# Day-count self-test — rebuild sheet

A barber applies a scalp oil to one client's thinning hairline, and a rising day stamp — Day 1, Day 14, Day 50 — turns the treatment into a trial you watch. 16.5s · 445,305 views · 9,997 likes.

**Why it works**

A POV line hands the viewer the decision in the first frame ("you decided that bald spot had to go"), then drops out, so nothing argues for the rest of the runtime — the numbers just index what you're looking at. Because the room, the operator, the oil and the head stay the same at every stamp, the only variable left on screen is the product, so the hairline filling in reads as caused rather than claimed.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 1.32s | High angle down onto a man reclined with his head back in a white salon shampoo basin. An operator in a plain black short-sleeve work shirt (small gold chest logo), gold watch and rings, leans in from above and tips liquid from a small bottle onto the front hairline. Black-and-gold hexagonal tiled wall behind, flat even indoor light. | POV: You decided that bald spot had to go🙌✨ |
| 3.96s | Same angle, same basin, same reclined subject. The operator now holds a flat tool — reads as a comb or a card — against the front hairline. | POV: You decided that bald spot had to go🙌✨ |
| 6.59s | Tighter top-down on the same head. Both bare hands massage an amber-gold oil into the hairline and front scalp; the oil is visibly pooled and glossy on the skin. A glass dropper bottle stands on the rim of the basin. | Day 1 |
| 9.23s | Tightest shot of the run, same basin and same white bowl edge. Hands work the same amber oil into a head that now carries visibly thicker, denser dark hair across the front and crown. | Day 14 |
| 11.87s | Side-on view. The subject is now upright in the chair in a grey barber cape; the operator squeezes a glass dropper straight onto a hairline that reads as filled in with short dark hair. | Day 50 |
| 14.5s | The operator stands square to the lens holding an amber dropper bottle up beside his face; the subject sits below him looking up out of frame. Same tiled wall, same light. | Link in bio |

Where the frames don't tell us:

- **Whether it's the same client throughout.** The Day 1 and Day 14 beats are cropped tight to the scalp — no face. The Day 50 beat is a different position (upright in a cape, not reclined in the basin). The video presents it as one trial; the stills cannot confirm it.
- **The two emoji** on the POV line are small in the sheet. They read as raised hands and sparkles.
- **The bottle label** at 14.5s is small; it reads as "BATANA". The rest of the label is not legible.
- **Whether the camera moves inside a beat**, and whether there are cuts between the sampled points. Six stills can't show that. What is certain is that the vantage is repeated, not identical — beats 1–4 are shot from above the basin, beat 5 is a side view.
- **Sound.** No audio evidence in the sheet; no speech is transcribed anywhere on screen.

**What carries the value**

The day ledger over one head in one chair. The operator's hands doing the application on camera at every single stamp is what makes the numbers mean anything — the viewer sees the cause and the effect in the same framing, so the change between Day 1 and Day 50 lands as evidence rather than a before/after pair someone assembled.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera:** a phone on a stand or a second pair of hands, held high over the basin, square down onto the head. Lock the distance and the angle and write them down — you have to hit them again on the next shoot day. No zoom, no reframe, no handheld drift.
- **Repeat it exactly.** Same chair, same basin, same wall behind, same time of day. The whole format is "nothing changed except the days", so every difference the viewer can see costs you.
- **Light:** flat, even, overhead — whatever the room already has. Don't add a key light or a ring; the moment the light gets better between stamps, the scalp looks better for a reason that isn't the product.
- **Wardrobe:** the operator stays in the same work shirt so he reads as the same person; the subject changes clothing at each stamp — that's the proof the days are real and separate, not one afternoon.
- **The hands are the performance.** No dialogue, no talking to camera until the last beat, and the last beat is a person holding a bottle. No hired talent needed. The real cost of this format isn't a performer, it's the 50-day calendar — you cannot shoot it in one session.
- **Text:** the POV line low-centre for the first two beats, then gone. Every stamp after that in the identical top-centre spot, same size, same font. Nothing else on screen.
- **Close** on the bottle held up beside the operator's face with the label facing the lens, and the call in the same top-centre position the stamps were in.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 top-down photograph over {SUBJECT} reclined with their head tipped
back into a white salon shampoo basin, an operator's bare hands massaging
{PRODUCT} into the front hairline and crown, the operator in a plain black
short-sleeve work shirt with a small chest logo and a gold watch, a glass
dropper bottle of {PRODUCT} standing on the rim of the basin, black-and-gold
hexagonal tiled wall behind, flat even overhead salon light, phone-camera look,
slight grain, no retouching of the scalp, no on-screen text — regenerate this
exact framing for every day stamp, changing only the state of the hairline
```

**Motion:** camera fixed high over the basin at the same distance and angle at every stamp; nothing moves but the operator's hands and the state of the hairline. Generate every beat from the same seed frame or the format breaks.

**Text overlay pattern:**

- Opening beats: `POV: You decided that {problem} had to go{emoji}` — pinned low-centre, then dropped and never replaced.
- Every beat after: `Day {n}` in the identical top-centre position — `Day 1` → `Day 14` → `Day 50`.
- Final beat: `{call}` in that same top-centre position.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DZFwEnbRSZf/ by pure.batana76 — caption, verbatim: "Link in bio 🔗"
