Imagine this: You groggily awaken from a frenzied night of bacchanalia to discover a half-eaten bucket of fried chicken resting upon your stomach and your hair slicked back with gravy. You do the only sensible thing and sloppily devour the room-temperature pile of garbage before flinging yourself into the shower. You scrub and scrub but the unmistakable stench of fried chicken won’t stop emanating from your hands. You try everything from tomato juice to low-grade acid, but no matter the course of action, you are still enveloped in the scent of greasy chicken.
Fried chicken is arguably the true sovereign of all poultry dishes, but that doesn’t mean having your hands continually reek of day-old popcorn chicken is a regal trait. Or maybe it does, after all.
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KFC Hong Kong is taking the concept of “Finger Lickin’ Good” to heretofore unexplored realms, and it just might end with your having bloody nubs for fingers. That’s because the global fast-food chain just released an edible nail polish—and you best believe it tastes of their iconic chicken. (It probably also tastes of desperation and loneliness, but that’s beside the point.)
Photo by Kimhoo So. Courtesy of Ogilvy & Mather.
Marketing giant Ogilvy & Mather is the brains behind the product, which is targeted at Hong Kong youth. They say they worked with food technologists at McCormick—the same company that produces KFC’s herbs and spices mix—to come up with “natural ingredients” that mimic KFC’s most popular recipes: Original and Hot & Spicy. To use, customers should “simply apply and dry like regular nail polish, and then lick – again and again and again.”
Photo by Kimhoo So. Courtesy of Ogilvy & Mather.
The nail polishes are packed in “designer” bottles and boxes, and have been “teased” on social media in advance of a launch this week. A video (heavy on the EDM) is supposed to convince young people that it’s cool to eat the nail polish off their fingernails—especially if it smells and tastes like chicken.
This certainly isn’t the first time a fast-food monolith has attempted to distill and encapsulate their wares into the realm of cosmetics. As part of an April Fools’ Day campaign last year, Burger King Japan released a meaty perfume in homage to the Whopper, titled Flame-Grilled Fragrance.
Even if having your hands perpetually smell like the bottom of a deep fryer doesn’t immediately tickle your fancy, KFC has you in mind. After all, the next time you’re grabbing some dim sum, you might just want to bring along some nail polish to put on your chicken feet.
