How to Take Selfies for an Accurate Face Rating

Any face rating — AI or human — rates the *photograph*, not the face. A bad photo can swing a score by a full point in either direction, and the tragedy is that most people's default selfie undersells them. If you're going to get scored, control the variables. This matters double if you're tracking progress: the same face in different conditions produces a different score, so consistency is everything.

The five variables that matter

1. Light (worth more than everything else combined)

Face a large window with indirect daylight. Soft, even, front-facing light shows real skin texture without punishing it, keeps both eyes lit, and doesn't carve fake shadows. Avoid: overhead bathroom lighting (raccoon eyes, harsh nose shadows), direct sunlight (blown highlights, squinting), and night-time lamp light (orange, grainy).

2. Distance (the hidden score-killer)

A phone at arm's length distorts — the lens is close enough that your nose and forehead project larger while your ears and jaw shrink. Hold the phone further away and zoom slightly (or use the rear camera and a timer, propped at eye level). You want at least ~60cm/2ft between lens and face. This one change is why people say "I look better in other people's photos."

3. Angle

Camera at eye level, face square to the lens for the front shot. Chin level — tilted down manufactures a jawline that isn't yours (and the AI adjusts for it anyway); tilted up distorts nostrils and foreshortens the face. For the side profile: a true 90°, same height, same light.

4. Expression

Neutral, relaxed, mouth closed, eyes open normally. Not a mugshot glare — just resting face. Smiles change cheek volume and eye aperture, which shifts sub-scores between scans.

5. No processing

No filters, no beauty mode (many phones have it ON by default — check your camera settings), no smoothing. The AI can often tell, and a score of a filtered face is a score of the filter.

The rescan rule

Tracking improvement? Recreate the setup every time: same window, same time of day, same distance, same neutral expression. Then a +0.4 on your skin score means your skincare routine is working — not that the sun moved.

Set up once, shoot the two photos, and get your baseline — the first scan is free, and the analysis tells you feature-by-feature exactly what it saw.

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