Snow App: Instant Doll-Like Perfection

Do you love taking selfies? If you answered no, then this post probably isn't for you. Also, stop lying. If you answered yes then let me introduce you to my favourite, easy to use photo editing app. Some of us don't have much talent when it comes to photography and some of us (me!) are just lazy.

Snow is my 'secret weapon' app because although it's the go-to app in Asian countries, it hasn't quite gained the same traction in the West. If you've seen a perfect Asian lady on TikTok or Youtube who looks like a living doll, the chances are she's using the filters in the Snow app. Remember the 58-year old Chinese vlogger who scammed everyone into thinking she was a young, beautiful girl? Yeah, that's how good it is. Today, I want to outline some of the cool features packed into Snow and show you how it's basically plastic surgery in an App.

What I Love About Snow:

• Allows you to fine-tune the shape of your face and body.
• Gives you flawless skin, eyes, and teeth.
• Allows you to put on makeup and change your hair and eye colour.
• Allows you to save a filter look to automatically place over photos and videos.
• Cutting tool allows you to replace background with dozens of photos to choose from.
• Enough filters to rival Snapchat, everything from normal colour correction to cartoon and VR.
• Lots of stickers, brushes and other ways to customise your photos.
• Cute animations and Purikura stickers.
• Filters FOR YOUR CAT!!

To demonstrate how good the editing features are, I decided to take a very unflattering photo of myself to work on. So please enjoy my greasy-haired, no makeup, pre-shower selfie. Grim, innit?

As tempting as it is to go ahead and edit in perfect skin first you should start on the left of the bottom panel with the face shape changes. This is so that if there are any fuzzy areas created when you smush your face around, they can be covered up later with the skin tools.

BEAUTY

When you click on the Beauty button, you'll be given loads of different options but just click on the first for now.

RESHAPE

This tab will open up lots of fine-tuning sliders that will alter all the different areas of your face, effectively allowing you to do plastic surgery on your selfie. From here you can:

• Change the size, length, width and shape of your head.
• Slim and sculpt your chin, cheekbones and jaw.
• Shape the size, width and length of your nose, nostrils, nose tip and bridge.
• Change the width, height, fullness and shape of your mouth.
• Change the size, shape, corners, pupils, length, width and clarity of your eyes.
• Adjust the height and thickness of your eyebrows and the length of your forehead.

The rest of the beauty tab has a tool for adjusting the size and shape of your body, a 'liquify' tool, a paintbrush tool to add lines and glitter, and a Retouch tool so that you can really fine-tune the touch-ups. There's also the 'Makeup' and 'Touch up' menus, and after I've changed my face shape, I like to move on to the Touch up panel before I add makeup.

TOUCH UP

You might not want to change the shape of your face or you might have switched it up somewhat, either way, the Touch Up menu has all the tools you need to erase blemishes, lines and wrinkles. Again, there's a ton of options that really let you get in there and edit in detail. This panel will quickly become your best friend because from here you can:

• Correct blemishes, even out your skin and shrink your pores.
• Lighten and whiten your skin and teeth.
• Erase wrinkles and dark patches around the eyes and nose.
• Add or remove texture from your skin to create a more realistic effect.

If you need more control over your correction tools then just visit the Retouch panel for more intricate editing options and brushes.

MAKEUP

I won't lie, the makeup options aren't fantastic in this app. I think this is because it is aimed at a Korean market, so many of the looks and styles are minimal, fresh-faced looks in shades of browns and pinks. There's still some nice options though and it's good for putting on eyeliner and mascara. There's even pre-made looks that you can try on as well as the fine-tuning options that allow for colour and application shape changes. The makeup menu will give you the options to:

• Contour and highlight for your face shape.
• Add different blushes.
• Apply lipstick in lots of shades and styles.
• Change the colour, shape and darkness of your eyebrows.
• Apply liner and lashes.

HAIR

There’s not a great variety of options when it comes to hair colour and the filters can be a bit hit or miss. It does allow you to mask off areas though so that you can get a perfect, seamless look. However, as previously mentioned, I am lazy AF and didn’t want to do this step. Hence the pixels. I’m excited to see them add more hair colour options in the future, or perhaps filters that allow you to try different hairstyles. You can only try out the hair options on a photo you’ve already taken and you’ll find the option to do so on the top of the main editing screen.

BACKGROUND

You’ll find this tool under ‘Autocut’ on the main editing menu. You can cut out pieces of your photo and change the background using the automatic option or the precision tool. There’s quite a lot of backgrounds to choose from and some are more natural than others. Personally, I prefer the surreal option choices that feature sky pugs and Barbie baboons.

STICKERS

The brush option allows you to add stickers, glitter and other fun things to your photos. These options are stationary, if you want animated bling then you’ll find that in the filters. Stickers are more for when you want to make your photo cute and fun without adding the file size with moving graphics. If you’re into Purikura then you’ll love the selection of custom graphics.

FILTERS

Snow really excels when it comes to its catalogue of filters, in fact, it has enough great content here to rival Snapchat. You’ll find lots of great, natural filters that can improve the tone and colour of your photos, or you can try out some of their zany AR filters that turn you into weird characters. You may get lost while playing in this section though because there’s always something new to discover.

Perhaps the most important section of the filter menu though is it section just for cats. Yes, that’s right, Snow have perfected filters that you can use on your pet. Amazing.

OTHER TOOLS AND FEATURES

Snow is mostly about creating unique, artistic selfies and while the app focuses mainly on this point, there’s still a lot of other editing tools that you will find useful for other kinds of photos. You’ll have to explore the app yourself to find out its true potential, but here’s a short list of some of the additional features:

• Cropping.
• Blurring.
• Vignette.
• Colour correction.
• Lightness and contrast.
• Exposure.
• Shadows, midtones and highlights.

Now I know lots of people are probably thinking, ‘I can tell that’s a filter, it looks so fake!’ But please remember that I’ve made huge adjustments to demonstrate its abilities and also because I hate my face. You can make incredibly subtle changes with this app too so that you can hardly tell at all. Here’s a photo where I only made a few changes, so that you can see the difference between the realistic touch up and an all-out face change.

What I dislike about Snow:

• Not enough makeup options.
• Not enough hair colour choices.
• Can definitely distort your self-image.
• Filters only work on cats and not dogs.
• Some filters etc only work with Asian facial features. Makeup colours and styles are selected to compliment Asian faces according to popular K-Pop beauty standards. It’s not really a problem, but you’ll almost definitely change yourself accidentally and instantly feel weird about it.

CONCLUSION

You need this app, even if it’s just to have a play with then delete forever. It’s intelligent, interesting, silly and fun. You can find the app on IOS or Android stores and it is free to use. Just remember, it’s fun to edit photos but your most beautiful look is raw and unfiltered.