Blink Beauty Cam: Face Makeup

Review by eFreeware

Most selfie editors make you choose between a camera and an editing tool. Blink Beauty Cam: Face Makeup tries to be both at once: makeup effects can be applied while you shoot, and the same looks can be adjusted afterward on a photo you already took. That single idea is what sets it apart from a plain camera app.

It is built for people who take a lot of selfies and want them to look styled without learning a desktop editor. If your photos usually end up as profile pictures, social posts or pictures you send to friends, the mix of makeup, retouching and filters here is aimed at exactly that routine.

The app is free to download, carries ads and offers in-app purchases. It sits in the Beauty category on Google Play, holds a 4.4 average from nearly 14,000 ratings, and was released in early January 2023.

One app for shooting and styling

The core of Blink is a beauty camera. You take a selfie and the app smooths skin and enhances the face as the shot is captured, so the photo comes out closer to finished than a raw camera image would. Makeup effects can be switched on directly in the camera rather than added later.

After the shot, the same photo can be opened in the editor and worked on further. The developer describes the app as covering the whole chain: capture, retouch, makeup, hair color, save. That is a sensible shape for a phone app, because it means you are not bouncing between two or three tools to get one picture done.

The camera itself includes a few practical touches: a timer for steadier selfies, flash when light is poor, and the ability to tap anywhere on the screen to trigger the shutter. Photos save straight to your album, and edited pictures can also be kept and managed inside the app.

Makeup looks, from daily to festive

The makeup side is the app's biggest selling point. There are more than 50 makeup styles, covering lipstick, eye color, mascara, eyelashes, eyebrows and blush. Themes are grouped for everyday wear, festivals, holidays and current trends, so you can pick a look by occasion rather than building one from scratch.

You can also assemble your own combination if none of the presets fits, and makeup can be edited after the photo is taken as well as during the shoot. That matters for anyone who wants to compare a couple of options before committing to one.

The filter library is larger still, with more than 100 beauty filters and selfie effects. These are organized around moods and occasions such as trends, nature, personality and anniversaries. Between the makeup presets and the filters, there is a lot of variety to sort through, which is a strength and also the main reason a first session can feel busy.

Retouching skin, teeth and features

The retouch tools handle the usual selfie complaints. Skin can be smoothed, blemishes removed, and acne and pimples taken out of a photo. There is a brightening option for a fresher look and a teeth-whitening tool for smiles.

Beyond skin, the app reshapes facial features. Eyes, nose, face shape and contours can all be adjusted, and there is a slimming effect for the face. These are the kinds of controls that used to require a proper editing program, and having them in a phone app lowers the effort considerably.

The hair color changer is the other notable extra. You can recolor hair in a photo and preview shades before committing to a dye job in real life, which is a genuinely useful way to test whether a color suits your face and general style. It is the sort of feature that gives the app a second purpose beyond makeup.

Finishing tools and output

Once a photo looks right, the editor covers the basics of output. Cropping supports the common 1:1, 3:4 and 16:9 ratios, which between them handle square social posts, portrait formats and widescreen layouts. There is also an enhancement option for overall photo quality.

Finished images save to your album, and the app keeps a library of edited photos so you can return to earlier work. That is a small thing, but it saves redoing a look you liked.

None of this is unusual on its own. What holds it together is that the capture, makeup, retouch and crop steps live in one place rather than being split across separate apps.

What to expect before installing

Blink Beauty Cam is free, supported by ads, and includes in-app purchases. A library of 50-plus makeup styles and more than 100 filters suggests a fair amount of content to browse.

The breadth is also the main trade-off. With that many presets and effects, finding the two or three looks you actually like takes some exploring, and the sheer number of options can slow down a quick edit. Anyone hoping for a single-tap result may find the choice more than they want.

The app is also clearly oriented toward faces. It is a beauty camera and portrait editor, and its tools are built around selfies and close-up portraits rather than general photography. That focus is the point, but it does define what the app is for.

Who gets the most from it

This is an app for people who photograph themselves often and want the result to look styled without much work. The combination of makeup during capture and retouching afterward fits a routine where you take a picture, adjust it briefly and post it.

It should also appeal to anyone curious about changing their look. The hair color changer and the range of makeup themes let you preview styles in a photo before trying them in person, which is a low-risk way to experiment.

People who mostly shoot landscapes, objects or group scenes will find the toolset pointed elsewhere, since the features are built around faces and portraits. Judged on its own terms, the app is a focused selfie studio rather than a general-purpose photo editor.

A selfie studio worth trying for portrait shooters

It puts a beauty camera, a makeup editor, retouching tools, a hair color changer and a filter library in one free app, and the 4.4 average from a large body of ratings suggests that combination works for a lot of people.

The trade-offs are the ads and in-app purchases, and the volume of presets, which takes some sifting before you settle on favorites. Neither is unusual for this category, but both are worth knowing before you start.

If you take selfies regularly and want them to look polished with minimal effort, this is a reasonable app to install. If your photos are mostly of other things, the face-focused toolset will not have much to offer you.