When the biggest sporting event on earth landed in our backyard — eight 2026 World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium, less than 20 miles from our Santa Fe Springs campus — we did the only reasonable thing a beauty school could do: we turned it into a nail competition.
Copa Beyond was our World Cup nails tournament. 28 artists. 11 countries represented. Two brackets — current students and working alumni — one shared scoreboard, and some of the best World Cup nail art we've seen anywhere. This is the recap: the winners in both brackets, the four-way tie that almost broke our judges, and how it was all scored.
48 nations. 10 fingers. One champion.
What is Copa Beyond?
Copa Beyond is a two-week nail art competition hosted by Beyond 21st Century Beauty Academy in Santa Fe Springs, CA, timed to the 2026 World Cup. The challenge: create a complete nail set inspired by one of the 48 competing countries — flag colors, jersey motifs, crests, national symbols — on real human hands. "Copa" means "cup" in Spanish, which felt right for a school community where so many households cheer in two languages.
It ran as two parallel competitions. Current students in our nail tech program and cosmetology program built their sets in class and clinic, judged purely on craft. Alumni — Beyond graduates now working in salons across LA and Orange County — entered by publishing their set as an Instagram Collab post with @beyondcosmo, where community likes counted toward their final score. Entries ran June 3–9, and winners were crowned June 10–11, right as the tournament kicked off.
The alumni bracket: four grads, four countries
Our alumni track is the part we're proudest of. These are licensed professionals who came back to compete for their alma mater — and every one of them deserves a follow.
🏆 Grand Champion: @meowelsy — Croatia
The checkerboard came out on top. Our alumni Grand Champion took Croatia's iconic šahovnica and turned it into a set that scored 91/100 with the judging panel — the highest mark in the bracket. The prize: the full 18-piece Après Prismatic Gel Couleur collection.
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🥈 Runner-Up: @lanaillady — Mexico
One point behind at 90/100 — El Tri, represented beautifully. Mexico was the most popular country across the whole competition, and this set led the pack.
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🥉 Third Place: @jossxobeautybar — Five Countries, One Set
Why pick one country when you have ten nails? This set carried France, Portugal, Mexico, Japan, and Brazil across a single hand — the most ambitious concept in the field.
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@neowana_nails — Korea
Rounding out the alumni bracket, a Korea-inspired set from a grad whose feed is worth your time on its own.
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The student bracket: a photo finish
Here's how close the student competition was: four sets scored 98 out of 100. The judging panel had to go back to the rubric line by line to separate them.
🏆 Student Grand Champion: @sincerelyanahi — Mexico
When the tiebreak shook out, Anahi's Mexico set stood alone at the top. Clean structure, unmistakable theme, and the kind of finish work that wins on the details — because in a four-way tie at 98, the details are all that's left.
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🥈 Tied for Second: three sets at 98/100
@nails.byyaileen — Brazil. Verde e amarelo done right.
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@mimsified — Mexico.
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@sunsetsspa — Mexico. For the love of fútbol — see the set on Instagram.
Those four were the podium, but they weren't the whole story — 24 students entered in all, with sets inspired by Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Germany, Korea, Egypt, and the USA. Search #COPABeyond and #COPABeyondStudents on Instagram to see the rest of the field, and go show these artists some love.
How we judged World Cup nail art
Every set was scored out of 100 by a panel using the same rubric: technical execution (30 points), creativity and concept (25), theme recognizability (20), finish and detail (15), and overall wow factor (10). Student sets were photographed under standardized conditions and judged purely on the panel score. Alumni sets combined the panel score with the likes on their Instagram Collab post — craft plus hustle, weighted 50/50.
A special thank-you to our guest judges from Dahree, the company behind our student salon's online booking: co-founders Tina Lee — a working nail artist who knows exactly what a clean set looks like up close — and Hong Jik Lee. If you missed it, here's why we partnered with Dahree.
Winners in each bracket took home the Après Prismatic Gel Couleur collection — fitting, since Beyond is an official Après Gel-X certified school and the Gel-X system is built into our nail curriculum.
Want to make World Cup nails yourself?
The formula our artists used works for any team, any tournament, any season: pick one country and commit; pull two or three colors from the flag or kit rather than all of them; anchor the set with one recognizable symbol (a crest motif, a checkerboard, a star) on an accent nail; and let the rest of the nails stay clean so the concept reads at a glance. Theme recognizability was worth 20 points in our rubric for a reason — the best sets could be identified across the room.
And if you'd rather have someone else do the painting: our student clinic offers discounted nail services to the public, supervised by licensed instructors. Fair warning — after this competition, our students may talk you into flag nails.
Learn to do this — for real
Every artist in this post either learned their craft at Beyond or is learning it right now. Our 400-hour manicuring program runs nights — Tuesday through Thursday 6:00–10:00 pm, plus Saturdays — and takes about 5 months, so it fits around a day job. Tuition is $5,595 including your kit, and you'll graduate Après Gel-X certified and ready for the California state board exam. (Practicing already? Our free manicurist state board practice exam is a good place to test yourself.)
Come see the school where Copa Beyond happened. Book a campus tour or call us at (562) 404-6193 — we're at 13640 Imperial Highway, Santa Fe Springs, right in the middle of the neighborhoods these artists come from.
