How MaqAI works
Set a reliable baseline, change only what matters, read the result critically, and turn the useful choices into a look you can test and recreate.
01 · Set the baseline
Use a front-facing photo with the full face visible, relaxed expression, sharp focus, and soft neutral light. Strong filters, colored light, and existing statement makeup can hide the change you are trying to compare.
02 · Define the question
Browse a complete look when you are choosing a mood. Open Live AR for fast color play, transfer a reference you already love, or move directly into lips, eyes, complexion, sculpting, brows, and finish when the question is specific.
03 · Read the comparison
Look first at the mood, color balance, placement, contrast, and focal point. Then separate the details you would recreate from anything the generated image may have invented or over-polished.
If the palette works but the lashes do not, keep the palette. If the eye works but the lip competes, change the lip. A partial success is still information you can use.
04 · Make it real
Break the saved look into base, sculpt and blush, eyes and brows, then lips and finish. Record shade family, placement, intensity, tools, and timing. The real products do not need to match an imaginary product exactly.
Turn a preview into a routine →Coverage and finish
Sculpt and color
Shape and depth
Color and finish
Read the result in order
A preview is most informative when you evaluate the question you asked first, then move from the whole face toward the details you would need to recreate.
Decide whether the result reads fresh, polished, romantic, sculpted, graphic, soft, or dramatic. This first reaction tells you whether the broad direction is worth investigating.
Notice where your eye lands. A successful look usually has a clear lead—skin, eye, cheek, or lip—with the remaining elements supporting it rather than competing.
Compare warmth, depth, saturation, liner angle, cheek direction, lip edge, and finish. These relationships translate into a real routine better than a single color sampled from a screen.
Ask what you would soften, strengthen, or simplify for your time, tools, occasion, skin preparation, and confidence with the technique.
Consistency makes comparison honest
Reuse the same source image for a comparison set. A new angle, crop, expression, camera, or lighting condition can change the apparent balance of the face before makeup enters the picture.
Compare warm and cool lipstick with the same cheeks and eyes. Test dewy and soft-matte finish with the color story held steady. Move blush placement while preserving its shade and intensity. Each controlled pair should answer one question you can name.
When several elements change at once, treat the result as inspiration rather than evidence about one detail. Save it if the mood is useful, then rebuild the idea more deliberately.
Separate the request from invention
Generative previews can introduce skin texture, lashes, brow density, accessories, lighting, or small facial differences that were not part of your request. Do not let an invented detail erase a valid preference about color or placement.
Name the requested change and judge it directly. If you asked for a berry lip, assess its depth, temperature, finish, and relationship to the eyes. If the invented lashes are distracting, ignore them or isolate the lip in a new comparison.
The goal is not to declare an image perfect. It is to leave with clearer language for the direction you want to test in real life.
Choose the right mode
Use it when you want to switch color or intensity quickly and see the direction through small changes in angle and expression.
Best question: “Does this family feel promising?”Use a still portrait when you want to examine a complete look, isolate a category, or save a clear visual reference.
Best question: “What exactly changed the effect?”Use it when the reference already has a color story or placement logic you want to understand on yourself.
Best question: “Which part of this inspiration feels like me?”Use the Builder to organize layers, then ask the Advisor how to adapt intensity, products, technique, or time.
Best question: “How could I recreate the useful part?”Permission is part of the workflow
Select. Choose the specific portrait, inspiration image, or Beauty Advisor message relevant to the feature.
Review. MaqAI identifies what is sent, which service providers receive it, and the purpose of the requested processing.
Decide. Continue with an affirmative action or leave the flow. Photo and chat permissions remain separate choices.
Control. Withdraw future AI photo or chat processing permission in Settings → AI Processing.
Save what makes the preference clearer
Keep the original portrait, one option you could try now, and one option that pushes the idea far enough to reveal what you really like. Give each saved direction a purpose.
