Test Out Hairstyles and Avoid Regret With This AI Tool
At the very least, I'd have better photos to show my hairdresser during the consultation.
Facetune is a product by AI company Lightricks, which was founded in 2013. You can use Facetune to change hairstyles, makeup, outfits, skin tone and facial hair, and as a "personal fashion stylist."
There's a free and paid version of Facetune, including a seven-day free trial with access to all the premium features.
So, Facetune, can I pull off bangs?
Setting up Facetune's AI features
I downloaded the Facetune app, accepted the terms and conditions.
The Facetune interface is easy to navigate. I like its sense of humor, with options such as asking Facetune's AI assistant to "roast my style."
I followed the prompts:
1. I toggled "I edit for personal use" but there are other options for influencers and businesses.
2. I set my photo and video editing experience to basic.
3. I selected my goal of "color hair" (ignoring the options to smooth skin, whiten teeth and clear blemishes).
4. I activated my free trial. (I also put a reminder in my phone to cancel before the due date, because it charges the $60 annual fee at once, not monthly.)
5. I had to give Facetune access to my photo library, then I selected the first photo to test run. No selfies needed! Like my AI headshots and baby face generator, the photo quality is critical. Pick a few photos where you're looking at the camera, hair down, without sunglasses on. Follow my golden AI rule: The better the input, the better the output.
There are 36 color tones to choose from, but I decided to test only the ones I liked: blonde, brunette and pink (because I've been wanting to try that).
I always feel better and more myself when I'm blonder. Maybe it's my skin tone or the fact that I'm from Australia, so my hair always had natural highlights. Now that I live in New York, and the seasons are distinct, I'm more inclined to explore color palettes.
I wanted to see if Facetune could get close to my current color preference, which is a dark blonde.
Here's the original photo:
The "before" photo.
Amanda Smith/CNET
And Facetune's versions (gold tips and brown):
Created by Amanda Smith using Facetune AI
I liked both colors. They were natural looking, which is what I always aim for in my hair coloring.
A second attempt with the AI hairstylist
For the last picture, I wanted to test out its haircut capabilities. This time, I kept the color but went straight to the "hairstyles" option.
Here's the original photo, and the various styles and cuts to choose from.
Screenshot by Amanda Smith/CNET
Facetune's "hair stylist" turned me into a '60s housewife, and I'm not mad about it. But this is when things started getting weird with my hand.
Created by Amanda Smith using Facetune AI
I noticed there was a text prompt feature under "Custom," so I asked the AI to make my hair like a 1960s hippie. Things got a tad weird -- both with my hair and whatever the AI tool did to my poor hand.
Created by Amanda Smith using Facetune AI
I still hadn't figured out if I could rock bangs, so that was my last prompt.
Created by Amanda Smith using Facetune AI
While I didn't hate it, I wasn't 100% convinced I could pull it off. Maybe I need to use different photos.
Just when I was starting to feel game to try out a swept fringe look, this happened. It just wouldn't be AI without one super weird photo. My hand and chin are doing something even funkier than in the '60s hippie attempt. But I got to the end without a major glitch, so I was happy about that.
Created by Amanda Smith using Facetune AI
AI as a hairstylist: the verdict
Facetune was a lot of fun to play with. I don't know if the color labels in the app are true to the hairdresser tones, but it does give the stylist a good starting point.
Even if I don't feel comfortable divulging to my stylist that I used AI, it gives me a good sense of how I'd look, so I can search for similar pictures to present.
I'll likely do the latter, unless my hairdresser best friend from home is doing my color, so we can have a good giggle about AI first.
The Facetune app is super easy to set up and use, and it generates images in seconds -- with various complementary features that can boost your beauty confidence. You can do the same for makeup looks and clothing styles, but I wouldn't want to change my eye or skin color. That's just weird!
Can Facetune save me money and embarrassment on the wrong hairdo? I bet.
Do blondes have more fun? On Facetune, they sure do.
