For 20-year-old Lauren, from Ontario, her best-kept beauty secret isn’t stashed in her makeup bag or hidden in her medicine cabinet—it's in her mind. She has spent years staring at other women's faces on Pinterest, cataloguing features she wants for herself, not as inspiration, but as a tool for visualisation. According to Lauren, having a clear image in her head of the physical characteristics she wants to attain, be it straight teeth or long hair, means she is better able to manifest those desired changes in her appearance. “The image doesn’t have to be a celebrity or model,” she explains. “It’s just whatever I resonate with and aspire to look like.”

The idea that, through the power of belief, we can effectively “think” a goal into becoming reality was instilled in Lauren as a young child. Her mother was a devotee of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, the 2006 best-selling book that helped bring manifesting into the mainstream. But it wasn’t until Lauren’s teenage years, after she stumbled across a video from HotHighPriestess—an internet personality with 1.2 million Instagram followers and a $7-a-week manifestation app called Stella—about how she had manifested her dream body with just her thoughts, that Lauren began to consider whether it might be possible to use this practice to alter her own appearance. She was already deep in the world of YouTube beauty tutorials, so for her, it felt like the next logical step.

At the start, Lauren’s goal was an overall “glow up”: clearer skin, “striking” eyes, healthier hair, better style. She would set aside time—from five minutes to half an hour—to visualise her desired look. The results came gradually, Lauren says, claiming that she saw her skin clear up, her eyes lighten slightly, and her cheekbones become more pronounced within a couple months. The changes didn't seem dramatic to her at first, but she got the sense manifestation was working when people began to compliment her appearance. More specifically, she manifested a “lethal face card,” using the phrase as part of an affirmation. “People then started commenting on my TikTok: ‘Oh my God, you have such a lethal face card’, ‘Your face card is so lethal’,” she says. “That kind of freaked me out.”

Peddling an illusion

Lauren isn’t alone in her belief in manifestation. Almost two decades after The Secret, Roxie Nafousi’s book Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life, published in 2022, sold more than a million copies worldwide. In 2024, the Oxford Dictionary named “manifesting” its Word of the Year. Across social media, there are videos of people claiming to have manifested everything, even their soulmate or dream home. It was only a matter of a time until people like Lauren began applying the method to their physical appearance, with videos of people claiming to have achieved bigger breasts, different eye color, longer hair, and even increased height through thought alone racking up millions of views (which, given the nature of social media, is obviously not a measure of credibility). By focusing on changing immutable elements through mind power alone, the manifestation practices of Byrne and Nafousi—which promote aligning visualization with action—entered the world of magical thinking.

Naturally, an entire cottage industry has emerged around the trend. Self-styled “coaches,” “gurus,” and manifestation experts are profiting from promises that say, with the right mindset, they can teach their followers how to think themselves hot. Some have apps, like HotHighPriestess, while others offer online mentoring sessions; many create or promote beauty subliminals, audio recordings containing hidden, positive affirmations that can now be found all over YouTube and Spotify. “There is a money making machinery behind all of this manifesting content,” notes Anna Schaffner, PhD, a former professor of cultural history at the University of Kent. “The message is often deeply commercial, but couched in esoteric and spiritual language.”

Among these manifestation coaches is Kimberlee, age 26. She promises to help clients achieve physical transformations through one-to-one mentorship sessions priced at $350 for an hour. In most states, that’s more than the cost of an hour-long (out-of-pocket) appointment with a licensed therapist (which Kimberlee is not).

Kimberlee turned to manifesting appearance changes in 2019, during a difficult period in her life. After losing her mother, she’d gained weight. When she tried to lose it, nothing seemed to work. She had already been practicing manifestation in other areas of her life, particularly for financial success, so the idea of using it for weight loss didn’t feel entirely out of reach. “It dawned on me one time: I could actually just manifest this,” she says, claiming the pounds dropped off over the next five months. “I wasn't working out as hard as I used to, I wasn't starving myself like I used to,” she recalls of the period when she was manifesting weight loss. “I was eating just about anything that I wanted to. It felt like [the weight] magically fell off.”

