ComfiSkin vs YouCam
YouCam’s apps scan your face, charge for plans and still show ads. Its maker sells the same face technology to beauty brands to help them sell more. ComfiSkin scans the label on the bottle instead, for free.
- Photos or videosLinked to you
- LocationUsed to track you
- IdentifiersUsed to track you
From YouCam Makeup’s App Store label
The short answer
YouCam scans your face, charges up to $79.99 a year and still shows ads, and its maker sells the same face technology to brands to boost their sales. Perfect Corp’s own annual report mentions biometric privacy lawsuits, a subsidiary in China and a ban in India that’s still in force.
What that means: your face is the raw material for a business whose real customers are beauty brands, not you. Keep YouCam for playing with virtual lipstick. For skincare, scan the bottle in ComfiSkin.
Side by side
| ComfiSkin | YouCam Makeup | |
|---|---|---|
| What the camera points at | The product label | Your face |
| What it costs | Nothing | Up to $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year2 |
| Ads | None | Yes2 |
| Tracks you across other apps | No | Yes: location, identifiers and usage data2 |
| Who the technology is really sold to | Nobody. We don’t sell to brands | Beauty brands, to lift their sales3 |
| Virtual make-up try-on | No | Yes |
Your face, their product
Perfect Corp licenses its skin analysis and virtual try-on to beauty companies. Clinique’s AI skin analysis was built with it, and Perfect Corp reported a 2.5 times lift in conversions from that tool, which is business-speak for “more people bought something”.3 Fortune reported that Perfect Corp also built the original scanner behind Neutrogena’s Skin360.4
So the engine telling you about your pores in YouCam is, somewhere else, tuned to sell you a serum. Its success is measured in how much more brands sell. YouCam is the shop window, and every face it scans serves a company whose real customers are brands.
ComfiSkin doesn’t sell products or technology to anyone. Its camera points at the label, and its only job is telling you whether something suits your skin.
What that means for you: the technology looking at your skin was built to help brands sell, not to give you neutral advice.
What its maker warns investors about
Public companies have to list their risks in an annual report. Perfect Corp’s report for 2025 is surprisingly candid about things a face-scanning app user should know, and most users will never read it.1
| Topic | From Perfect Corp’s 2025 annual report1 |
|---|---|
| Face-scan lawsuits | It and some of its customers “have been named parties in lawsuits that allege violations of BIPA”, Illinois’s biometric privacy law. |
| China | “We have one operating subsidiary located in the PRC.” |
| Cloud providers | Its infrastructure is run by third parties, including AWS, Alibaba Cloud and Google Cloud. |
| India | YouCam Makeup was put on India’s list of banned apps in June 2020, and the ban “remains in effect”. |
Perfect Corp has said the Indian listing was a mistake.5 Either way, that’s a lot of fine print for a selfie. ComfiSkin never asks for a photo of your face, and keeps your skin profile and notes on your phone. There’s no face data to sue over, store abroad or ban.
What that means for you: the company itself warns investors about risks around the face data it handles. It’s worth taking that as seriously as they do.
You pay, and you still see ads
YouCam Makeup’s Premium plans cost $5.99 to $9.99 a month or $31.99 to $39.99 a year, and a Pro plan costs $79.99 a year. The listing is also marked “Contains Advertising”.2 Perfect Corp’s own report shows its paying subscribers fell from 1,000,612 at the end of 2024 to 908,239 a year later.1 Nearly a hundred thousand people did the maths and left.
ComfiSkin has no plans and no ads, so there’s nothing to pay for and nothing to sit through.
What that means for you: paying doesn’t necessarily buy you an app without ads.
What to do if you use YouCam
- Keep virtual try-on for fun. Don’t base skincare decisions on a face scan from a company that sells to brands.
- Turn off app tracking. On an iPhone, go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Tracking.
- Point your camera at the product instead. Scan it in ComfiSkin to see whether it suits your skin.
Sources
- Perfect Corp, annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. sec.gov
- YouCam Makeup on the US App Store: in-app purchases, “Contains Advertising”, and App Privacy label. apps.apple.com
- Glossy, on the development of Clinique’s AI skin analysis with Perfect Corp. glossy.co
- Fortune, “Face-scanning AI apps are giving cosmetics companies deeper connections and selling points with customers”, 29 February 2024. fortune.com
- Business Today, on India’s June 2020 list of 59 blocked apps. businesstoday.in
More comparisons
Scan the bottle, not your face
See whether a product suits your skin from its label.
- Free, all of itNo plans, trials or paywalls. Every feature, for everyone.
- No sign-upNo account, no email, no password to lose.
- No ads, no trackingNothing about you is sold, shared or followed around the web.
- Your notes stay on your phoneWith a password-protected backup that only you control.
- Never asks for your faceIt reads the label, not you.
- Answers for your skinYour skin type, concerns, avoid list and routine, every time.