“Beauty is pain,” as the saying goes. Be it cramping your feet into a pair of toe shoes or sucking in your stomach so much that it forms scar tissue, beauty also comes at a cost. I need you to think bigger than cellular beauty and downing fulvic acid to make your skin clear. There’s a plethora of toxic and harmful trends that plague our society, and I have discovered that there’s another afoot as we speak. In the name of beauty, people are injecting camels with Botox to win competitions. Say what?

On 1 December, a Saudi Arabian camel beauty contest disqualified over 40 camels after their breeders were caught injecting their heads, noses and lips with hormones, fillers and facelifts. The month-long event involved judging the camels based on a wide variety of aesthetic areas on their facial features, humps and posture

Now, I was never a fan of Toddlers and Tiaras or the reign of reality beauty queen Honey Boo Boo, but I did have an insatiable thirst for Dance Moms and all things glitz and glamour that the world of cosmetic competitions certainly carries too—which I’m sure many of you are just as fascinated by. It’s no surprise then that the beauty world extends its candidates beyond humans by including pretty much every animal you can think of—yes, including camels. If you thought the lunacy stopped at gen Z’s obsession with baby botox, you were wrong. It seems camels are also getting touched up too.

According to a report released by The Associated Press (AP), dozens of camels from King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, held in the country’s capital Riyadh, were pulled out of the race after judges found artificial enhancements in their faces. The month-long camel festival is said to include an estimated 33,000 participants. The display is at the heart of the massive extravaganza, which also features camel races, sales and more—typically to showcase thousands of dromedaries. The procession seeks to preserve tradition and the camel’s treasured role in the kingdom’s Bedouin heritage, in the midst of the oil-rich country making modernist strides.

Camel breeding is a multimillion-dollar industry and competitions like this aim to exhibit the best of the best—la crème de la crème, if you may. However, many breeders have taken to achieving top spot with facelifts and Botox injections, both of which are strictly prohibited for obvious reasons.

The underhanded alterations were uncovered by using “specialized and advanced” technology, as Insider noted. The AP cited an announcement by the state-linked Saudi Press Agency (SPA), which detailed that authorities found out the breeders inflated their body parts with rubber bands and completed more work on their faces—such as stretching the facial features of the camels and pumped them up with Botox to enlarge their heads and lips, and topped it all off with  adding fillers to relax their facial muscles.

The breeders went to pretty great lengths to put their camels on the pedestal, and it’s obvious why, since the contest awards $66 million (£50 million) in prizes, according to the media outlet Al Arabiya News. “The club is keen to halt all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels,” the SPA further noted, adding that those who try to manipulate their camels’ features will face “strict penalties.”

Ali Al Mazrouei, the son of an Emirati camel breeder, shared his thoughts on the situation to local paper The National, “It makes the head more inflated, so when the camel comes, it’s like, ‘Oh, look at how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose’.” This isn’t the first time camels have been caught up in a cosmetic procedure scandal either. In 2018, 12 camels were disqualified from the same competition for receiving lip injections in the lower halves of their faces.

While this year’s camel competition continues showing off its prettiest pageant participants, it’s safe to say I won’t be taking any tips from the desert-native animals for my makeup routine anytime soon

Botox is all over the news now as it is the favourite anti-ageing treatment of many celebrities. Many plastic surgeons and dermatologists are carrying out this treatment on patients who want to reduce the appearance of their facial lines and wrinkles and get back their lost youthful look. In many instances, Botox can successfully reverse the signs of ageing. That’s probably why in the last couple of decades, Botox has emerged as one of the most popular cosmetic treatments.

The first thing you should know before even considering getting Botox is that there are two types of wrinkles: static wrinkles, which are related to age and caused by environmental factors as well as collagen loss, and dynamic wrinkles, which are caused by muscle movement. unfortunately, both of these causes are pretty much unavoidable.

