Bikini Contest Slideshow - June 2007

A bikini contest is a beauty contest where women compete against each other in bikinis.
Bikini contests can take place in bars, nightclubs, at beaches, and beauty pageants. Companies such as Hawaiian Tropic and Venus Swimwear regularly sponsor such contests to discover and attract new talents to promote their products. Bikini contests can also take place over the Internet by women submitting pictures of themselves in bikinis.
Contestants often wear sashes indicating where they are from in bikini contests, in similarity to the tradition in other beauty pageants. It is becoming more and more common for women to wear bikinis as part of the swimsuit competitions at major pageants. Participants in the Miss Teen USA pageant are now required to wear bikinis.
The name "bikini contest" may be misleading in that the contestants are not actually contesting the bikini itself. Rather, the competition revolves around a subjective assessment of the physical attractiveness of the participants, which may or may not involve the actual bikinis they wear and/or remove during the "competition".
There are variations of the contest known as "Whipped cream bikini contest" or "Shaving cream bikini contest". These contests involve using either whipped cream or shaving cream instead of bikinis where the cream is sprayed on contestant's nude or semi-nude body in the form of a bikini. As the contest continues, the cream would gradually melt due to body heat and heat from stage lights and slowly reveal the areas covered in cream on the contestant's body.