People With Rare and Unique Beauty Around the World

The young women in Ethiopia’s Mursi tribe pierce and stretch their bottom lips as a symbol of feminine beauty. Why? Let's delve into it, as not only will we be exploring curious beauty standards from around the world, but also people who have extraordinary conditions that make them uniquely beautiful.

Apatani Nose Plugs

For many Western women, the smaller the snout the better. However, for the women of India’s Apatani tribe, a more distinguished sniffer is preferable. They wear Yaping Hullo, or, put simply, wooden plugs that are pierced into the sides of the nostrils. Talk about having a stuffed nose!

But not only do the Apatani women stretch their noses, they tattoo their faces too. Typically, with a line going from the centre of their forehead to the tip of their nose, and 5 lines going from their lower lip to their chin. Which, by the way, is done by mixing pig’s fat with soot and hammering it into the skin with a thorny plant. And you think western tattoos seem painful?

Interestingly, wood-wedged noses and facial tattoos weren’t originally intended to be a mark of beauty, rather the opposite in fact! But why would they deliberately make themselves less attractive? Historically, the Apatani tribe coexisted with numerous other tribes who would abduct the women due to their natural beauty. So, making themselves less conventionally attractive made them less of a target.

Over time however, these body-mods became so commonplace that they’re now a hallmark of Apatani beauty. That being said, the Indian government banned nose plugs in the early 1970s to give young Apatani women a better chance of finding employment and avoiding discrimination. So, it’s mostly the older generation that still retain their distinctive look.

Mursi Tribe Lip Plates

These days cosmetic procedures such as lip lifts and filler are all the rage; the bigger the lip the better, according to Western beauty standards. However one African tribe has their own version of a lip filler. Dwelling in an isolated region of Ethiopia, you might stumble upon the Mursi tribe. They’re pretty easy to spot considering the tribeswomen wear these huge lip plates!

When a Mursi girl becomes of age at around 15 or 16, her mother will make a hole in her lower lip and hold it open with a sodden plug until it heals. Over the next few months, the young Mursi girl’s lip will be incrementally stretched with increasing sizes of wooden plates. Impressively, these can reach up to 12-inches in diameter! Having experienced this, one can only imagine childbirth to be a breeze to the Mursi woman.

Of course, these lip plates aren’t all that practical, particularly when it comes to speech, so they’re typically worn by unmarried and newlywed women and reserved for special occasions. But when the plates aren’t being worn, Mursi women are left with very loose bottom lips.

Just the thought of getting that thing caught up in places is giving me nightmares. Of course, it seems bizarre to us, but to the Mursi tribe it not only symbolises beauty, but a woman’s commitment to her husband. Because nothing says I love you quite like a dangly lip.

Ohaguro, The Japanese Blackened Teeth

By the year 2026, the teeth whitening industry in the US alone is projected to be worth a whopping $8.2 billion! With those numbers, it’s fair to say that a pearly white smile is a big beauty standard. However, you’ll be surprised to learn that in some cultures white teeth are less desirable!

For centuries in Japan, a common beauty practice was what’s known as ohaguro, or, in laymen terms, blackening of the teeth. Both men and women would mix ferric acetate, vinegar, and tannins from tea and vegetables to create a black solution known as kanemizu. This was then applied to the teeth to make them as black as possible. And it would begin around age 15 to symbolize a person coming of age.

But what’s the deal here, why would they want black teeth? Well, back then in Japan, objects that were pitch black in color were seen as beautiful. Therefore, the idea was that blackening one’s teeth would make them beautiful too.

However, come the Meiji era in the late 1800s, Japan opened up to Western influence and, in an attempt to modernize the country, the government banned cultural practices that may’ve seemed strange to Westerners, meaning ohaguro was oha-gone! And while it’s sad that the Japanese government at the time was ashamed of this cultural quirk, still to this day, some geisha and maiko are still rocking ohaguro!

Scarification In Africa

Almost everyone has at least one scar on their body, and you can guarantee that it comes paired with an elaborate war tale, true or not. But, while scars may often be seen as unsightly, in certain African tribes, scars are deliberately made in the name of beauty!

Hard to believe, but in Ethiopia’s Bodi and Surma tribes, South Sudan’s Nuer tribe, and Uganda’s Karamojong tribe, people’s bodies are intentionally filled with complex patterns of scars, as a way of showing tribal identity. While the process of scarification varies from tribe to tribe, it’s typically ceremonial and is done as a rite of passage when a person meets certain milestones like puberty or marriage. Similar to a charm bracelet, a person will continue to collect scars their entire life, symbolic of their personal journey.

