If you’re looking for some fun winter manicure inspiration for the first few weeks of 2026, you may want to turn your attention to the animal kingdom before booking that appointment! Take a cue from Vanessa Hudgens, whose twist on the classic French manicure is wildly cool.
The actor-musician, who recently welcomed her second child with husband Cole Tucker, teamed up with her go-to nail artist Zola Ganzorigt on another animal-print French tip, but this time she looked to a different big cat for her tips, opting for black and white tiger stripes instead of leopard print—as she did shortly after giving birth—or the more traditional orange and black tiger stripe.
Zanzorigt filed Hudgens’s nails into a long almond shape and applied a neutral base, then painted the tips a shimmery silver-white and added the signature jagged, horizontal tiger stripes to each nail, varying the size for a realistic animal-print pattern. The frosty chrome texture of the platinum tip makes the manicure feel extra wintry, and tiger stripes are a totally underrated animal print, if you ask me.
Celebs are co-signing the animal-print French manicure in a big way, and we’ve got a feeling it’s going to get even bigger as we head into 2026. Hudgens has now worn two distinct versions of the nail art style, and another Ganzorigt client, Hailey Bieber, dabbled in the look for a late 2025 trip to Japan with a cheetah-print French. Leopard print is, of course, the ultimate animal print—what’s that saying about how leopard print is a neutral?—but there are so many fun options to choose from, like sleek zebra print, cute cheetah dots, cheeky cow print, or glamorous snakeskin, for example. You can play with texture and color, as Hudgens and Ganzorigt did with the silvery chrome base, or keep it classic with colors straight out of the animal kingdom.