Kimberlee now coaches people in how to attain their own manifestation goals. She’s currently working with a client who is hoping to achieve a smaller nose. “I repeatedly tell her: ‘You have your dream nose,’” Kimberlee says of their sessions. “It’s working, because she tells me there has been some movement—she’s noticing her nose getting smaller.”

It probably shouldn’t be surprising that what these coaches are spouting is resonating with some audiences. According to Spate Data, the “manifesting” hashtag receives 109.9 million weekly views on TikTok, with #glowup and #glowuptips—two common hashtags used alongside manifesting content—each receiving hundreds of thousands of views weekly (117.9K and 305.2K respectively). Some people are also engaging in beauty manifesting as part of their effort to “looksmax,” a trend that was birthed in manosphere spaces; though, it’s important to note, most manifesting is free of the toxic overlay of looksmaxxing.

In our time-strapped world, the idea of a quick fix has never seemed so appealing. But there’s also the fact that, as researchers suggest, humans are “cognitive misers,” meaning we often rely on mental shortcuts to make fast and efficient judgments in new or time-pressured situations. “People are relatively poor at detecting deceptive information from others, because we usually just take them at face value,” says Janet Boseovski, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and co-author of Beyond Body Positive, whose main areas of research include body image and child development.

With this in mind, it isn’t hard to understand how ”unscientific claims—in which influencers or coaches offer quick fixes, or simple strategies—appeal to many people precisely because they offer quick and seemingly simple solutions,” Dr. Boseovski adds. On top of this, says Charlotte Markey, PhD, a professor of psychology and director of the health sciences program at Rutgers University, “A promise like ‘you can think your way into a better face or body’ offers a seductive sense of control in a culture that constantly tells young women they are being evaluated visually.”

These coaches are peddling an illusion, Dr. Markey continues, pointing out that, “At the end of the day, a lot of how we look is genetically determined and constrained by our resources—money, time, other responsibilities.”

Manifesting can be understood as a way of trying to escape these constraints, and is a practice people often turn to in difficult times. For instance, in 2020, as COVID lockdowns began, Google searches for “manifesting” increased by 600%. Post-pandemic, in a time of economic and political uncertainty, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the phenomenon continues to be enormously popular.

Laila, 19, is among those drawn to the idea of manifesting beauty as a faster and more affordable way to reach her aesthetic goals, saving her money she might have spent on treatments and expensive products. After manifesting better grades in school, she decided, at age 16, to shift her focus to achieving a slimmer face, clearer skin, and longer hair. Like Lauren, she says the changes were subtle at first. “You see yourself every single day and you don’t really notice it,” she explains. “Then you look at a photo from a year ago and you’re like, ‘Oh wow.’”

When the placebo effect and puberty collide

If it’s hard to rationalize how young women like Lauren and Laila are convinced they’re able to change biological traits like face shape or eye color, there are psychological reasons why some people will report seeing results, says Dr. Markey. “Expectation effects, placebo responses, selective attention, and confirmation bias can all shape what people think they notice,” she points out. “Research shows that if we believe something to cause a change (we believe in a placebo), we may look at ourselves and think we look better because we expect to.”

Dr. Markey also thinks it’s not a coincidence that almost all of the people Allure spoke to for this article report seeing changes in their teenage years, a time of immense and fast-paced physical and psychological change. In younger people, “some ‘results’ may also reflect ordinary developmental change over time,” she explains, “since puberty and ongoing maturation naturally change bodies and faces whether or not someone is using manifestation content.”

Laila admits to not being totally certain of the role puberty may have played in her transformation; but she’s convinced that manifestation is, at least, mostly responsible for the changes she saw. She recalls how, in high school, she didn’t have money for expensive products, like high-end shampoo and conditioner: “Still, my hair was really, really long, because I would manifest long hair growth,” she says. “I see ads [for beauty products], and I just feel like it’s a waste of time. You truly only need yourself. People ask me, ‘Oh, what type of product do you use?’ I tell them, ‘Just manifest it.’”

It’s not just the physical changes that occur during puberty that make teenagers vulnerable to beauty manifestation; peer pressure at school and from society at large also play a big role. Says Dr. Boseovski, “Adolescents, who are very sensitive to the rewards of peer acceptance and approval, may be more likely to accept guidance of this sort from peers or other influential models they admire, and less likely to rely on science-supported claims.”

