Camel Botox that went wrong..

I read a story online about how 12 camels were excluded from a beauty pageant after their owners injected them with Botox to thicken the animals’ lips.

And before going into why the story drew my attention and where I am heading with this Sundays column, I’ll share with my viewers some of the facts reported by the online story. 

The festival does not allow participants to enhance the animals’ features with any sort of drugs or plastic surgery. The cash prize drove participants to use some unfair practices. Droopy lips and large features are sought-after beauty features for the four-legged participants. “Cheaters are creative,” said a camel owner. The 12 camels were disqualified after a veterinarian was caught injecting the animals with Botox. More than 30,000 camels were displayed at the month-long festival, which is the largest camel pageant outside Riyadh. 

So before we analyse why women go to the extremes to look better than they are, we need to deal with the camels that are being dragged into fake beauty.

A Botox injection costs around BD150 and if we look around we will certainly see many women who have started to look the same especially when plastic surgeries are either performed by the same doctors or in the same hospitals. I am not against trying to look better as I myself have done a few things. As we age, we do require a few things to maintain the freshness of our looks, our features. What I am against is when women go to the extremes and eventually lose the originality of their looks and identity. I do not understand the huge lips, the filled faces with Botox and fillers. I do not understand why girls in their 20s completely change their physical look. I do understand this is personal freedom and what we do with our faces, our bodies is our business but we forget that many plastic surgeons and cosmetic centres feed on women’s eagerness to look better or compete with other women. Thousands of dinars are spent on surgeries that are not required if we just follow better and healthier lifestyles:  Liposuctions, abdominoplasties, face-lifts. And why do we fail to accept that we all age and ageing with grace is simply beautiful. I’m in my 40s and I accept that I cannot look the way I did in my 20s and ageing with grace is absolutely graceful. I  actually want to live every phase of my life with the package that comes along. After all, I have so far adored every phase I have lived. They made who I am today.

Going back now to the poor camels,  I seriously couldn’t stop laughing. I just imagined the veterinarian adding more touches here and there to get the best Angelina Jolie look-alike lips-this time with a camel. May God help us with the world we live in today. Maybe next time we hear about liposuctions performed on dogs for a beauty pageant contest!