It’s no secret that Taylor Swift loves to get her nails done. On the Eras Tour, the only beauty signature more consistent than her bright red lipstick was her rainbow manicure, which assigned a different color representing her albums to each of her fingertips. She’s since dabbled in minimalist white nails and several shimmery glitter manicures for various red carpets, as well as Chiefs games.
One thing she doesn’t do very often, however, is color-coordinate her lips with her nail polish. It’s surprising, given her love of nostalgic fashion and beauty references! Matching your lipstick to your nail polish is a practice that dates back to early 20th century, when red lipstick and identical nail polish were issued to women in the American Marine Corps during World War II. Now, it seems Swift is finally embracing the look with cherry red lips and nails for the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
On Mar. 17, the hitmaker called into the ceremony to accept the award for “Tour of the Century” wearing an opaque swipe of Pat McGrath Labs Liquilust lipstick in Elson 4: the very same “vivid blue-red” she sported throughout the global concert series. She also sported her signature jet-black winged eyeliner during the remote acceptance speech, along with a diamond snake necklace and a Cartier watch. But as she held her trophy aloft, I couldn’t help but admire her freshly painted set of cherry red tips. Nail artist Lisa Peña-Wong—who was the steady hand behind Swift’s maroon Super Bowl 2025 manicure as well—really popped off with this one.
Peña-Wong generally keeps the exact shades she uses on Swift under wraps, although she will occasionally confirm or deny good guesses in her comments on Instagram. She did, however, recently reveal to one lucky follower that Swift generally doesn’t wear tips or overlays—just gel polish applied atop her natural nails.
With that in mind, I have a few theories of my own about the hue Swift could have been wearing during her virtual acceptance speech. Peña-Wong frequently works with OPI so, barring any custom mixes, I have a feeling the color in question is either Big Apple Red or Cajun Shrimp—the brand’s two most iconic red lacquers. Do what that information what you will, Swifties!
