What not to do before headshots.

The new product, tried this week.

The mistake with the least upside in the week before a headshot is trying something on your skin or your hair for the first time. A new cleanser, a first facial, a new styling product, a wax you have never had before. Reactions are unpredictable, and the days right before a session are the worst possible time to find out how your skin responds to something you have never used.

The fix is almost embarrassingly simple: do nothing different. Keep your existing routine and be slightly more diligent about it rather than adding anything new. Boring is exactly what this week calls for. What that looks like day by day, and why skin in particular punishes a late change of plan, is set out in the skincare timeline before your photos.

This applies to more than skincare. A first-time supplement, a new fragrance you have not worn before, or a cleaning product you have never used near your face all belong in the same category. If you have not already tested it on an ordinary week with no camera involved, this is not the week to start.

The drastic haircut or color.

A completely new haircut or a dramatic color change the day or two before a session is a gamble with no upside. The problem is not the cut itself. It is that a bold change hands you no room to adjust it and no week left in which to get used to it.

If a haircut or color change is part of your plan, move it earlier in the week instead. Why that particular gap works, and where color and greys sit inside it, is worked out properly in haircut and color timing before headshots. The rest of the week it belongs to is in how to prepare for a photoshoot.

The same rule holds for anything else that changes your look noticeably: a new part, a beard shaved off after a long time, a bold new brow shape. None of these are wrong choices on their own. They are simply choices that deserve time to settle before a camera captures them, not a photograph taken the very day they happened.

The late night, and what it costs.

A short night of sleep is the fastest way to arrive with puffiness under your eyes, and there is no amount of concealer or retouching that fully undoes it. It is also the mistake people make for the most understandable reason: nerves keep them up, or they stay busy right up until the last minute trying to get everything else ready.

Sleep is worth protecting the night before more than almost anything else on this list. The full version of what that night should look like, from what to eat to what to lay out by the door, is covered start to finish in the checklist for the night before.

The tight collar, the brand-new shoes.

Elastic leaves a line, and the line outlasts the garment by longer than anyone expects. A sock band, a strap or a collar buttoned tight for the drive can each press a mark into skin that is still there when the camera is up, and the ones that land above a neckline are the ones that end up in the frame. The whole problem disappears if the clothes you sit in are not the clothes you are photographed in. There is room to change between looks, so carry the real outfit and put it on here.

Shoes are the version of this people forget, on the assumption that a headshot stops at the waist. Whether a wider frame happens is a decision made in the room rather than before it, and a shoe you have never walked in changes how you stand long before it changes how you look. Wear a pair you have already broken in, and bring the ones you were considering rather than debuting them.

The crash diet, or the sudden workout push.

A drastic change to how you eat or a sudden, intense workout push in the days right before a session tends to backfire rather than help. Both are more likely to leave you tired and a little off than sharper, and neither one changes how a portrait actually turns out nearly as much as posing, light and direction do. If a real change to how you eat is something you want, that is a conversation for your doctor and a month with no camera in it. If you have questions about training specifically, the timing question has its own guide in workout timing before a shoot.

The same caution applies to a teeth whitening kit picked up the week of, since some formulas cause temporary sensitivity right when you would rather not think about your mouth at all. That timing question is covered properly in teeth whitening before photos, and the short version is the same as everything else here: if it is new, it does not belong in this particular week.

Arriving rushed.

The last mistake on this list has nothing to do with your skin, your hair or your clothes. It is stacking the morning: an errand on the way, a call that runs long, and a departure at the exact minute the drive requires. Stress does not stay in the car. It settles in the jaw and the shoulders, and it leaves a face far more slowly than it arrived.

If it happens anyway, and some mornings it will, the fix is not to apologize your way through the first few frames. Say you had a bad drive, put your phone face down, and let changing into your own clothes be the buffer. A rushed arrival only costs you when you carry it in silently. If you want the positive version of this whole list, what actually makes headshots work rather than what spoils them, it is set out in the dos and don'ts of a headshot.

The honest reason this one is on the list at all is that it is the only mistake here you can still fix on the morning itself. Skin, hair and wardrobe are decided days earlier. How you arrive is decided by what you agreed to put in front of the drive, which means it is the one item on this page you can still take off the list today.