Makeover apps now take over internet

Photo-editing apps enable users with caricature tools to apply humor and fun in their selfies.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Frequently zooming in and out to the same photo, Zhu Ziyi spends half an hour airbrushing her face to make sure that almost every pore is perfect before posting the photo on her different social media accounts to attract likes. For her "picky" roommate, it takes all the time before going to bed to get an ideal photo with a perfect face.

Having been in Paris for five years, Zhu and her Chinese roommate are photo-editing savvies compared with their foreign friends. They are quite good at removing pouches and stains, slimming faces, paling the skin and making eyes big and round.

"They don't have so many apps as we do. Most of my French friends only use filters offered by Instagram," says Zhu, 25, who works at an entertainment company in Paris. She has about 13 such apps on her phone.

She bought a selfie beauty smartphone recently, which cost her about 6,000 yuan ($876). The phone's camera can apply makeup automatically to everyone in the selfie photo.

"Asians, especially Southeastern Asians, pay more attention to their faces while the Westerners focus more on shapes, due to cultural differences," says Com Jiang, a product manager from MeituPic, a Xiamen-based photo-editing app.

MeituPic is one of the beauty-themed photo and video apps of Meitu Inc, which has about 500 million overseas users in 11 countries and regions, including the United States, India and Brazil, according to Meitu.

Jiang says in different nations, its app has developed localized features. For instance, in the US, they have tools to make people look tanned and to whiten their teeth.

"Users in the West love going to the gym, so they want to look healthy in photos," Jiang adds.

Dong Chenyu, an internet culture expert from Beijing Foreign Studies University, says that the standards of beauty between the East and West are different. From movies and TV shows, women are hot and sexy in Hollywood films while for a long time, cameras have been focusing on women's delicate faces in dramas and films in China.

Despite the various beauty standards, the pursuit of an ideal face still makes lots of similar faces.

Xie Qi, 25, who began using photo-editing apps in senior middle school, says she sometimes feels sick about photos with almost-the-same faces - oval-shaped face, pale skin and big eyes.