This New App Claims It Can Guess Your Age—Find Out if It’s BS

“How old do I really look?” That was the question on our minds today as we played around with Microsoft’s newly-launched How Old app. It uses facial recognition technology to calculate a user’s age, and in a blog post from two of Microsoft’s engineers, they explain that once a user uploads a pic, the app is able to extract their gender and age. Cool, right? But how accurate is it?

WomensHealthMag.com editors put the app to the test with a very fun, un-scientific experiment. We uploaded photos of ourselves with friends and family members, with different hairstyles, and with different amounts of makeup on to see if that made any difference in the results. We even tried it out on both old and recent celeb photos since there are quite a few who just never seem to age. Want to see how it works for yourself? Head over to how-old.net. (Keep in mind though, that as Fast Company points out, the terms of service for the app state that Microsoft can use your photo on its website and in ads.)

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Christina Heiser, senior associate editor, 26 years old (plus, my mom, 57 years old, and my cousin’s baby, four months old)

And here I am with a face full of powder makeup:

Ashley Oerman, editorial assistant, 24 years old

Robin Hilmantel, deputy editor, 28 years old (plus, her boyfriend, 27 years old)

And here she is with curly hair:

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Tracey Ford, managing editor, 32 years old

Sandra Roldan, senior producer, 31 years old

And now for the celebs! 

Beyoncé in 2002, 21 years old

Beyoncé now, 33 years old

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Jennifer Aniston in 2002, 33 years old

Jennifer Aniston now, 46 years old

Jennifer Lopez in 2002, 33 years old

Jennifer Lopez now, 45

Whoa. You can see that when it comes to our staff, the majority of us had a pretty big discrepancy in our actual age and the age calculated by the app. Could it be because of lighting, the angle of the photo, or something else? Who knows. Now in the case of the A-listers, only J.Lo has barely aged at all (at least according to How Old), while Jennifer Aniston was rated as looking almost 10 years older than she really is. While we didn’t have super accurate results when we did this experiment, it was fun nonetheless. If you really want to maintain younger-looking skin for years to come, your best bet is investing in some SPF—and using it daily.