The client sits down, takes out her phone and shows a photo: "I'd like this." The photo shows someone else, with a different face, a different colour and often a different hair type. The stylist's job is to work out which parts of that photo can actually go on her. With Miraviso I wanted the tablet to reason the same way.
In the colour consultation the look is built with a few taps, using the words of the trade. The inspiration photo is another way in: you load it on the tablet next to the client's photo and ask for a preview. It sounds simple. The hard part is deciding what to take from the photo and what to leave as it is.
From the photo you take the cut
When a client shows a photo, she is nearly always talking about the cut: the length, the shape, the fringe, the layers. The model's colour is a detail she often hasn't even noticed, and sometimes it wouldn't suit her.
So if the stylist doesn't pick a colour, Miraviso takes only the cut, length, shape and styling from the inspiration photo. The colour stays the one the client has now, including grey and white hair, roots and natural highlights, in the same amount and in the same places.
I was strict about the grey hair. A woman who has it and wants to keep it needs to see herself with the new cut and with her own grey. If the preview takes ten years off her with an even brown, it stops being useful, because it is showing her someone else.
If you pick the colour, the colour is yours
The opposite case happens too: the client wants the cut from the photo plus a new colour. The stylist picks the technique and the shade from the buttons, or frames the swatch from the colour chart with the camera. In that case the inspiration photo still provides only the cut, and the colour comes from the stylist's request or from the swatch.
This rule came from the salon floor. In one session the client had picked a bright red, and the inspiration photo showed a blonde girl: the preview came out blonde. Now the two sources have separate jobs. The photo suggests the shape, and the colour is decided by the person who knows the hair in front of them.
The styling, with the same intensity
Styling is the delicate part. If the model has wavy hair and the client's is straight, the preview should show her with waves, because that is often exactly what she liked in the photo. The risk is overdoing it: a soft wave turning into tight curls on someone who has never had them.
The rule I wrote is this: follow the styling of the photo, with the same intensity. Soft waves stay soft waves. If the stylist wants something different, they ask for it with a styling button or by voice, and their request wins over the photo.
The beard stays as it is
Not only women sit in the chair. In one session a man with salt-and-pepper hair had asked only for the cut from a photo. In the preview his hair had turned dark brown, and his beard darker, thicker and more even. For a haircut preview that was far too much.
Now beard and moustache stay exactly as in the starting photo: same colour, grey included, same shape, length and density. Every change applies to the hair on the head only. If the client wants to try a different beard as well, you ask for it explicitly.
The model's face is never copied
The inspiration photo shows a real person, and her face must not end up on the client. The preview uses that photo only as a reference for the hair. Features, make-up, expression, skin: all of it stays the client's. When she looks at the preview she should see herself with a new cut, not a resemblance to the model.
Everything else follows the rules I already described for the consultation. Without the client's consent the preview does not start. To generate it, the photos go through Gemini on servers in Europe, stay in memory only for as long as needed and are never written to disk. Every image carries the label "AI-generated preview".
The history keeps the photo you used
Every attempt goes into the consultation history together with its recipe, and now also with the inspiration photo that produced it. When the client says "I liked the one before", the stylist can see straight away which photo it started from and with which choices. You pick up from there without rebuilding it from memory.
What changes for the salon
The photo a client brings is a great way to start the conversation and a poor contract. Showing her the cut on herself straight away, with her own colour and her own hair, makes it easier to say calmly what can be done and what can't. If the fringe in the photo doesn't suit her face, you both see it on the screen, and the stylist doesn't have to argue the point.
If you work in a salon and want to handle this moment better, the Miraviso site has a practical guide (in Italian) on how to show a cut before you do it, with or without a tablet.
If your app or business software handles client photos or personal data and you want to check where those photos go, who sees them and how long they are kept, we can look at it together on a free 30-minute call.
Originally published at gabrielepieretti.dev. I write about software for small businesses, Laravel, FastAPI and privacy-by-design. More here.
