When Sydney Sweeney was prepping for the Hollywood Beauty Awards, which she attended alongside her longtime hairstylist Glen Oropeza, she didn’t have to look far for nail inspo — she just had to look down at her belt.
Though the actor usually sticks to much subtler manis, she and nail artist Zola Ganzorigt collaborated on a brown crocodile print manicure to match her oversized espresso-coloured, patent lather croco-print belt, which she wore over a coordinating brown pantsuit. Sydney’s nails were kept short and filed into rounded, soft almonds. “We wanted her manicure to match her outfit and decided on a brown blooming gel manicure,” Zola explained. This wasn’t just a tone-on-tone monochromatic outfit; it was a tone-on-tone-on-tone ensemble, with the nails playing an important supporting role in tying the whole colour story together.
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But wait, what’s blooming gel? It’s a nail art technique that utilises a special gel topcoat that makes any colour it touches diffuse and disperse; in Sydney’s case, that dispersion created the multi-sized blobs of crocodile-esque colour that covered each of her nails. Fellow Zola client Hailey Bieber has experimented with the mani style in the past; in summer 2023, she showed off a more colourful take on blooming gel nail art with multicoloured tips. The trend has resurfaced a few times over the past few years, just like its fellow reptile-inspired style, the tortoiseshell mani. (Hailey gave that one a spin too.)
It’s fun to see Sydney Sweeney experiment with nail art; like we said above, she generally keeps her nails pretty simple, though she did have another notable matching moment in early 2024 with a 3D floral set and top combo. At the time, Zola painted Sydney’s nails with a soft pink and applied teeny-tiny 3D roses to several fingers. If you need some nail art inspo in the coming months, follow Sydney’s lead and look to the patterns and textures of nature. Bonus points if you incorporate blooming gel.
This feature originally appeared on Allure.
