Fashion

Nailed It

The Nailympics Turns Cuticles into Beautificles

By Simone Lueck

Getting your nails done normally involves wasting 30 minutes in front of a hunched-over Asian woman while all of your senses are simultaneously raped by neon lights, noxious chemicals and boring conversations. But the Nailympics is actually something we would pay to attend. The 11-year-old organisation holds competitions in the US and the UK and, in late June, had its most recent event over two days in Long Beach, California.

Judges measured the Nailympians on nail structure, shaping, application, surface smoothness, product control, cuticles and a bunch of stuff it’s probably hopeless for laymen to understand. The results are impractical, beautiful and a little terrifying. We sent photographer Simone Lueck to check out the competition. And now the only question we have is: How do the models wipe?