Girls also tend to engage in more self-comparison at this age, making them more susceptible to this type of messaging, Dr. Boseovski notes. (Lauren, for example, says that she was initially attracted to manifesting content because of her insecurity, recalling, “I felt like I wasn’t the prettiest girl in the room, like I was never chosen.”) “Girls tend to lose the ‘rose-colored’ glasses that most have in early childhood where they feel very positive about themselves,” adds Dr. Boseovski. On top of this, “media exposure increases with age, and teens are inundated with messages about how they should look and ideas for how to ‘fix’ their ‘flaw.’”

An unhealthy focus

It’s true that research does suggest that mindset can influence behavior; and let’s be honest, actively engaging in positive thinking is certainly not a bad thing for young women. But what newer types of beauty manifesting promote—the idea that we can change often immutable things about our appearance through the power of our mind alone—is not only misguided, according to experts like Dr. Boseovski, it can also backfire, even if you go in with the best intentions.

She draws a clear distinction between visualization plus action, such as imagining yourself with a slimmer physique while also going to the gym, and magical thinking (especially when it comes to changing things that aren’t actually changeable, like height or eye color). “Certainly, thinking positively and setting goals for oneself can be associated with success when they are appropriately coupled with behavioral change,” Dr. Boseovski says. “But repeatedly using techniques like this that aren’t well grounded in science can lead to feelings of ‘learned helplessness’—giving up on your goals because nothing you do is working—and becoming passive. So, in the long term, this becomes even less of a tool for bringing about change.”

And while manifesting coaches claim to provide their followers improved confidence, Dr. Markey worries that these practices will only have the opposite effect. “One risk is that it keeps young women focused on the idea that their bodies are ongoing self-improvement projects rather than bodies worthy of care and respect right now,” she says, adding that: “Research on adolescents and young women suggests that appearance-focused environments, such as a bar or party, can increase self-comparison, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction, especially during developmental periods when body image is already more vulnerable.”

The dangers of turning insecurity into daily ritual

For 20-year-old Kat, from New York, attempting to manifest appearance changes only worsened her self-loathing. From as early as age 10, she started listening to YouTube videos of subliminals in pursuit of things like fuller lips and longer eyelashes. “I was getting bullied at the time for my appearance, my weight, and just how I looked in general,” she says. “It felt like an easy solution to an issue that I did not know how to solve.” The specific changes she was chasing were very much shaped by conventional beauty standards. “I wanted to look like a model out of a magazine,” she recalls. (She’s not alone: The subliminal “Face Like a Model” has over 1.2 million streams on Spotify.)

Kat would play these subliminals, which could be up to 10 hours long, overnight. “It meant my appearance was literally the last thing I thought about before bed and the first thing I thought about when I woke up,” she says. Not seeing the desired results after listening to subliminals for some months was crushing: “I would think a lot about why the effort I was putting in manifesting wasn’t showing up, and I’d just be so pissed that the universe wasn't giving me what I wanted.”

From Dr. Markey’s perspective, the concern isn’t that subliminals and manifesting in general won’t magically change someone’s lips or eye color (they won’t); “it’s more that repeated appearance-focused listening may intensify body monitoring, reinforce dissatisfaction, and turn insecurity into a daily ritual,” she explains.

The fear, for mental health experts, is that this unhealthy physical fixation could make people more attuned to what society says are their flaws. “Repeated exposure can make certain ideas feel more emotionally important or ‘true,’ even when there’s no scientific basis for them,” says Clint Salo, MD, the medical director of the Grove Recovery Community and a board-certified psychiatrist in Irvine, California, who specializes in behavioral health and risk-related decision making. “The brain naturally pays more attention to thoughts and cues that are repeated often, especially during adolescence.”

Of course, these messages may not be harmful just within online manifesting communities. “It’s not the case that we should only worry about messaging that purports to be subliminal. We should be as worried about the messaging [of inadequacy] that is out there in the world that girls and women are exposed to every single day, consciously,” says Dr. Boseovski. “This additional messaging may just be adding fuel to the already raging fire.”