As you can probably imagine, the process of being scarred isn’t a particularly pleasant one. The patterns are created over an extended period of time with both razor blades and thorns. Pain is beauty, right? Though, it’s due to this very act of endurance that the scars symbolize a person’s strength and beauty, despite the process potentially leading to a variety of diseases, such as hepatitis-B, tetanus, and HIV.

Nevertheless, if the person expresses any pain during scarification, they’ll bring shame upon their whole family. Worse yet, a person who chooses not to be scarred will often be excluded from the tribe and banned from certain duties. Because of all this, the act has proven incredibly controversial.

Himba Tribe Hair Rituals

For many people, hair is one of their biggest weapons of self-expression. Hair, it seems is just as important to the women of Africa’s Himba tribe as it is to us.

But first, who are the Himba tribe? They’re a 50 thousand strong semi-nomadic tribe who’ve lived in northern Namibia for centuries. The most distinctive thing about the tribe is its women, whose hair is braided and coated in a red clay-like paste known as otjize.

Made using the resin of the omazumba shrub, animal fat, and ground red pigment stone, otjize is speculated to have been created to protect their skin and hair from the sun. However, it’s mainly used now for aesthetic purposes, giving it a characteristic red shade. Which, FYI, is said to symbolize blood and the essence of life in their culture. Not only that, but as the otjize flakes off, it removes dirt and debris, which is ideal because water is scarce, meaning women rarely bathe.

Close relatives will spend hours creating elaborate hairstyles on one another which often incorporate woven hay, goats hair, and even artificial hair extensions. And the style in which the hair is worn can be indicative of the Himba woman’s age, wealth, fertility, social ranking, how many children she has, and her marital status.

Uniquely beautiful hairdos, however, are not just limited to the Himba tribe. Just check out the styles of the Mwila people!

Not too far from the Himba tribe, the Mwila dwell in southern Angola and similarly place a lot of importance on female hairstyles. Using crushed red stone, tree bark, herbs, oils, and most interestingly cow poop, they concoct a paste that is then applied to the hair. With this, they’re able to create unique thick braids that are called nontombi.

These are then usually adorned with dried food, beads, and cowries, creating entirely individual styles. And while they typically wear 4 or 6 nontombis, if you spot someone with 3, it means a family member has passed. Of course, there’s no denying how beautiful and unique all this is, though many would have a few reservations about the whole cow poop situation.

Dayak Women Ear Weights

Ear stretching, while particularly trendy in the West during the early 2010s, has been a fairly common body mod in many cultures since ancient times, from Africa’s Maasai tribe to King Tut himself. Though nobody, arguably, ever did it quite as dramatically as the Dayak women.

Native to Borneo, Dayak is a loose term for over 200 ethnic groups, each with its own dialect, customs, and culture. And although it’s largely considered outdated now, one custom that’s particularly associated with the Kayan subgroup of Dayak people is the elongation of women’s earlobes.

Beginning around age 4, a young girl’s ears would be pierced and a hisang, which is a heavy bronze or silver ring, would be placed in each one. As the girl got older, more and more hisangs would be added to her ears until they look stretched.

It might look painful and that’s because it is. But pain is the name of the game here, as it shows a woman’s patience and ability to withstand suffering, which are noble qualities. We have something similar here in the West; we call it the patriarchy.

Māori Tattooing

Sure, that tat on your arm might “represent” your family’s dead dog. However, for many cultures, specifically Māori culture, tattoo designs date back centuries and can literally represent a person’s whole ancestral background.

The Māori people, if you didn’t already know, are the indigenous people of New Zealand, who arrived there from East Polynesia in the early 1300s. Settling there, isolated from any other cultures, they developed their own unique way of life, language, crafts, performing arts, and mythology.

And as part of their belief system, they regarded the head as being the most sacred part of the body. Due to this, facial tattoos, or as it’s called, Ta Moko, became a big part of Māori identity. Traditionally, various Ta Moko designs were used to indicate a person’s knowledge, skill, and even eligibility to marry. However, these days, most modern Māori people with facial tattoos choose designs that represent their ancestry.

Designs, while varied, tend to follow the same patterns of lines, spirals, and swirls that are commonly across the nose, cheeks, and lower jaw. The idea being that the lines of Moko accentuate the natural expressions of the face. Not only that, but the main lines in a Māori tattoo are called manawa, AKA heart, which the Māori people believe to be a representation of a person’s life journey.

