Beauty Spot: Hunger Games mani and tutorial

Those of you who know me personally will know of a feverish obsession that has overtaken me the past month: THE HUNGER GAMES!!!

I read the books over a weekend and was unable to eat, sleep or shower until I had devoured every last page. I may have started crying and shaking when I got involved in a discussion about it. I even became gripped by a strange sort of Tourettes, whereby I would just randomly start shouting ‘HUNGER GAMES!’ to anyone on Twitter, Whatsapp and just passers-by on the street. Move over K.Mid, I’m all about J.Law now – KATNISS 4EVA!!!

Anyway, I managed to salvage something pretty out of the depths of my madness! In the books, Katniss is ‘The Girl On Fire’ and gets an appropriately fiery manicure to rock alongside a dress that bursts into flame. Inspired by this (and one of my fave beauty bloggers Eugenia from Ommorphia Beauty Bar), I decided to make one of my very first attempts at nail art in the name of THE HUNGER GAMES with my special Hunger Games manicure.

China Glaze’s Hunger Games Collection not being out in HK yet, I made do with whatever nail polish was in my stash to create my flame-encrusted look. I started with two coats of Becca’s Pasa Doble, from their new Balearic Love Collection. It’s meant to be a dark plum but at two coats, it’s a super-deep blackberry… and to all intents and purposes, total black! I’ve not tried Becca nail polishes before but the quality of this was great – opaque, glossy, quick-drying and long-lasting.

Next, I daubed on OPI’s Take The Stage (from their 2010 Burlesque Collection), a glowing gorgeous copper foil, onto the tips of my nails. The trick is to have as little polish as possible on the brush; swipe it heavily on the sides of your bottle to get rid of the excess and then lightly splodge it at the top of each nail; you’re aiming for an uneven fiery finish so no neat lines required!

I found a nice way to get an uneven finish was to carefully blot the polish with a thin tissue when it is still at that tacky stage of drying, giving the polish a sponged effect. Also, shake your usual polish routine firmly out your brain! Long flat strokes of the brush are simply not useful; I found the best way to stop my hands automatically doing this was to splay, splodge and dab the brush at the tips of my nails, rather than use that ‘painting’ motion.

Depending on how opaque you want your flames, you may want to repeat the process with a second coat of copper, applied in exactly the same way as the first.

Finally, find yourself a random gold glitter. Any will do and they are ten-a-penny; mine was a Jack Wills one that hasn’t seen the light of day since I trousered it (mainly for the cool Union Jack tin it came in) at their opening party. It’s best if you use one that is small glitter pieces suspended in a clear base (so the other colours of your mani show through), the less dense the better. Again, make sure you’re carrying as little polish on the brush as possible – hence why a less dense glitter is good, as you’ll have to swipe less off – and dab this on top of the copper. Concentrate on blurring the edge where the black and copper colours join; the random nature of how the glitter falls will make the line even more natural-looking and imprecise.

And there we have it! A fiery flame manicure that, even for a nail art novice like me, was pretty easy to achieve. I’m sure Katniss’ would have been more pro; mine are less defined flames and more the burning embers of the fire itself, but I’m still pretty happy with my efforts.

May the odds be ever in your favour!