Fire Up Your Nails with Cover Girl's Capitol Collection

For some reason, upon graduating college, I’ve been investing more in beauty products. Which is kind of weird for me because I used to only wear makeup when on stage or for special occasions like weddings and dances and paint my nails… well… for mostly the same reasons. Even now, I really only wear eye makeup and lipstick, but hey, it’s my face. I do what I want

So in this new “Enthused about Makeup” world, imagine my excitement when I saw that Cover Girl Cosmetics was doing an exclusive Capitol Collection for their fall line. I love The Hunger Games franchise. I love bold makeup. Clearly a collection inspired by the Capitol would be bold, colorful and be all over my face. I would even swear of Rimmel, my preferred drug store cosmetic for the collection!

Sadly, it wasn’t to be so.

The Capitol Collection is more of a look book than anything else. There are products in the line, but most of the good stuff is found on the Capitol Beauty Studio. Which uses some of the line, but it’s all Cover Girl products. The District inspired looks are amazing though and worth a look if you’re a beauty/fashion geek.

The Collection itself is comprised of Smoochies Sizzle lip gloss, Flamed Up mascara (which goes perfectly with their Flamed Out Products), Outlast Glosstini nail polish, and nail decals. Since I’m more into nail polish, I decided to go ahead and buy all nine colors and one tube of the lip gloss. Just because.

First off, the lip gloss. The particular shade I purchased was Violet Flare because I’m a sucker for violet/purple. I’m not usually a lip gloss fan, but the Sizzle Gloss actually surprised me. It’s not sticky at all and on it’s own, provides a nice light shade to my lips. I mixed it with Cover Girl’s Embrace and Revlon’s Va Va Violet and it provided a wet look that really made the violet colors pop. Will definitely be keeping this one in my arsenal for fancy nights out.

But really, let’s get to the bulk of this review: the nail polish.

This is not the first Hunger Games inspired line released. Last spring, China Glaze released a Capitol Colors line right before the first movie came out. The colors were gorgeous and inspired by the Districts in various ways, but due to my lack of access to a specialty beauty store and money when they came out (China Glaze runs about $7-9 a bottle), I wasn’t able to try any of them.

Cover Girl is more fire inspired than District inspired, but I was able to buy them at my local CVS for $9.99 for 3 bottles along with cereal and a bottle of Vanilla Coke, then proceed to save $7 on my trip because I’m a ExtraCare member. That’s already in its favor.

There are nine shades in the collection and they are GORGEOUS. They’re all glitter polishes, but the application runs and dries smooth. My current job is a little bumpy, but that’s because I was more invested in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. than scrubbing the cotton off of my nails when I removed the just Violet Flicker paint job I had going. They also dry really fast, so there’s less time being incapacitated while waiting for them to dry.

The polishes catch the light beautifully and add a wonderful sort of glimmer to the shades which run the gamut between dark and understated to bold and bright. The way the colors fade into each other also lends itself well to nail art. I decided to try a flame look on top of the nail I applied Black Heat to with Inferno, Flamed Out, and Sulfur Blaze and the look turned out magnificent, even with a rough try and my left handed kindergarden nail job. I’ll definitely try that out on all my nails for when Catching Fire comes out, and maybe try the Masonry look if I can find a good grey polish. I know I can at least do Lumber or Textiles.

The downside of it being a glitter polish is that glitter gets EVERYWHERE when you’re trying to take it off. It’s bad enough that nail polish is already a pain to remove on its own, but the glitter makes it extra rough and gets all over your fingers and clothes. You also need to be kind careful with how much you want to apply. With the right dip, the first coat can cover pretty well, which can be a bit of a pain if all you want is a top coat. I put on two coats out of habit, but I’ll admit that my second coats if I applied them correctly the first time were more detail passes.

I also kind of wish that they had more creative, District-inspired names like the China Glaze line, but that’s a fandom nitpick, not an actual criticism of the product.

Overall, if you’re a nail polish lover and a fan of The Hunger Games, I would suggest checking out Cover Girl’s Capitol Collection Glosstini line. Affordable, accessible, and just plain pretty, they’re sure to bring out your inner Capitol fashion maven obsessed with The Girl On Fire while still making you feel functional in about 10 minutes. Just be careful of the glitter when trying to take it off.