Before European influence with tattoo guns, the traditional way of Ta Moko was done by mixing soot with oil and hammering it into the skin using a broad-toothed comb.

The Long-Neck Kayan People Of Myanmar

It might sound odd, but having a long neck is often considered attractive, exuding a sense of elegance and giving balance to a person’s proportions. The Kayan people take the length of a woman’s neck very seriously!

Who are they? Well, the Kayan people, not to be confused with the Kayan Dayak people from Borneo, are a tribe that mainly reside in Myanmar and are a subgroup of the Red Karen people. As mentioned, neck length is particularly important to Kayan women, so they do something pretty bizarre.

Starting around age 5, multiple heavy brass rings are fitted to their neck. More and more are gradually added until eventually the weight of them pushes down their collar bone, which compresses the ribcage and creates the illusion of a longer neck.

Their necks reach seemingly impossible levels, albeit with some pretty serious health implications! Not only does it cause injury to the spine, back, and neck, but it deforms the collar bone. And besides that, the rings make day-to-day life incredibly impractical, given that the women can’t even tilt their heads forwards or backwards, and have to drink using a straw.

So why do the Kayan women do this? The truth is, no one really knows. While some anthropologists theorize that it may’ve began as a way to look more attractive, others think it might’ve been to do the opposite. That is, similar to the Apatani tribeswomen, to make them less attractive so they were less likely to be abducted by other tribes. That being said, the Kayan women themselves, who are also unaware of its origins, believe the reason is simply due to cultural identity and beauty.

Harnaam Kaur, The Bearded Woman

Self-love is unfortunately something many struggle with. Our next uniquely beautiful person is someone who knows the struggle of self-love all too well. Meet Harnaam Kaur, a Punjabi woman from the UK.

Harnaam has polycystic ovary syndrome, which in simple terms is when the female body produces an increased number of male hormones known as androgens. This means Harnaam is able to grow a rather impressive beard! And while that, of course, can be one of the most distinctive symptoms, the condition also causes irregular menstruation, fertility issues, weight gain, and even hair loss.

Harnaam was just 12-years-old when she was first diagnosed with PCOS, and as she gradually developed facial hair throughout puberty, she sadly found herself a victim of bullying. She relentlessly attempted different ways to remove her beard, but nothing worked, leaving the poor girl severely unhappy.

Fortunately though, Harnaam eventually realized that what seemed to be a curse might actually be a blessing. And with that, she began to embrace her beard! In fact, she now makes a living championing body positivity. And Harnaam is certainly making waves, as not only was she the first bearded woman to walk the runway at London Fashion Week in 2016, but she even holds the world record for youngest woman with a full beard!

The funny thing is, you can guarantee there are some pathetic guys out there that would still discriminate against her, when they themselves have the facial hair of a pre-pubescent boy.

Winnie Harlow: Supermodel With Vitiligo

Oftentimes we assume supermodels are quote unquote perfect in every way. However, one model who’s tearing up the rulebook of Western beauty standards is Miss Winnie Harlow! Winnie, who is of Jamaican ancestry, was first diagnosed with the condition vitiligo at just 4 years old. This, if you didn’t know, is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes patches of skin to lose color.

The condition can be segmental, whereby it only affects one area of the body, or, as in Winnie’s case, non-segmental, meaning it affects multiple areas of the body and is somewhat symmetrical. In either case, vitiligo occurs when melanocytes, those being skin cells that create pigment, are attacked and destroyed, resulting in the skin developing to be a milky-white color.

Vitiligo equally affects all races and roughly 0.5 to 1% of all people have it, but it’s more noticeable on people with darker skin tones, such as Winnie’s. As mentioned, vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder, which is when a person’s immune system incorrectly attacks healthy tissue. Unfortunately, this makes people with vitiligo more at risk of developing other autoimmune disorders.

Still, despite this, plus the constant bullying during her childhood that eventually led to depression, Winnie never gave up. Nope, instead she decided to use her unique condition and natural beauty to her advantage when she appeared on America’s Next Top Model in 2014!

Admired for her unapologetic confidence, she’s since gone on to have a successful career as a model and a spokesperson on body positivity. You could call her Winnie the winner, even if she did place 6th on Next Top Model.

Sophia Hadjipanteli's Unibrow

For many women, and men, manicured eyebrows are extremely important. And while styles come and go, a neat, kempt brow is typically the desired look. Well, that is for most. Sophia Hadjipanteli likes to do things a little different.

