You heard of manifestation and made the mood boards. Subliminal audio is similar but beauty-coded: specialised recordings that play hidden, positive affirmations beneath background sounds or music, promising to solve any woes you have about your physical appearance. Keeping my scepticism aside, I plugged in my headphones to listen to files on YouTube titled like Transformers—‘Extreme Beauty Enhancer’ and ‘Goddess Glo Up’—in one sitting, hoping to emerge with a new face (please sense the sarcasm). Obviously, nothing changed. Subliminal audio can sound like an Ariana Grande song, TikTok slop, gurgling water or just white noise, depending on what you play. The affirmations, as mentioned, actually can’t be heard at all which just makes this whole thing even more bizarre.
One skim through this Reddit thread, and it becomes apparent that, somehow, I’m the anomaly. ‘‘I got prettier and hotter in HOURS!! Literally the fastest results I have ever gotten,” reads one comment. “I am shook!!! After listening to this sub, my English teacher said in front of the whole class, that I look so beautiful like a nineties actress!!,” goes another. Etsy is rife with subliminal beauty bundles for sale; turns out smooth glass skin is ₹1,113 away.
Surely, an audio isn’t capable of physical transformation. Otherwise, beauty brands would be out of business with nothing to sell to make our lips fuller, skin brighter, and wrinkles erased into nothingness. “I also had a sub for ‘exotic eyes’ to get a mix of green, blue, and grey eyes, I didn’t expect much but I have lighter specks around the pupil and they look slightly honey,” said a Redditor. Is biology dead? The more I venture into the world of subliminals, the more it feels like I've entered a cult where everyone is onto something (no pun intended) life-changing.
“Subliminal audio isn’t magic; repetition is one of the ways new beliefs become familiar to the mind,” says Shailaja Sharma, a Mumbai-based hypnotherapist and founder of Subconscious Therapist. ‘‘The mind is the biggest placebo, and it is designed for neuroplasticity. So, if someone repeatedly listens to generic messages associated with confidence, beauty, attractiveness, or self-worth, their internal perception of themselves can start to change,” she explains.
What seems like just another internet oddity may just be affirmations, but it’s trippier because you technically can’t even hear the words. In the West, subliminal beauty playlists on YouTube feature montages of Megan Fox and Tom Cruise, but their desi versions rely on stills of Indian goddesses, apsaras, and ethereal brides.
There are people subscribing to it too, like Isha*, a Delhi-based MBA student, who started listening to subliminal audio a few months ago out of curiosity and, eventually, in a desperate bid to alter her nose. “I’m yet to see any real and physical changes, but I do feel more confident and prettier with the same nose,” she shares. Meanwhile, Sarandha Swain, a fashion and beauty content creator who got into subliminals for a confidence boost during the Covid-19 pandemic, echoes the same thoughts: “Even if you don’t believe an audio can physically change your face, your brain is still listening to the same messages repeatedly, and that can bring about significant change in you.”
And maybe the appeal of subliminals lies in its strange paradox; on one hand they could help change our perception about ourselves, but by banking on promises of clear and youthful skin, voluminous hair, and a chiselled face those perceptions regress right back into the folds of age-old beauty standards. Its underlying premise is: ‘You just aren’t quite as good, but, hey, you could be if you listen to this.’
