We don't tell you what suits you. We tell you what it costs in time.
We read the style, not the person. A reference photo is used to identify the technique and is then deleted.
The same twelve minutes, added up over a year
Knotless braids, mid-back — the same few minutes, added up
A year of it
100–225 h
7–9 appointments and 7–9 full take-downs are inside that figure.
- Tomorrow morning5–12 min
- By Sunday1–2 h
- By the end of the month4–9 h
- By the time it comes out14–28 h
- A year of it100–225 h
This is the figure the decision is actually about. It is not a warning and it is not a reason to choose something else — it is simply the size of the commitment, stated before you make it instead of six weeks after.
How it works
Three steps, and one of them is a sentence
The bill
Every technique, priced in hours instead of dollars
The figures below come from a written upkeep table, not from a model. A model is used for one thing only: reading which technique a reference photo shows. It is never asked how long anything takes.
Pick a technique
Box-parted braids with the added length fed in gradually rather than knotted at the base.
| Figure | What it is |
|---|---|
| 5–12 min | An ordinary morning, before you leave the houseMiddling mornings — 7 to 14 minutes |
| 20–35 min | Across a week, outside the mornings — washing, drying, redoing |
| 6–8 weeks | Between appointments. Each one takes 5–8 h. |
| 3–6 h | The take-down — unpicking every braid and combing the length out |
| 100–225 h | Over a year, everything above added together — roughly a working month. |
Before you sleep
- Gather the length and tie it up or plait it loosely
- A satin or silk covering, or a satin pillowcase instead
- Smooth the front sections back before covering
Also true of this one
Unpicking every braid and combing the length out.
Does it fit your week?
Say how many minutes you really have between getting up and leaving. The days that do not fit are marked.
1 of these morning runs past the time you have. Marked "over", with a heavier rule and a hatch, in the grid below. An appointment is a booked block of several hours rather than a morning, so it is never marked over.
- Mon5–12 min
- Tue5–12 min
- Wed5–12 min
- Thu5–12 min
- Fri5–12 min
- Sat5–8 hin the chair
- Sun25–47 minwashing and redoingover
The wash sits on Sunday and the appointment on Saturday here. Both move in the workspace. A morning marked “over” is a scheduling fact, not a verdict on the style or on you.
What stops being simple
For a lot of people this list decides it, not the minutes.
What this estimate cannot know
These are not caveats added to be safe. They are the reasons every figure on this site is a range rather than a number, and they are shown in full on every plan, including the free one.
- Your hair texture. It changes the install, the drying and the morning, and nothing here knows it.
- How fast your hair grows, which is what actually sets how often you are back in the chair.
- Your stylist's hand — two people doing the same technique do not produce the same install.
- How practised you are. The first week of anything is slower than the fifth.
- How much length or density was added, which is written on no photograph.
- Your own standard for how finished it has to look before you leave the house.
- How heavy your particular install is, which changes what your nights are like for the first week
Two questions this service does not answer
This one is not ours to answer
Rootine makes no judgement about hair loss, thinning, scalp condition or breakage, and never will. That is a question for a dermatologist or a trichologist.
If you describe something of that kind in the workspace, the estimate stops instead of running, and you get the referral rather than an answer.
We do not answer this one either
Whether a style suits you is between you and your stylist. Rootine analyses no face shape and no skin tone, makes no appraisal of appearance, and has no opinion about whether something looks good. It answers one question: what the upkeep costs in time.
The techniques
Seventeen commitments, side by side
Sorted by nothing. None of these is recommended and none is discouraged. A longer figure is a larger commitment, which is not the same thing as a worse choice.
Seventeen techniques, ordered by nothing. None of them is recommended, none is discouraged, and a longer figure is not a worse one — it is a larger commitment, which is a different thing. The photographs are of rope, linen, brass and paper: there is no photograph of hair anywhere on this site.
Pricing
Three plans. Nothing else is sold here.
All prices are in United States dollars (USD). Prices exclude tax. Sales tax is added at checkout where it applies to your location. Cancel in your account in two clicks, at any time, and the plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for.
Free
USD $0
No card, and no card ever.
Three styles a month, and the morning figure for each of them.
50 units of allowance a month
- Three styles a month
- The minutes an ordinary morning costs, as a range
- What has to happen before you sleep
- How often you are back in the chair
- Everything the estimate cannot know, in full
- The health and appearance boundaries, in full
- Not included: The year total is not included
- Not included: The list of what changes in your week is not included
- Not included: The take-down figure is not included
- Not included: The bill carries a watermark
Upkeep
USD $8 per month
Prices exclude tax. Sales tax is added at checkout where it applies to your location.
USD $77 for twelve months, billed once — the same as 9.6 months at the monthly rate.
The whole bill: the year total broken into its parts, what changes in your week, and what the take-down costs.
400 units of allowance a month
- Unlimited styles
- The year total, split into mornings, appointments and take-downs
- The plain-language equivalent of that total
- What stops being simple while you have it
- The take-down, in hours
- No watermark, and a print sheet
- Not included: The allowance resets each month and does not carry over
Chair
USD $25 per month
Prices exclude tax. Sales tax is added at checkout where it applies to your location.
USD $240 for twelve months, billed once — the same as 9.6 months at the monthly rate.
Put two or three styles side by side, run them against your actual mornings, and keep the appointment cycle in a calendar.
