling the roots flat. The strands themselves are unchanged. That is worth knowing before reading a short-hair photograph as evidence that your density improved.
How many photographs does a hair consultation need?
Three is usually enough: the front, a quarter turn to one side, and the top of your head. Add a close photograph of the ends if breakage is the question, and a damp, product-free shot if curl pattern is. Take them all within ten minutes of each other so they describe the same day.
Can I take the crown photograph on my own?
Yes, with the front camera. Hold the phone above your head, tilt your chin toward your chest, watch the frame on screen, and take five so one is straight. A hand mirror held in front of you helps you check the framing. Another person with the rear camera gives a sharper result, so ask if someone is there.
Does hair look thinner when dry?
No, dry is the accurate reading. Wet hair clumps into thicker sections and oily hair lies flat against the scalp, both of which make density look lower than it is. Unstyled, product-free, dry hair in daylight is the version a consultation should be judging, so if a photograph looks thinner wet or oily, trust the dry one instead.
Does everyone have a crown in their hair?
Most people have at least one point where the hair changes direction as it grows, usually somewhere at the back or side of the head, and some have two. It matters for this page because that spot is where a widening part, regrowth and thinning show up first, and it is the one part of your head no mirror ever shows you directly.
Is crown hair naturally thinner?
Often it looks that way, though 'thinner' there usually means less dense rather than each strand being finer. Hair at the crown can also lie in a direction that shows more scalp under overhead light than hair lying flatter elsewhere. A photograph taken from directly above, in daylight, is how you tell an ordinary crown from an actual change.
Can you have two hair crowns?
Yes, this is called a double crown, and it is a common, harmless growth pattern rather than a sign of thinning. It matters for the photograph because a second whorl can make the part look uneven or lift oddly no matter how you comb it. If you have one, photograph the crown from directly above and again from a step behind, so the pattern is visible rather than looking like an accident.
Why does my crown photograph look thinner than it feels?
Usually the light or the angle, not your hair. A ceiling light shining straight down brightens the scalp and darkens the hair around it, which exaggerates how much skin shows. Holding the phone too close also flattens the curve of your head in the frame. Face a window instead, tilt your chin down, and keep the phone at arm's length above you.
Is a mirror selfie good enough for a hair consultation?
Not usually. A mirror photograph is taken through glass, at an angle, often with the phone or your arm blocking part of the frame, and it usually reverses left and right, which matters if anyone is comparing sides. A direct photograph, taken by you or someone else without a mirror in between, gives a reading something it can actually measure against.
Sources
Hair biology and hair-care facts on this page are supported by these sources. Styling recommendations are guidance.
- Dry shampoo: Dermatologists' tips for getting your best results, American Academy of Dermatology
- 10 hair care habits that can damage your hair, American Academy of Dermatology
- Is your dry scalp something more serious?, American Academy of Dermatology
- Physiology, Hair, StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf
- Do you have hair loss or hair shedding?, American Academy of Dermatology
See it on your own face
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