Face shape gets all the attention, but hair type is the half of a haircut that decides whether it survives the first wash. Glancely reads yours from one photo — curl pattern on the 1A–4C scale, density, strand thickness, length, and how it moves — shows you what it saw for each call, and then uses that read for the thing it's actually for: naming the cuts that hold on hair like yours, rendered on your own head.
Most people answer "what's your hair type?" with a single word — curly, fine, thick — and that single word is why so many haircuts go wrong. Fine and thick aren't opposites; one is about the strand, the other is usually about the count. A head of fine hair in high density looks full in the mirror and collapses under a heavy cut. A head of coarse hair in low density looks sparse and holds a shape better than almost anything.
A stylist sorts this out in the first thirty seconds by touch: how the hair bends, how much scalp shows at the part, how a strand feels between two fingers. The point of an app that identifies hair type is to do the same sorting from a photo, and to do it before you've committed to a length you can't grow back by Friday.
Two readings, not one, because they pull the cut in different directions. Fine-but-dense wants weight removed from the inside; coarse-but-sparse wants length kept for coverage. Collapse them into "thick" and you get the wrong advice half the time.
If the app says wavy and you've always called yourself straight, you get to see why — the bend it found along the length, the lift at the crown. Most people are right about their hair; some have been wrong for a decade because they only ever see it wet.
Identifying your hair type is only worth anything once it rules a haircut in or out. Glancely's shortlist is computed from your hair read together with your face shape, so "fine, high density, wavy" turns into "textured crop, not a heavy one-length" — shown on you.
Almost every haircut regret has the same shape: the cut looked right in the chair, styled by a professional with a round brush and twenty minutes, and looked like someone else's hair by the second morning. That gap is a hair-type problem. The cut was chosen for the face and never checked against the hair — its density, its bend, how it behaves once it dries on its own.
So Glancely treats the hair read as one of the three inputs to every recommendation, not a fun fact. Once you have it, see the cuts built for your hair and your face together — or, if you already know the cut you want and just need to know whether your hair will carry it, audition it on your own photo first.
Yes — Glancely, free to download on iOS. One photo is read for texture, density, strand thickness, length, and how the hair moves, with the observations that produced each call shown next to it, and the app carries that read straight into the haircuts it recommends and renders on your own photo.
It looks at the things a stylist looks at before touching your hair. Texture shows in how the hair falls and bends along its length. Density shows at the part line and the hairline, where scalp does or doesn't show through. Thickness shows in how individual strands catch light. Movement shows in the silhouette — whether the hair sits flat, lifts, or spreads. Glancely reads those together and reports each one with what it saw, so a surprising call can be checked against your own head.
Yes. Glancely names your curl pattern on the 1A–4C scale from a photo of dry, unstyled hair, with the observation that produced the code shown beside it. It also reports density and strand thickness separately, because a curl code on its own is the fact people most often already have — it's the other two that decide whether a cut holds.
Yes, and the difference matters more than most people expect. Thickness is the width of a single strand; density is how many strands you have per square inch. You can have fine hair in high density, which looks full but goes limp under weight, or coarse hair in low density, which looks sparse but holds a shape well. Glancely reports the two separately because they push the haircut in different directions.
Dry hair in its natural state — not fresh from a blow-dry, not slicked with product, not under a hat five minutes ago. Daylight, front-facing, with your part visible and your hairline in frame. Day-two hair tends to read more honestly than freshly washed hair, which sits flatter and finer than it really is.
Glancely is free to download on iOS. The read of your hair comes with your face shape and skin undertone in the same analysis, and Glancely Premium opens up the rest — unlimited try-ons, premium styles, and deeper recommendations.
One photo, your texture, density, and thickness read with the reasoning shown, and the haircuts that hold on hair like yours — seen on your own head before anything gets cut.
Free on iOS