1500 units of allowance a month
- Everything in Upkeep
- Up to four styles compared on one sheet
- The week grid run against the time you actually have
- An upkeep calendar you can subscribe to
- A file per style, kept while your subscription is active
- Not included: The allowance resets each month and does not carry over
What an action costs
| 1 | A question about a style |
|---|---|
| 2 | Reading the technique from a reference photo |
| 5 | A full time bill and week list |
There are no credit packs, no top-ups, no stored balance and no gift cards. An allowance is not money, is not stored value, cannot be redeemed for cash and cannot be transferred.
Where the line is, and why
Free gives you the morning figure — the minutes a style costs before you leave the house. The year total, the list of what changes in your week and the take-down figure are on the paid tiers.
Ten minutes a morning sounds like nothing, and that is the problem. The same style stated as sixty hours a year, nine appointments and two take-downs is a different piece of information, and it is the one that changes people's minds. A style you regret is months of your life, so this is the cheap part of the decision.
The health boundary and the list of everything the estimate cannot know are shown in full on every tier, including the free one, and the watermark cannot reach either of them.
The full pricing page, including exactly what happens at checkout
Questions
Including the two we refuse
The first two are the ones this service will not answer. They are at the top rather than the bottom, because a boundary that is hard to find is not a boundary.
Will this style damage my hair?
We do not answer that, and we will not.
Rootine makes no judgement about hair loss, thinning, breakage or the condition of anyone's scalp, and it addresses nothing medical. If your question is about any of those, a dermatologist or a trichologist is the right place for it — not a calculator that adds up minutes.
If you type something of that kind into the workspace, the estimate stops rather than runs. You get the referral instead of an answer, on every plan including the free one, and nothing covers that message up.
Does this style suit me?
Also not ours to say.
We analyse no face shape and no skin tone, we make no appraisal of appearance, and we have no opinion about whether anything looks good. That conversation belongs to you and your stylist.
Rootine answers one question: what the upkeep costs in time. It is the question nobody asks before the appointment and everybody asks two weeks after it.
What happens to the photo I upload?
It is read for the technique and then it is gone.
The image is held in memory for the length of one request. It is not written to disk, not put in a bucket, not saved to a database and not attached to your account. What is kept is a technique label from a fixed list — knotless braids, sew-in with a closure, mature locs — and that label is the whole of what is kept.
No person recognition and no facial analysis is performed on it. Nothing you upload is used to train any model. And Rootine generates no image of any hairstyle: what comes back is a table and a list.
Where do the numbers come from?
From a written upkeep table, not from a model.
Each technique has hours and minutes written against it in the source of this site, and the year total is arithmetic over those. A model is used for one thing only, and only if the deployment configures one: reading which technique a reference photo shows. It is never asked how long anything takes, and there is no field in this codebase that could receive an answer if it gave one.
That is also why every figure is a range. A single number would be a claim about you, and we do not have the information to make one.
How accurate is it?
It is accurate about the technique and silent about you.
The figures describe what a technique generally asks for. Your hair texture, how fast it grows, your stylist's hand and how practised you are all move the result, and none of those is knowable from a photograph or a sentence. The list of what the estimate cannot know is shown at full strength on every plan, including the free one, and the watermark cannot cover it.
Treat the ranges as the shape of the commitment, not as a promise about your Tuesday.
What is free, and what is behind the paywall?
Free gives you the morning figure: the minutes a style costs before you leave the house, what has to happen before you sleep, and how often you are back in the chair.
The paid tiers add the part that changes minds — the year total broken into mornings, appointments and take-downs, the list of what stops being simple while you have it, and the hours the take-down costs.
Two things are never behind the paywall and never covered by the watermark: the health referral, and the list of what the estimate cannot know.
How do I cancel?
Sign in, open Billing, choose Cancel subscription, then Confirm. Two clicks.
There is no telephone step, no email step, no support ticket and nothing between the two clicks trying to talk you out of it. Cancelling is exactly as easy as subscribing was, in the same place, online.
Once a year we send a separate email — carrying nothing else — reminding you that the subscription is running, what it costs and how to end it.
What is your refund policy?
Cancel whenever you like. Your plan stays active until the end of the period you have already paid for, and we do not refund part of a period.
There is no statutory cooling-off period for a purchase like this in the United States, and we do not claim one. What we do have is this policy, published, which under section 5 of the FTC Act binds us to it.
If something was charged that should not have been — a duplicate, a charge after a cancellation, a plan you never had — write to support@authenticstyles.shop and we will put it back.
Does the monthly allowance carry over?
No. It resets at the start of each period and unused allowance does not roll forward.
There are no credit packs, no top-ups, no stored balance and no gift cards. An allowance is permission to use the service during the month it belongs to: it is not money, it is not stored value, it cannot be redeemed for cash and it cannot be transferred.
If you run out, the options are to wait for the reset or to move up a plan.
Is there an age limit?
You need to be 18 or over to hold a subscription.
Rootine is not offered to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, write to support@authenticstyles.shop and it will be deleted.
Do you recommend a salon, or tell me what it costs in money?
Neither. We give no price estimate, we recommend no salon and we recommend no product.
Where the upkeep genuinely needs a category of thing — a satin or silk covering at night, for instance — we say the category and stop there. We do not name a brand, we do not link to a shop and nothing on this site is paid for by anyone selling one.
Who operates Rootine?
Rootine is operated by Authentic Styles Boutique LLC, a Florida limited liability company.
Support is support@authenticstyles.shop and +1 359 468 8962. Email is answered within one business day. The telephone line is staffed Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00 US Eastern.
Find out before the appointment, not two weeks after it
Nobody gives up on a style because it stopped looking good. They give up because nobody told them what Tuesday morning was going to be like.
