The Devil is in the Detail – Part 1

Growing in popularity, the Fantasy Complete Look competition is the most challenging & exciting category to enter. Scratch finds out just what makes this competition so magical & inspiring.

Alex Fox reports

The fantasy art category pushes the boundaries of creativity to incredible new heights in the nail industry. It takes the tech to new realms and gives him or her the opportunity to showcase their true skills, ability and depth of imagination. Fantasy has been stretching techs since the early 90’s when techs began sculpting beyond the nail to see what they could create and where they could take these exciting new skills and their genius. The idea of sculpting 3D media was becoming more exciting, especially with the advent of coloured acrylics and a new generation of forward -thinking artistic techs such as Trang Nguyen and Tom Holcomb, who began building and shaping art above the nails’ surface. After prodding around and digging deep, I uncovered that the first Fantasy nail competition was hosted by the late industry icon, Vicki Peters, around the year 2001 in Atlanta, USA. It appears that Vicki spent some time beforehand playing with the possibilities of sculpting coloured acrylics and building creative structures on the nails and was keen to marry this idea with a complete themed look encompassing make-up, hair and a costume – with the main focus being on the nails. Hugely popular with some techs, yet terrifying to most, this is the most challenging competition category the nail world sees as it asks for absolute originality, precise detailed work and hours of dedicated time to bring it together. On average an award-winning tech spends more than six months on their entry.

Over the years, working on Nailympia Competitions, I’ve seen moving water encapsulated in clear acrylic, I’ve watched merry-go-rounds and observed LED flashing lights, all used within a fantasy theme. This category truly knows no boundaries and offers unlimited opportunities for those that think outside of the box.

“Fantasy is the avant garde aspect of the hairdressing and nail worlds and just like fashion runways are to the culture of fashion, it’s over the top, extreme work created using nail products,” notes Gemma Lambert-Lewis. “Fantasy styling is unwearable on normal nails, but an amazing way to show off control skills when using nail products.”