About
Why we are building Barette
Hair care runs on guesswork and advertising. We think a measurement, taken properly and tracked over time, is a better place to start.
The problem
Most people cannot name their hair type with any confidence, let alone its porosity or the state of their scalp. So the shelf wins: products get bought on packaging, routines get copied from strangers, and nothing gets measured before or after.
That gap is widest for the people the category tends to design past — men told hair care is not for them, and anyone over fifty whose hair changed and whose products did not. A measurement does not care who you are, which is exactly why we started there.
The approach
Start with a real capture — from a phone, or from a device built for the job. Turn it into a structured result. Then make that result actionable in the same place: products that match it, specialists who work with it, and creators whose hair behaves like yours.
Privacy first
Scans belong to the person who took them. Analysis history is theirs to keep, export or delete.
Local first
The Near You feed and on-site booking exist so the value lands with salons and stores in the same city as the user.
Built in the open
App, API and hardware design files live in one repository — including this website.
Architecture
How the pieces fit
Flutter · Dart
Mobile and web app
One codebase compiled to Android, iOS and a PWA, talking to the API over JWT.
Django · Django REST Framework
API server
Users, marketplace, reels, promotions, specialists, on-site stores and notifications.
FFmpeg · Chromaprint
Media pipeline
Uploaded reels are normalised to web-safe MP4, thumbnailed and fingerprinted for copyright.
ESP32-CAM · Wi-Fi / BLE
Device
Battery-powered capture board that pairs with the app.
Django · Bootstrap · Tailwind CSS
This website
Standalone marketing and updates site with its own database.
Follow the build
Release notes, hardware progress and product news — sent when there is something worth sending.