Camels disqualified from beauty pageant because they’d had botox

The Saudi Arabian beauty contest was forced to disqualify 12 camels.

For those of you that weren’t aware that camel beauty pageants were a thing (i.e. all of us), the competition judges the animals based on the size of their lips, cheeks, heads and knees. However, 12 camels were disqualified from this year’s competition because their handlers had injected botox into the animals and even performing plastic surgery on them, says Saudi media.

“They use botox for the lips, the nose, and even the jaw,” camel breeder, Ali al-Mazrouei told The National.

The annual month-long festival includes races and show competitions all with the intent of finding the most beautiful camel who wins the top prize of around €4.3 million, however, the festival has been tainted thanks to some handlers breaking the rules. There are strict rules in place to prevent handlers from using drugs to enhance the camel's lips, or shaved or clipped body parts. Up to 30,000 camels take part in the festival each year.

why is there a beauty contest for camels? why did they botox them? what do they use to measure the beauty of a camel? https://t.co/dObupMtcSI

— Mohamed Ali (@Mohamed_score) January 23, 2018

2018: The year I learnt that there are people out there who inject their camels with botox so that their pets can win a beauty contest for camels. https://t.co/9v36WNKsCV

— Amit Kamath (@jestalt) January 23, 2018

just don’t really feel like it was the camels idea to put in the botox https://t.co/x2s6Aume88

— hannah (@BiggieHans) January 23, 2018