10 More Trends to Steal Right Now Before Everyone Else Does
If you caught our Part 1, you already know how fast Instagram moves in 2026. Trends don’t wait for your content calendar to catch up. They peak, they saturate, and they die, sometimes within two weeks. For consumer brands in India, that window is even tighter because competition on the feed is brutal and audience attention is the scarcest resource you have.
This is Part 2 of our ongoing Instagram Trends series for Indian consumer brands. We’re breaking down 10 more trends that are actively gaining traction in April 2026 not trends that “might work someday,” but ones you can brief your content team on today. Each one comes with a clear explanation of what it is, how your brand can execute it, and which industries it suits best.
Whether you’re a D2C brand selling skincare in Bengaluru or a homegrown fashion label in Mumbai trying to crack organic reach, these trends are your shortcut to relevance.
Let’s get into it.
Jump to any trends:
Trend 1: The Rubik’s Cube (1/6) Trend
This trend borrows the format of solving a Rubik’s cube specifically the “1 out of 6 faces solved” visual metaphor. Creators and brands use it to express the feeling of having one part of your life, brand, or product figured out while everything else is still in progress. It’s honest, self-aware, and incredibly relatable which is exactly why it’s spreading fast. The format typically starts with a chaotic or incomplete state and ends with one satisfying “solved” element front and centre.
How to hop on it: Show your brand, product, or team as a work-in-progress where one thing is absolutely nailed. Structure the video as: “Everything else is a mess but THIS we’ve figured out.” That “this” is your product, your packaging, your customer service, your formula whatever your brand’s strongest proof point is. Keep it punchy, keep it under 15 seconds, and let the relatability do the heavy lifting.
Best suited for: Food and beverage brands, skincare and beauty D2C brands, home décor startups, apparel and fashion labels, health and wellness brands, personal care brands, stationery and lifestyle brands.
Trend 2: The Intuition Test Trend
A brand posts a black and white video usually of a product like a dress, a bag, a pair of sneakers, or a lipstick and asks the audience: “What colour do you think this is?” The comment section explodes with guesses. The next day (or a few hours later), the brand drops the colour reveal. It’s simple, interactive, and drives insane comment volume, which signals the algorithm to push the post further. For Indian audiences who love participating in polls, games, and predictions, this format is catnip.
How to hop on it: Film your product in black and white. Write a text overlay that says something like “Guess the colour drop it in the comments.” Post it. Let it breathe for 12–24 hours. Then drop a follow-up Reel or story with the colour reveal and tag people who guessed right. Two pieces of content. One idea. Double the reach.
Best suited for: Fashion and clothing brands, handbag and accessories labels, footwear brands, cosmetics and makeup brands, nail care brands, home furnishing and décor labels, ethnic wear and fusion wear brands, jewellery brands.
Trend 3: The Colour Dissolve Trend
This is a visually stunning format where the video begins with the screen split one half in full colour, the other half in black and white or muted tones. As the video progresses, the colour slowly bleeds across the entire frame, replacing the greyscale until the whole screen is vibrant and alive. It’s being used as a metaphor for transformation, before-and-after moments, seasons changing, moods shifting, and product reveals. The visual payoff makes it extremely high retention people watch till the end to see the full colour take over.
How to hop on it: Use it for a product reveal, a seasonal collection launch, or a brand story moment. The split screen works perfectly for contrasting “before your product” and “after your product.” You can also use it for mood-based storytelling grey Monday vs colourful weekend, dull skin vs glowing skin, empty shelf vs stocked shelf. Pair it with a trending audio and you have a high-retention Reel that practically tells the algorithm to push it.
Best suited for: Skincare and beauty brands, home décor and interior brands, fashion and seasonal collections, paint and colour brands, art supply brands, food brands with visual plating, wellness and yoga brands, photography and lifestyle brands.
Trend 4: Show the Process Trend
Audiences in 2026 are deeply interested in how things are made. This trend is all about showing your production, creation, or behind-the-scenes process but doing it creatively, not like a factory tour. Think: satisfying cuts, close-up detail shots, fast-motion packaging sequences, hands shaping, pouring, folding, stitching, or plating. The more craft and care visible in the process, the more trust and desirability it builds in the viewer. Indian consumers especially respond to handmade, artisan, and founder-led stories right now.
How to hop on it: Pick one product or one step in your process that looks visually interesting when filmed up close or in motion. Shoot it in natural light. Add a trending audio or a simple voice-over explaining what’s happening. Keep it under 30 seconds. You don’t need a studio, you need a phone with good lighting and something worth watching. The rougher and more real it looks, the better it often performs.
Best suited for: Food and bakery brands, candle and home fragrance brands, handmade jewellery labels, skincare and organic beauty brands, fashion and textile brands, pottery and ceramics businesses, artisan chocolate brands, paper and stationery brands, homegrown furniture labels.
Trend 5: The “3 Things I’m Good At” Trend
This trend started with creators listing three things they’re genuinely (and hilariously) good at like “collecting pink things, spending money, and spending money on pink things.” The punchline is that all three lines have a common thread that reveals a personality quirk or obsession. Brands are now jumping on it by adapting the three lines to reflect their product ecosystem or brand personality. It’s self-aware, it’s funny, and it works incredibly well for brands that have a strong niche identity or a signature aesthetic.
How to hop on it: Write three lines where the last line is the most specific and the funniest version of the first two. The template is: general thing → slightly more specific thing → hilariously specific version of the same thing tied to your brand. For example: a tea brand could say: “brewing things, making mornings better, making mornings better with 11 types of masala chai.” The third line should always feel like a satisfying, specific, brand-flavoured punchline. Keep the visual simple text on screen, trending audio underneath.
Best suited for: Beverage and chai brands, skincare and self-care brands, book and stationery brands, fashion and colour-specific clothing brands, food and snacking brands, pet care brands, beauty and cosmetics brands, niche D2C lifestyle brands.
Trend 6: Trending Audio “Babydoll” by Dominic Fike
“Babydoll” by Dominic Fike is one of the most-used audio tracks on Instagram Reels in April 2026. The track has a dreamy, nostalgic, and slightly cinematic quality that makes it extremely versatile for brand content. Whenever an audio hits critical mass on Reels, the Instagram algorithm actively promotes content using it meaning you get a temporary but real boost just by associating with the sound. This isn’t about the song fitting your brand perfectly. It’s about borrowing algorithm momentum.
How to hop on it: Use the audio as a background track for a product showcase, a mood board Reel, a slow-motion product close-up, a packaging unboxing, or a lifestyle visual. The tone of the audio suits soft, aesthetic, and aspirational content particularly well. Match your visual pacing to the music’s rhythm. Don’t overthink the concept sometimes a beautiful 10-second product visual with the right audio is all it takes to pick up tens of thousands of views.
Best suited for: Skincare and beauty brands, fragrance and perfume labels, fashion and outfit-of-the-day content, jewellery and accessories brands, travel and hospitality brands, food styling and café brands, lifestyle and home décor labels, wedding and gifting brands.
Trend 7: Sliding video
This is a format-driven trend where the main video is shot or framed horizontally (landscape orientation), but within the frame, portrait-oriented photos or video clips are attached side by side and slide from right to left like a physical carousel being pulled through the screen. It creates a scrapbook or lookbook effect that feels both editorial and personal at the same time. The motion of the sliding portraits inside a static landscape frame is visually distinctive and stops the scroll effectively.
How to hop on it: Choose 3–5 portrait-format photos of your product, model, or visual story. Animate them to slide left within a horizontal video container. You can do this in CapCut, Adobe Express, or similar tools fairly easily with the right template. Use it for a collection launch, a product range showcase, a team feature, a customer spotlight series, or a seasonal lookbook. Add a trending audio and text overlays to complete the feel.
