Lip plates for beauty

What symbolizes beauty in other parts of the world may be something unimaginable by you. In this entry, I'm going to let you discover what beauty is for the tribes in some parts of Africa.

In Africa, lip plates are adornment for women
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

The original purpose of lip plates, or known as lip plugs or lip discs are to make women unattractive, and they act like a protection to them from Arab slavers. But, as time elapses, this has become a beauty practice in the region. David Livingstone, a British explorer in Africa asked a tribe chief about the reason of women wearing lip plates, and here's his answer: for beauty! They are the only beautiful things women have. Men have beards, women have none. What kind of person she be without Pelele (lip plate)? She would not be a woman at all.

There are actually many types of materials used to make the lip plates such as wood, ivory, clay, bone, shiny metal, shell and sometimes crystal. They could be found in round or trapezoid shapes in various sizes. Well, ermm... I think the sizes differ because not everyone's lips would be similar in size, even after they have elongated.

A woman with a round lip plate
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

Both upper and lower lips are inserted with lip discs
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

Here I include a video for you guys to see how a woman with lip plate drinks water:

Girls from Mursi tribe, one of the African tribes, pierce their bottom lips which are stretched so that a clay lip plate can be inserted. They also remove their bottom teeth for esthetic enhancement. Sometimes, after birth, mothers will pierce a child's lip with a thorn (The child must be screaming, right? huhu). The holes are enlarged with stalks of grass until they are about 2 centimeters in diameter and large enough to insert a plug. Increasingly larger discs are inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it. Lip tissue will elongate and conform to the shape of the implanted objects.

I've always been afraid of being pierced (that's why I've never got my earrings), so, the idea of piercing or elongating your lips is eerily scary. And...for sure, it must be painful. Ouchh!

A Mursi tribe with decorated lip disc
Credit to Google

Corsets of Victorian women

Have you ever heard of corsets? Today, corsets are seen as a classical and quick way to look slimmer. In the 19th century they were essentially used the same way, to make the tummy look slim, the hips look big, and give the bosom a healthy lift. 

Example of corset, an attire that helps women appear slimmer. It was made by whale bones during the Victorian era. Whale? Whoaaa :O
Courtesy of Google Image

While many women used corsets properly, like any others beauty practice some women abused them to the point of disfigurement and death. They tied the corsets as tight as possible. Do you know that some women tied the corsets so tightly that they fainted frequently from only being able to take shallow breaths. That's pretty tragic I think. 

A Victorian woman tying her corset (what a tiny waist!)
Courtesy of Google Image

However, wearing corsets may not be as simple as it seems, wearing it and voila! Here comes your tiny waist. Some experts claimed that corsets might cause overlapping of rib cage. To achieve a wasp-like waist the lower sections of the rib cage have to be pushed inwards. If the waist is made small enough the two sides of the rib cage will eventually meet in the middle and overlap. Not only that, it's also said that wearing tightly laced corsets can cause compression of internal organs, complications during pregnancy, and muscle death. One thing for sure, corsets must have caused those Victorian women extreme pain.

Internal organs tend to be shrunk after wearing corsets
Courtesy of Google Image

Just in Mauritania

Having a slender slim body is what makes a woman beautiful. Perhaps that would be the case in many parts of the world. Girls (including me), have this constant worry that if you eat too much, you’ll gain more weight, you’ll become fatter, and that’s not good. Apart from that quite distorted perception of slim or thin is beautiful, however, I think it’s something just right to watch what you eat, for health purpose. Being fat may make you get tired so easily, you can’t walk or move lots without feeling extremely exhausted, but, at the same time, I’m against ill dieting as well. No rice at all, calculating calories every time you wish to munch on any food, ah wait, that’s way too much! If your BMI (Body Mass Index) is within a normal range, you actually have that healthy weight, so it's perfectly fine! Let go of that burdening supermodel's body-type aim. Just eat normally, stay healthy, and avoid obesity J

Enough with my nutritionist rambles. Here is another beauty story. It's just not easy to achieve that beauty standard effortlessly. It's somewhat amazing (yet horrifying) to see people wish to do just anything to be beautiful. In Mauritania that lies between Western Sahara and Senegal, big women (obese ones I'd say) are traditionally deemed as more beautiful and desirable. In order to find a husband, many of the women are being pushed to dangerous lengths to gain weight from being force fed to taking pills that are not fit for human consumption. Having a fat wife is desirable and is a sign of wealth and prestige in the country where food is in short supply. The girls are fattened up from the age of eight by their families in a practice referred to as 'gavage' - a French word that means force feeding and is used to describe the fattening of geese to make ‘foie gras’ (a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened).

An overweight woman of Mauritania
Photo by BBC

Once they reach a marriageable age, girls are sent to 'fat camps' in the desert where they are fed 15,000 calories a day. For breakfast, the girls have breadcrumbs soaked in olive oil washed down with camel's milk. They then have frequent meals throughout the day of goat's meat, bread, figs and couscous, all with more camel milk to drink. Morton found that many refer to the over-eating as torture and parents have been known to crush their daughters' toes with pincers if they resist.

Mauritanian girls drink lots of camel's milk to gain weight
Photo by Corbis

However, since this fattening process makes them feel sick and takes much time, the girls have also found another way to gain weight - taking pills. One local woman told Morton, a U.S journalist: 'Medication is the modern form of gavage. Women use steroids and they are taking pills made from birds. These pills are not meant to be used by humans. The women said the animal growth hormones end up giving the women who take them a disproportionate body shape with a big stomach, face and breasts but thin arms and legs. She said: 'The person now looks more like a seal than a human being. Women can't have children because of this type of gavage. The big problem is this often leads to heart failure, repeated heart attacks, rare are the ones who escape. There are consequences - diseases, malformations and insanity.

What a suffering to be beautiful!

It is said that the 'big women' tradition has now become old-fashioned in the region
Photo by BBC

Here I include a video for you guys to watch: