Appearance changing effects

A variety of appearance changing effects are available in World of Warcraft. They change your character's visual appearance beyond what a barber shop can do, often by applying a buff that alters your size, race, or gender. These effects can be gained from items, objects, spells, or even by being in a certain zone or phase. Though some appearance changing effects come with additional gameplay uses, they're most commonly used for vanity, fun, or roleplaying purposes.

Appearance changes have been given many names by players, including transformations, costumes, disguises, and shapeshifts.

Teleporter malfunctions
Engineers can use their teleporters, Ultrasafe Transporter: Toshley's Station and Dimensional Ripper - Area 52, in an attempt to disguise themselves with a debuff that lasts an hour. Unlike other disguises, these can stack if you logout then log back in after 4 hours, but people prefer just to have fun with the malfunctions while they have them.

Mount appearance changes
Your mounts' appearances can be changed with certain items:

Quest items
These only last until the quest they belong to are completed. Most are limited to a certain zone. Raene's Cleansing (6) is one of the only quests that you can abandon and keep the item forever, but you can never finish the quest or will be removed from your inventory. can be made continuously, but it's limited to its quest's zone.

Objects
Object disguises come from objects you can interact with in the environment. They can either be clicked on or you must walk on top of them.
 * PX-238 Winter Wondervolt turns you into a gnome if stepped on.
 * Brightly Colored Eggs sometimes turn you into a pink rabbit.

Spells
Appearance changes can be applied to players through spells. Both NPCs and players can cast them.

Player spells
Some classes come with spells which let them disguise themselves. They are normally used for combat, but they can be used for fun as well.
 * Druids can use shapeshifting to turn into certain animals.
 * Shamans can turn into a Ghost Wolf.
 * Shadow priests can use Shadowform to turn themselves a dark purplish color. Some may argue that this is not a disguise, however, at one point it uses to share the same blanket effect as disguises. That means it actually removed disguises once.

NPC spells
If you interact with certain NPCs, they can provide you with a disguise. While there are a few NPCs that will give you a disguise just by speaking to them, a majority of NPCs will only cast spells on you for certain quests until they are complete.
 * The Pirates' Day buffs alter only the appearance of the character's clothes, but are disguises in the sense that they bypass the normal clothes mechanic of having to equip the items to display them and overide the appearance of equipped items. The buff can be obtained through talking with one of the commoners that spawn in the capital cities. You can get a longer-lasting buff from Dread Captain DeMeza who's in Booty Bay during the event.
 * During Hallow's End, sometimes innkeepers will trick you instead of giving you a Treat Bag by turning you into mini diablo, a cat, a miniature sand worm, or a frog. The debuff from being tricked only lasts for a short period of time, but some players like to run around with it.
 * provides several short term spells; one enlarges the character, and one makes it a "ghost" - makes it more transparent.
 * Using the item Brazier of Dancing Flames and then selecting the NPC that spawns, Dancing Flames, will allow you to interact with her through some emotes. The emote /dance will turn you into an enlarged version of her.

Zone-related appearance changes
When you step into certain zones, your character will become disguised.
 * Caverns of time instances will turn night elves, draenei, or any Horde race into humans if the instance takes place in a time or place where they are not supposed to be in. For the Well of Eternity, everyone is instead turned into a night elf.
 * After doing some chain quests and having enough reputation for the Netherwing faction, you turn into a fel orc in the subzones Dragonmaw Skyway, Netherwing Ledge, and Dragonmaw Fortress in Shadowmoon Valley.
 * Storm Peaks has some subzones where you turn into a female frost vrykul. The subzones will only turn you into a vrykul if you're on certain quests or have completed them.

Other

 * Elixir of Giant Growth and Deviate Fish (one effect is shrink) are on the periphery as they change the character's size but none of the graphic elements.
 * You can trick appearance change buffs into swapping your character's gender. All you need is Pygmy Oil. Make sure you drink enough to turn into the gnome, then use any other disguise which adjusts to your gender. The disguise you use must have a duration lasting over what's left of the Pygmy Oil's buff. For example, if your disguise duration is 5 minutes long, you must wait until the oil buff duration reaches 5 minutes or below.