Best suited for: Fashion and apparel brands, jewellery and accessories labels, beauty and cosmetics brands, food and restaurant brands showcasing menus, travel and hospitality brands, skincare brands showcasing ranges, home décor and furniture labels, wedding and event services
Trend 8: Trending Template
This is a text-layout-driven Reel template that’s currently circulating widely. The horizontal video frame has two bold words anchored to the extreme left edge and two bold words anchored to the extreme right edge with the video playing in the centre or full background. The contrast between the two word pairs creates tension, humour, identity, or a before-and-after feeling. It’s visually clean, typographically bold, and immediately recognisable as part of a trend family which means the algorithm and audiences both respond to it.
How to hop on it: Choose two contrasting or complementary ideas connected to your brand. Left side: what life looks like without your product. Right side: what it looks like with it. Or: left side is a customer pain point. Right side is your solution. Or simply: left side is your brand’s personality trait. Right side is another. Keep the words short, punchy, and real. The video in the background should visually reinforce the contrast. Trending audio underneath, minimal production required.
Best suited for: Personal care and grooming brands, fitness and nutrition brands, food and snacking brands, fashion labels, productivity and wellness apps, home cleaning and organisation brands, beverage brands, D2C brands with a strong value proposition.
Trend 9: “Plant a Tree Every Time You…” Trend
This trend uses the format of a running joke or commitment: “We’ll plant a tree every time [something ridiculous or relatable happens].” The video then fast-cuts to a lush forest, implying that the thing happens so often that an entire forest has already grown. It’s funny, it’s self-aware, and it subtly communicates a brand’s personality or customer behaviour without being preachy. Brands are using it to poke fun at their own identity, their customers’ obsessive loyalty, or a quirky product behaviour and it’s landing extremely well with Indian millennial and Gen Z audiences
How to hop on it: Finish this sentence in a way that’s true to your brand’s reality: “We’d plant a tree every time someone [does the thing your customers always do].” Then cut to a forest. The joke works best when the “thing” is ultra-specific to your category like a chai brand saying “every time someone says they’ll have just one cup” or a skincare brand saying “every time someone adds to cart at midnight.” Specificity is what makes it funny and shareable.
Best suited for: Beverage and chai brands, skincare and beauty brands, snacking and food brands, bookstores and stationery brands, fashion and impulse-buy brands, subscription brands, fitness and supplement brands, homegrown D2C brands with loyal communities.
Trend 10:What Are the Four Things That Remind Me of You?
This trend is built around an emotional prompt: someone asks “What are the four things that remind me of you?” and the answer is a perfectly composed grid of four images arranged into a single visual. Each image represents a feeling, a memory, a product, or an aesthetic that together tell a story about a person, a relationship, or a brand identity. It’s deeply emotional, highly shareable, and has strong save and share rates which are the two engagement signals Instagram prioritises most heavily in 2026 for feed and Reel distribution.
How to hop on it: Ask yourself: what four images would a loyal customer associate with your brand? Or: what four things represent your brand’s entire soul? Pick visuals that are specific enough to feel personal but universal enough to resonate broadly. Arrange them in a clean 2×2 or horizontal quad layout. Add a simple question as a text overlay. Encourage your audience to do their own version this is where the UGC potential explodes. People will tag your brand in their versions, share the format, and pull others into the loop.
Best suited for: Lifestyle and fashion brands, skincare and self-care brands, food and café brands, travel and hospitality brands, gifting and occasion brands, ethnic wear and cultural brands, home décor labels, wedding services, pet care brands.
Conclusion
Instagram in April 2026 rewards brands that move fast, stay authentic, and understand the difference between chasing every trend and choosing the right ones strategically. You don’t need to execute all ten of these. You need to find the two or three that align with your brand’s voice, your product’s visual strength, and your audience’s current energy and then execute those two or three exceptionally well.
At PassionBits, we study how Indian consumer brands grow on social media not just what’s trending globally, but what’s actually working right now for brands selling to Indian audiences. The trends in this blog aren’t pulled from a generic list. They’re patterns we’re seeing perform across categories, from skincare to snacks to streetwear, right now in April 2026.
If Part 1 gave you a foundation, Part 2 gives you momentum. Start with the one trend that made you immediately think of your brand and build from there. The brands winning on Instagram right now aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets they’re the ones who saw the trend early, moved quickly, and made it theirs before it peaked.