African tribes use lip plates, they do this to show their economic and social status, however for some the size of the lip is just an asset like having your ears pierced. These tribes see these ‘ornaments’ as a status indicator and a beauty product.
To a western society these pictures may look 'Alain' and deformed, however these are norms for their culture and just another way of looking beautiful. These pictures can be compared to the 'alien' like beauty ideals of the western culture, in some ways the beauty ideals are much the same. Having a lip plate is obviously not natural but bears cultural beauty value, just as being size zero is not natural, but bares cultural beauty values in the western society.
To study the African beauty ideal in detail i looked at the 'voice' of the African media, the largest African fashion magazine is 'fashion Africa', to asses how race affects beauty i looked as the beauty standards that are set by the domestic fashion/beauty industry. It appears that the domestic institutions are not forcing western imperialism but allowing natural African beauty to prosper, the models dint have lip plates (tribal African beauty)... but they also don't have straightened hair(western beauty ideal). For example one of the lead models 'Aina Fadina' who represents the beauty ideals in Africa,
It was comforting to see that out of the top ten models for fashion Africa were of African decent, however there are many African models that look as if they are under a lot of influence from the western culture.
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