Snapchat is rolling out a new feature that includes a tool to create custom face lenses and new text caption styles for your snaps. The lenses feature augmented reality masks that overlay your face with details like puppy ears, flower crowns and the all-important vomiting rainbows. The feature for these lenses starts from $9.99 and go up depending on the size of the location you have chosen (covering anywhere from 20,000 to 5 million square feet), duration of the lens and other factors.
The lens tool is available from desktop browsers or through the Snapchat app on iOS. Users can choose from 150 different lens templates at launch, which can also be customised with text that fits your mood. The offering is similar to Snapchat's custom geofilters, which are one-off decorative borders that users can select for their snaps when situated at a pre-defined location.
Snap notes that users must complete their custom lens purchase at least 3 hours before the event for it to run on time. The latest features are part of Snap's push to get more users onto the app and to diversify revenue sources.
Also launching with the new feature are new font styles for captions on both your photo and video snaps. The new fonts include brush, italic, glow, gradient, rainbow, fancy and old English. You can choose one or two different fonts on each snap.
To create your own lens will be available in the US on both web and the Snapchat app on iOS, as for Android Snap says the availability is "coming soon". The new caption options are rolling out now to both iOS and Android.
