King Abdulaziz Camel Festival: 12 Camels Disqualified From Saudi Arabian Beauty Contest For Doing Botox
This is a 28-day festival which has a beauty contest, camel racing, obedience training, camel hair art and also the best camel photograph competitions.
The amount of preparations models have to go through to participate in beauty pageants are too much. The daily routine of health and body care can get almost tiring, and now someone to experience the similar thing are camels! Yes, there is a beauty contest held in Saudi Arabia for camels. Called the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, it is a beauty contest that sees the desert animal being groomed well and participating in different events. The cash prizes are worth million and naturally, owners go a step ahead to make their ‘one’ look best. Now, 12 camels were disqualified from the contest for using Botox! And you thought this happens only in glamour and glitzy world!
This is a 28-day festival which has a beauty contest, camel racing, obedience training, camel hair art and also the best camel photograph competitions. In the beauty contest the camels are judged on their lips, cheeks, head, and knees. Just like models walk on the ramp, camels parade down the venue with people cheering and hooting for the handsome ones. To enhance these attributes some owners have used botox to make their camel look more handsome, and in turn, have been disqualified from the contest. The camels were given Botox and filler injections to make their lips, nose and jaws look perfect.
The chief judge of the show Fawzan al-Madi, said, ‘The camel is the symbol of Saudi Arabia. We used to preserve it out of necessity, now we preserve it as a pastime.” So over the years, the intensity of arrangements has also changed. The festival is so looked forward to that last year the government shifted the venue from a remote desert to the outskirts of the capital and a permanent structure has been erected as well. There happens an auction where thousands of riyals are earned for the best camels. There are also the shortest and tallest camels here. There is also a museum with sand-structures of camels so you can imagine how grand of an affair this is. There are stalls for camel milk tasting and camel hair texture showcases.
With so much of importance given to each and every activity, the pressure on the individuals owning the camels is naturally more. And being a heritage festival each one goes a step ahead to make it perfect. But it is really appreciable that the judges chose to qualify the animals on basis of ‘natural beauty’ and not enhanced fuller figures.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 25, 2018 11:24 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).