Raised in Maryland, Sophia decided to quit the tweezing and grew out her monster of a monobrow. In an interview, she claimed there was actually no specific reason for her monobrow, other than the fact that she’s always embraced being different, be it through her hair, make up, clothes, or her extremely lush bush!

And while her brow does attract a lot of negative attention, to the point she regularly receives death threats, it’s undoubtedly paved the way for her modelling career due to its incredibly unique appeal.

Not only that but she even has a following of over 500,000 on Instagram. Safe to say that Sophia’s certainly had the last laugh on all of her haters.

The Rare Beauty Of Amina Ependieva

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and while that might be true, this next girl’s beauty is in her own eye! Meet Amina Ependieva. The young girl from Chechnya has distinctly different colored eyes, one a piercing icy blue and the other a deep and warm-toned brown.

But how is this possible? Well, Amina has a unique condition called heterochromia which causes a person’s eyes to be different colors, with, fortunately, no other vision or health implications. Interestingly though, while very rare in humans, affecting just 1% of the population, heterochromia is relatively more common in animals, such as dogs, cats, and horses. But it’s not just heterochromia that makes Amina rare.

You might’ve also noticed that she’s albino! It’s pretty common knowledge that albinism causes a person to have characteristically white hair and pale skin, but why does it occur? Put simply, it’s due to the body either not producing enough melanin or none at all. Melanin is what gives skin, hair, and eyes pigment, so, the darker someone’s skin tone, the more melanin they have.

Interestingly, because melanin is involved in the development of the retina, albinism can also affect a person’s vision. This can lead to conditions such as photophobia, which is a sensitivity to light, or nystagmus, where the eyes move involuntarily. Heterochromia and albinism are not directly linked, but the combination might explain why Amina has such unique eyes. Either way, safe to say Amina won the genetic lottery, twice!

Caitin Stickels & The Cat Eye Syndrome

From their striking eyes to their natural poise, cats, despite their defiant attitude, are often revered for their beauty. Be that as it may, you wouldn’t wanna actually look like a cat, right? Well, this next uniquely beautiful person might change your mind about that! Meet Caitin Stickels.

Her condition, which is called Schmid-Fraccaro Syndrome often gets nicknamed cat eye syndrome, because it causes individuals to develop a somewhat cat-like appearance. Though, due to it being caused by an abnormality in chromosome 22, there are many more potential implications, such as a cleft palate, cardiac defects, hernias, kidney issues, and even intellectual disability.

Nevertheless, Caitin has made the most of her unique looks and proudly flaunts them to her Instagram following of nearly 50,000. Not only that, but she makes a living as a model, championing diversity and inclusivity. So, against all odds, Caitin is making the very best of her cat-eye syndrome! And while we’re on the topic of eyes, check out Ukrainian model and artist, Maria Oz. Believe it or not, she doesn’t have any specific condition, just huge eyes!

Needless to say, her beauty is undeniable, but it’s led some people to question the authenticity of the photos she posts, claiming they’ve been edited. Maria denies these claims vehemently.

Russian Barbie Doll

Despite setting utterly unrealistic beauty standards, for many women, the Barbie doll has the dream body. So lots of women strive to have glowing blemish-free faces, luscious locks, and teeny-tiny waists. But taking this to the extreme is this next lady. Meet 35-year-old Angelica Kenova, or, as she’s better known, the Russian Barbie doll!

With wide eyes, voluminous golden hair, and a 20-inch waist, Angelica is probably the closest human to resembling a Barbie doll without cosmetic surgery. So how exactly did she reach these miniscule proportions? Well, this is where things take a somewhat disturbing turn.

Since birth, her mother Natalia has treated and dressed Angelica like a doll, while also spoiling her with the best toys and education that money could buy. Only, all this luxury has come at a huge cost to Angelica’s freedom.

Under the strict rule of her mother, Angelica not only has to train for 3 hours, 5 times per week to maintain her petit proportions, but she’s not allowed to buy clothes without her mother’s permission, or even go on dates without her mother being present. What could be more romantic than a candle-lit dinner intercepted by a middle-aged Russian woman?

Angelica’s image and entire life is completely manufactured by her controlling mother, leaving her admittedly immature and unprepared for the real world. Still, she hopes to be able to, quote, "break free and start an independent life" one day. A chilling reminder that there’s much more to life than the pursuit of beauty.

If you were amazed at these people with rare and unique beauty around the world, you might want to read about glow ups that will make your jaw drop. Thanks for reading!