Return to the source after every few previews. Ask whether the makeup improves the intended mood or whether the generated image is simply brighter, smoother, or more dramatic. The baseline protects the comparison from becoming a contest between photos.
Choose a version compatible with the time, tools, products, skill, light, and occasion you actually have. It should be specific enough to recreate and flexible enough to survive a real swatch or formula change.
Push one feature—lip depth, eye shape, cheek saturation, finish, or contrast—rather than making everything louder. You do not need to wear the full version to borrow the part that clarified your taste.
Add a short note to each result: what changed, what you would keep, what you would adapt, and the real test it needs. After you try the look, update the note with product, technique, light, and wear observations. That is how an AI image becomes reusable personal knowledge.
When the first result is not useful
An unclear preview usually points to the source, the request, the comparison, or the translation into reality. Use the symptom to choose the smallest correction instead of restarting everything.
Return to a portrait without a strong color cast. Keep device brightness and room light consistent, compare broad warm, cool, muted, vivid, light, and deep relationships, then verify real shade with a swatch.
Keep the camera close to eye level with both eyes, brows, cheeks, and the full lip visible. Remove glare, hair, hard shadows, and a dramatic head tilt that can change apparent symmetry or direction.
If the generated skin, lashes, brows, light, or facial detail distracts from the decision, isolate the requested lip, cheek, eye, complexion, or finish. Keep the useful palette or shape and discard unrelated invention.
Compare a warmer and cooler family, central and lifted placement, diffused and defined edge, satin and matte finish, or wearable and expressive intensity. Tiny variations create volume without creating information.
Judge the focal point and makeup relationships at normal viewing size. Do not add generated smoothness, perfect symmetry, invented lashes, or studio lighting to the real brief unless they represent an intentional technique choice.
Record opacity, undertone, oxidation, texture, transfer, flash, comfort, and wear. Adjust preparation, tool, layer order, placement, or intensity, then keep that real observation beside the saved MaqAI direction.
Choose a clearer source or a smaller request when the lip, eye, cheek, complexion, or finish is obscured, several unrelated details dominate, or an artifact changes the exact area you are trying to judge. Preserve the original question and change only the condition that prevented an answer.
Once you can describe the preferred family, placement, edge, intensity, and finish, another render adds less value than a swatch or practice session. Test the relevant formula, lighting, camera, wear duration, and application, then add the observation to your saved direction.
The honest expectation
Formula, opacity, oxidation, skin texture, lighting, camera processing, and technique all change real makeup. MaqAI helps you make a clearer shortlist before you test products in real life.
Good to know
Straight answers about the app, AI previews, privacy, and what to expect.
MaqAI can create an anonymous service identifier for core features and usage limits. Optional sign-in can help with account features and keeping data across devices.
A photo is sent only after you choose it, request an AI feature, and agree to the specific in-app processing disclosure.
Live AR is best for quick experimentation. A photo preview is better for a stable before-and-after comparison and a look you may want to save.
Not exactly. Treat the result as a visual brief for shade family, placement, intensity, contrast, and finish. Formula, skin preparation, application, lighting, camera processing, and wear all affect the real result.
A stable portrait makes comparison more honest. If the angle, expression, crop, or light changes, it becomes harder to tell whether you prefer the makeup or simply prefer the new photo.
Name the useful part first, then isolate the problem. Keep the color story while changing placement, keep the eye while softening the lip, or rebuild the direction in Makeup Builder instead of discarding the entire idea.
Look Transfer accepts a clear makeup reference and a chosen portrait. Use a real face with visible makeup, and only submit images you have the right and permission to use.
Photo processing and chat processing are separate consent scopes. MaqAI explains the data, recipients, and purpose before the requested action, and you can withdraw future permission for either scope in Settings.
Your first MaqAI comparison
Keep the baseline stable, change only what matters, and finish with a shade, placement, finish, or routine direction you can test in real life.