While static wrinkles will always be there after they first appear on your skin, dynamic wrinkles will be visible only when the muscles provoking them are moved—when you smile, for example. That being said, dynamic wrinkles may eventually turn static because of repetitive movement. Botox treatment is most effective for dynamic wrinkles. However, over time, it can also help ‘erase’ static wrinkles. Follow-up treatments will be required as, after each session, each session will increasingly prevent the formation of static wrinkles.

‘Botulinum toxin-A’ (also known as ‘Botox®’ or ‘miracle poison’) is usually recommended for ‘crow’s feet’ which are the lines around your eyes, forehead lines, as well as for frown lines or those between your eyebrows. Sometimes, Botox injections can also be done in the neck region.

Increasingly, Botox is being used beyond wrinkle prevention and smoothening. For example, the same procedure can be applied for a brow lift, where the sides of your brows are being lifted. It can also be used around your mouth—in the hands of a trained person, Botox can provide an uplift for a downturned mouth by pulling up its corners. Neuromodulators around your mouth and at the tip of your nose can change the way you smile. The prominence, border, and shape of your lip line can also be changed in a procedure that is called the ‘lip flip‘.

Botox injections can also be used to change the shape of someone’s nose or even slim down one’s face for those with chewing muscles or overgrown masseter. The tightness and shape of the neck and jawline can be improved as well. Botox has provided 80 per cent good results when it is injected into the vertical cords or the platysmal bands, which are the two ridges of muscle that you may see running vertically up your neck as you age. You can call up 855-929-0199 in Toronto or reach the clinic at 249 Queens Quay West, Suite 112 for a more detailed understanding and discover how the treatment may help you in several ways.

Botox injections work by paralysing the facial muscles to treat wrinkles and reduce the signs of ageing. It has sometimes been mocked because of the fact that celebrities go for it to hide their signs of ageing—and usually end up looking not-so-young. Many call it fleeting and superficial but increasingly, the treatment has been accepted by a wider segment of the population.

A recent study has even shown that Botox can improve the elasticity of your skin. This means that it doesn’t just help treat wrinkles but it may also prevent their appearance. According to the Canadian researchers behind the study, once injected, the drug will improve skin elasticity until the time of the follow-up treatment, which can be up to six months for some people.

The skin’s elasticity will first stay improved with the help of follow-up sessions, however, over time, it will improve more easily. Dermatologists and researchers have observed that even the deeper wrinkles that are difficult to remove at first get less severe if the skin’s elasticity improves.

The results of one Botox injection will start showing one to three days after your first session. Its effects can last for anything between three to six months, depending on the extent of your wrinkles and fine lines, and also on the size of the skin area that was treated. A follow-up injection will be required after this. You will need follow-up treatments because, over time, your muscles will get accustomed to the injection. But fear not, maintenance treatments may require lower doses. Last but not least, the gap between two treatments may also gradually increase with time.

The effect of a Botox treatment will start to wear off in a few weeks because your muscles will get accustomed to the injection—note that we’re only saying that they’ll start to wear off, not wear off completely. Exactly how long it will take always differs for each person. After this, you’ll slowly see your facial lines and wrinkles coming back. So, yes, Botox may make you look older once its effect wears off, but you won’t look older than you looked before the treatment. If anything, you’ll appear less aged, because the overall effect of injections is going to get better after each session. And remember, you may require less dosage as well.

You’ll find many facial creams out there that claim to treat wrinkles. Some creams might even require a prescription. Let’s be clear on one thing: Botox will always be more effective than the best facial cream you can find out there.

When done by a professional, Botox treatment is completely safe. It has also been approved by the FDA. However, like any other medical procedure, it can come with a few side effects (these are usually minor and go away in a few days).

Some people have reported suffering from a little headache, swelling and pain at the site of the injection, flu-like symptoms, itching, allergic reactions like a rash, back or neck pain, and excessive eye tearing or dryness. Others have also reported problems in swallowing and muscle stiffness. None of these are very serious issues, but it’s crucial you pick a trustworthy practitioner before getting your first Botox injection.