This Is What Snapchat's East Asian Competitors Do To Your Selfies

Francis: This is exciting. I quite like dicking around on Snapchat and showing the results to my girlfriend. I don't share selfies, just take them.

Amna: I like how it affects the lighting. I don't know if I'm imagining it, but it makes my teeth look really good. This is so cute – I look adorable.

Francis: Ooo, I love being a kitty. But this has also done something to my face.

Amna: I definitely want to keep this. They make me 100% more girly than I actually am.

Francis: I don't really like the colour filters – they're not fun, they just give me a sepia tone.

Amna: I prefer the cute flowers and kittens.

Francis: There's a lot of options for what to do. It's a little bit more confusing than Snapchat. It seems more cute than playful, and I prefer the playfulness of Snapchat.

Amna: So many options. I could play with this all day. I think I prefer it to Snapchat.

Paul: I only really use Snapchat, and then it's for the filters as they make me look cute as hell.

Cassie: Yeah, I really like the Snapchat bunny filter.

Both open the app.

Cassie: I think it's already doing something – my skin looks a little bit blurred. That makes me feel uncomfortable, but then again Snapchat does a similar thing.

Paul: The pretty filter doesn't do anything for me – I added the white filter and I'm still pale.

Cassie: The glasses filter makes me want to get glasses. I look so cute!

Would you recommend this to friends?

Cassie: I think it's fun but I'm not really someone who starts trends, so unless my friends were using it I probably wouldn't. Also, a lot of the filters you get are similar to those on Snapchat.

Paul: The beauty filters make me look cute, but I'm cute as hell anyway and Snapchat does that too, so I don't feel like this is very different. Like Cassie says, there are a lot of filters and they don't appear to go away, so maybe this is good for that, but I'm not particularly upset about anything it's done to my face.

Ryan: I don’t use a lot of Snapchat-like apps. I’ve tried a few times to get into them, but I think I’m just outside of the age demographic they appeal to.

Rachael: Quite honestly, the only reason I used Snapchat these days is to catch up on my friends' weekends or see what celebrities are doing. But I will mess about with a filter when I'm on there.

Ryan: I like Snow!

Rachael: I feel it really brings out my cute side – like with Snapchat, the filters feel alluring. This is just innocent filters, like a cute little fox eating its dinner.

Ryan: The filters are great. If I were a Korean teenager I would probably be on Snow pretty much constantly.

Rachael: Yeah, I wish more of my friends used this. It's great for taking a cute selfie and acting like you know a great app no one else does, but it'd be cool for more people over here to take it up.

Amna: Oh, this is cute. I don't get it, but it's cute. Oh wow, wait, I don't like it.

Francis: I don't like how it's automatically made me a bunny without my consent.

Amna: I don't like any of the makeup available. I get it, but it just doesn't feel natural. They're a bit too vibrant for me, which I guess is weird as I'm Asian.

Francis: It's like they've photoshopped your face a bit. It also keeps trying to get me to download other apps. It keeps getting rid of anything at all natural about my face.

Amna: I'm still trying to find a feature that works on me. Oh wait, can I thin my nose with this? I quite like the acne one but it just takes away too much.

Francis: I'd never use this on a photo.

Amna: I prefer fun apps – I'm still me with them, just with some bunny ears on. I feel like I'm seeing everything wrong with my face and how I can fix it, and that's addictive and I don't like that.

Francis: It has limited appeal.

Paul: Immediately it's asking me for loads of permissions.

Cassie: It wants me to tell it if I'm a girl or a boy.

Paul: I fall in the age band second from top, so I feel stupid-old right now.

Cassie: I'm on the anime cam, and the camera alone isn't changing my face as much as Snow did. Oh, this has blurred me out – I am blemish-free. I don't really like the idea of having spots in real life, but I get kind of offended when a filter takes away blemishes. I've also noticed it makes my lips and nose tiny.

Paul: Oh. The photo editor has offered me to "swipe to get the firm skin of a young girl".

Cassie: It is interesting how you can change the makeup levels and stuff, but it's not really changing my makeup, it's changing my jawline.

Paul shares a photo he's edited.

Cassie: It looks like you've been left in a serum for a week and your features have been rubbed out.

Paul: I don't like the teeth-whitening, it's made me feel bad about my own teeth. Fixing bags under my eyes just makes me look gaunt. This has just made me feel bad about my face. I wouldn't use it on social media, because I don't look like that. It's just criticism – your eyes suck and your teeth are yellow.

Cassie: It'd make me feel a bit dirty changing my face then pretending it's me. I like fake filters, like obviously with Snow, I'm not a cat in real life, and I don't mind.

Ryan: BeautyPlus was sort of confusing, to be honest.

Rachael: There's a lot going on, and I'm not sure where I have to go to do it. When I click on one section it opens another app. I just want to make myself look pretty jeez.

Ryan: I did notice the filters were a good balance between making me look silly and making me look cute. I’m not a Chinese teenager so I don’t know what they think is cool, but these filters do seem a little cheesier than Snow’s.

Rachael: Once I found the "beautifying" features, I weirdly enjoyed it. I tried the app out while wearing no makeup and it made my skin glow in a way that rosehip oil and vitamin C lotions could only dream of. It's not perfect though – the "tone' feature literally changes your skin tone. That's a bit creepy.

Ryan: I weirdly love how the cat filter made my skin look though. Very pink, but in a calming way.

Rachael: TBH I've used a similar app to hide dark circles under my eyes before and I wouldn't be adverse to using this to do the same. I kind of look a bit like a glowstick, but I'm into it.

Amna: Mmm, this is fine.

Francis: Yeah, it's okay.

Amna: Ohh, the doughnut filter is working for me.

Francis: I feel like it makes pictures fuzzy for me. Yeah, I'm not keen on this.

Amna: Bring back the first one, I like being cute.

Francis: None of these would replace the apps I already have. I'm going to delete them immediately.

Amna: The second one would be super helpful for the week before your period when you get spots and that. But I think I'm going to keep Snow as it's not that threatening.

Both Amna and Francis close Foodie and go back to Snow.

Cassie: Filters always make my hair look ginger. I quite like it.

Paul: This is very basic, it's just changing colour layout. Romantic just makes me look a lot pinker. I'd usually do this sort of editing through Apple's default app, which has limited options, so this is useful.

Cassie: I really like the black-and-white filter, a lot.

Paul: I'm probably going to use one of these.

Cassie: I'm into it, I really like this one.

Paul: Our office photographer can be fired now.

Cassie: It doesn't change my face massively – I like to think this is how I look. I like it, it has more range than Instagram and I can imagine it also works well for food.

Paul: This feels harmless and nice.

Ryan: Foodie is boring! I don’t like it. It’s boring.

Rachael: OMG I love this.

Ryan: There are no fun filters and the stuff it did to my face is baaaaasic.

Rachael: I like that it does nothing more than make me look a little perkier than normal. The effect is minimal, but makes my tired makeup-free face look like I'm in a fancy-ass moisturiser advert.

Ryan: I guess one of the filters made my skin look slightly better than normal, but there are so many apps that do that. I say pass. Foodie just feels boring and posh.

Rachael: How can an app be posh? Whatever – you're missing out on crispy filter magic.