A self-esteem crisis for women

Theiadora, a 21-year-old from the Netherlands, has more recently started to reflect on the harms of using certain subliminals for making changes to her physical appearance. She believes that some of the earlier subliminals she tried as a teenager did lead to actual changes, such as one recording specifically aimed at making curly hair straight. But she also recognizes that some of the “skinny girl” subliminals she used in the past, which contained affirmations about being able to stay full without eating, contributed to unhealthy eating habits and obsessive thinking about her body.

“It made me feel restless, like I was always looking for something about myself to change,” she says. “I started looking at myself a bit differently, more through the lens of what could be improved, rather than what already felt good.”

Dr. Salo says that the repetition of messages like “I can stay full without eating” can normalize restrictive thinking around food. “Over time, that may encourage someone to ignore hunger cues or associate eating with guilt,” he explains. “In vulnerable individuals, especially teens, that can contribute to unhealthy patterns around eating and body control…. If results don’t happen, people may assume personal failure. That can lead to shame, which tends to persist and lower self-esteem.”

It took a painful breakup a couple years ago for Theiadora to decide that it was time to stop listening to these kinds of subliminals. She has since switched to messages that focus more on self-love and developing confidence instead of specific appearance changes.

Rather than questioning the practice of manifesting more broadly, though, Theiadora thinks the problem lies with a handful of rogue subliminal creators. “Some creators use wrong or negative affirmations, so you can end up manifesting the opposite of what you want,” she says. Theiadora now only looks to “trusted” creators who are “careful and intentional” with their affirmations. She also makes her own subliminals that she shares on YouTube; she recently created a subliminal claiming to help people grow taller.

From Kimberlee’s perspective, when clients say they aren’t seeing results, the issue lies in the mindset of the client and level of commitment. “They might not be persistent enough or they don't want what they say they want bad enough,” she says. “I remind them, ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, either. Give yourself a break. Do a lot of self-care.’”

The self-blame people feel when they don’t see results can be exacerbated when a coach reinforces the idea that they’re not manifesting correctly, says Dr. Markey. “When manifestation practices fail to produce visible appearance changes, young women may feel disappointed, frustrated, ashamed, or even more preoccupied with their looks,” she explains. “Instead of reducing insecurity, these practices can reinforce the idea that the body is a problem to fix and that failure reflects a personal deficiency, rather than an ineffective method.”

For Kat, not seeing results ultimately prevented her from finding self-acceptance. “It put me in this weird limbo spot where I felt like I can get more beautiful, but I don't truly know how, because I'm not letting myself,” she says.

Laila also acknowledges moments of frustration with manifesting, especially when it comes to her acne: “I think to myself, What am I doing that’s wrong? But then I remember that wavering delays result, and that the only person that can really drag yourself out of it is you.”

Likewise, whenever Lauren is struggling to see results, she blames her own impatience. “The main challenge [with manifesting] is staying calm and consistent, instead of forcing it,” she says. Currently, Lauren is trying to manifest a straight jaw for a more symmetrical face, but it’s something that has been taking longer than she anticipated: “My jaw is crooked because I held back emotionally,” she says. “If I want to manifest it straight, I need to work through past trauma.”

All of the experts we spoke to repeatedly emphasize just how damaging this constant effort to alter our physical appearance can be. The negative effects of social media on young women’s body image, in particular, has been well documented over recent years, resulting in research and legislative action by some governments. “For several decades now, science has known that chronic dissatisfaction with one’s body or appearance is harmful for both psychological and physical health. So this is truly a public health issue for women,” says Dr. Boseovski. “Body dissatisfaction is related to mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, eating, and body dysmorphic disorders. But it is also related to more ‘everyday’ issues with our self-image, such as a tendency to ruminate on negative experiences, and a hyper-sensitivity to the negative.”

Kat knows now that she was never to blame for her manifesting goals that failed to materialize, and credits therapy with helping her to develop a better relationship with her body. “I definitely realize now it’s not possible to manifest physical-appearance changes…. but I’ve been feeling better in how I perceive myself,” she says. “Nowadays, I try to treat myself more as a friend and someone I love closely, rather than as my enemy.”