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Tips and tricks for using Gmail Tips and tricks for using Gmail Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:11 / Duration 1:07 Loaded : 70.82% 0:11 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:56 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Tips and tricks for using Gmail How much data can you store on Gmail? Fifteen gigabytes of free storage may sound like a lot when you make a Gmail account but it gets filled up quickly. For starters, the 15GB isn't just used for email: It also includes the files you've saved in your Google Drive and Google Photos. If you frequently send or receive messages that contain large files such as videos, or if you find yourself uploading a lot of pictures and videos to your Google Photos, then it won't be long before you'll see the "Account storage is full" notification. This means that you will no longer be able to send or receive emails on this account, so you'll want to do something ASAP. Tips and tricks for using Gmail Tips and tricks for using Gmail Click to unmute Google Introduces Gemini AI Upgrades to Gmail and Chat The quickest solution is to upgrade to a Google One account. Even if you choose the least expensive plan -- 100GB for $20 a year -- you'll still end up paying money to store old emails that you might not even need anymore. If you don't want to buy more storage, you can always delete your old emails. You can get back a surprising amount of storage space by putting large files in the trash. Gmail makes it easy for you to identify and delete files by size. Even so, that option might seem tedious; maybe you don't want to spend hours sifting through correspondence from a decade or more ago, deciding which memories to keep and which to get rid of forever. There's always the option to download large files to your desktop before you delete them from your Google account but at some point you'll probably run into the same issue with your local files and have to manage the storage space on your device. This brings us to our "nuclear option:" Transferring all your emails to a new Gmail account. How to transfer your Gmail messages to a new email account Before you start the Gmail transfer process, I recommend that you back up your emails. You can do this by downloading your emails either to your computer or an external hard drive. You can delete the backup after you finish transferring the emails to your new account if you like but it's always a good idea to have an extra copy stored locally. To back up your Gmail messages, go to Google Takeout. Using my test Gmail account that held about 75,000 messages, I got a download from Google Takeout in about 2 hours. Once you've saved a copy of your emails, you're ready to begin transferring them. Here are the steps you need to take: 1. Start by logging into your original Gmail account, clicking the "gear" icon in the top right and clicking See all settings. 2. Select the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab and then select the option Enable POP for all mail (POP stands for Post Office Protocol). 3. You'll have several options under When messages are accessed with POP. To automatically delete the emails from your original account after the transfer, select delete Gmail's copy. 4. Select Save Changes. Now it's time to create your new account and transfer all your messages there: If you haven't already done so, create your brand new, inbox-zero Gmail account -- we'll call this your archive account. 1. Login to your new archive account, click the gear icon at the top and select See all settings. 2. Select the Accounts and Import tab at the top, then select Add a mail account next to Check mail from other accounts. 3. In the pop-up window, enter the name of your original Gmail account. Select Next. 4. Select Import emails from my other account (POP3) and select Next again. 5. Enter the password of your original Gmail account. You might also be required to create a Google app password (see note below). 6. Select 995 under Port. 7. Check these 3 boxes: Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail, Label incoming messages, Archive incoming messages (Skip the Inbox) 8. Select Add Account. You'll probably need to create a Google app password to transfer Gmail messages I tested this Gmail message transfer process twice and both times the standard password for the Gmail accounts did not work. After a bit of research, I determined that I'd need to create a temporary "app password" to sync the accounts. Google app passwords are 16-digit passcodes created for "less secure" apps or devices to access your Google account. They work exactly like your Google password. If your regular Google password doesn't work for syncing Gmail accounts, visit to create an app password. Simply create a name for the password -- I used "Transfer Bulk Email" -- and then hit the Create button. You'll get a pop-up window with your new 16-digit passcode. Once you've created the app password, return to step 6 of the instructions above and use that new app password instead of your usual password. Important: Google will only display your app password once. After you've created it, you can't ask to see it again so be sure to write it down or otherwise record it after it's been created. Google's own Help Center mentions that "app passwords aren't recommended and are unnecessary in most cases." So once you've completed transferring your Gmail messages, I recommend deleting your app password. What happens after my Gmail accounts are synced? Once you've successfully linked your new Gmail archive account to your original account, your emails should begin to transfer automatically. The process could take several hours or days, depending on how many emails you have. In my test account with about 75,000 messages, I found that it took Gmail about 2 full days to transfer all of them from the original account to the new archived mail account. Important: After transferring your Gmail messages to your archived mail account, your original Gmail account will place all those messages in the Trash folder, which you'll need to empty manually. Clearing out those 75,000 messages from the Trash took about an hour. Before transferring Gmail messages, my test account was using a little more than 12GB, or 80%, of Google's free 15GB. After transferring, the account was only using 0.66GB, of which 0.06GB was from Gmail. What Gmail messages won't be transferred? I found that Gmail transferred all of my messages except for two categories -- Drafts and Spam. You'll need to decide what to do with your Drafts manually. Spam messages are automatically deleted every 30 days so you can let Gmail handle that or go into the Spam folder yourself after transferring your mail and delete or forward those messages. Once all of your emails have been imported to your new account, enjoy the experience of inbox zero. You've given your original account a new lease on life. At this point, there are two last steps: You'll want to stop the automatic transfer process so that you can continue using your original account and you'll want to delete that app password if you had to make one. 1. Login to your new account, go into your Settings and select See all settings. 2. Select the Accounts and Import tab, and then select delete for your original account (under Check mail from other accounts.) 3. When prompted to Confirm delete mail account, select OK. If you had to create a Google app password and want to delete it now, go back to and click the trashcan icon next to the password you created. Congrats, you're finished. One important final note: Google will delete accounts that have been inactive for more than two years. So make sure you don't completely ignore all your old emails after transferring them. If you don't plan to regularly use your archive account to send email, you can still keep the account active by signing in at least once every two years.
