Out Of The Blue – A Multi-Colored Ombre Manicure
This weekend I’m headed to Sandusky, Ohio, home of the world’s greatest amusement park, Cedar Point. And I’m not just saying that because I worked there and it’s in my home state. The park has been awarded that title nine times in a row. With 17 roller coasters, it’s a thrill seeker’s nirvana.
The reason for my trip, a mini-reunion with some of my friends I used to work with back in the day. Seriously, if you know any college students looking for a summer job, this is the place. It’s so much fun. They recruit from all over the world and provide housing. It’s like college without all the books and classes. Anywho, I wanted to do something fun with my nails and ever since I first tried an Ombre Multi-Colored Manicure, I’ve been meaning to do it again. Only this time, instead of mixing my colors, I chose to use five existing shades to create the effect. |
I spent a good thirty minutes hunting through my light blue polish drawer to find the right color combination. I knew I wanted to keep it relatively light and bright so I decided to work from lightest to darkest. OPI What’s With The Cattitude? was an easy first choice and China Glaze Bahamian Escape was sitting right next to it in the drawer. It’s like they knew what I was up to. Choosing one Shrek color made it easy for me to pull OPI Ogre-The-Top-Blue but the last two shades were more of a challenge.
To help me decide, I swatched the colors on a piece of paper and started placing other shades next to the grouping until I found the right mix. Some of the colors I considered; Orly Calypso Breeze, OPI Just Groovy, SpaRitual Crystal Eyes, Essie Shelter Island and Misa Pour Me Something Tall & Strong and OPI Dating A Royal. None of them seemed to fit as well as OPI No Room For The Blues and Barry M Cobalt Blue.
The overall effect is exactly what I wanted. A bright, fun manicure with noticeable differences between each shade but nothing over-the-top. Excuse the slight color variance of this pic. I had to use my old point-n-shoot to fit my hand in front of the camera and the quality isn’t as good as my DSLR. Though how cute is my Hello Kitty ring? I picked that up for $26 at the Sanrio store in the Fashion Show Mall in Vegas. Score!
I seriously don’t know how some girls can photograph all their fingers while holding a bottle of polish. It feels so awkward and my thumb just doesn’t bend that way. So here’s the best closeup up I could contort my hand to take.
Are you feeling my multi-colored mani? What do you think of my color choices? Do you have a suggestion for a color that would have made it better? Have any of you been to Cedar Point? Back me up on how incredible the park is.
Lisa N.
Ms Meatballhead
Birdie
Spa pediccure chairs
PURE LOVE. BLUEEEE!
Ooooo! Likes very much! I enjoy doing these, too. I have plans to do another one with some of the polishes I picked up for myself yesterday for my birthday! Woot!
Went a little overboard and will have enough for several times…mostly blues & greens, of course. 
Currently rocking a light blue one with For Audrey, Oh, Tiff etc.
Your ring is fantastic! And I love the mani. Bright and happy.
Oooh, pretty! Love it. And as a blue addict, I have all of these so will definitely be doing it myself!
I’m a HUGE fan of rollercoasters and other fear-inducting activities (lol!) and honestly just reading that you’re going to Cedar Point I sighed a little because to say I love CP is an understatement. I’ve only been there once and it ruined me for life, no other amusement park can compare! I used to live in Chicago so it was a relatively reachable place (~5 hours) and now I live in San Diego so it’d be a huge trip to go there! My boyfriend suggested going next year for my birthday but he hates heights & scary stuff sooooo… probably not going to happen haha. Hope you have a blast!!! I am envious for sure. And I love the blue mani!!
I love it! It’s like skittles, but less in-your-face and crazy.
I love this! And I really like that you didn’t have to mix colors for this…I really want to try this.
Pretty! I’ve always wanted to do something like this but I don’t think I have enough polish.
Love the mani especially because those are my most favorite colors. Also like this post because mixing colors for an ombre is too much work!
p.s. having total non-buyer’s remorse at not picking up that ring, too!! going to search online now….
I really like this, and the colors you choose!
When I can get rid of my current mani I want tot try something like this, but with sponging sideways. So instead of darker tips gradienting to a lighter color near the cuticle I’d sponge the right side of your Bahamian Escape nail with some WWTC from it’s neighbour, and sponge the left side with some NRFTB.
Haha I don’t know if that makes much sense but I’m curious if that would work out and look okay.
Sometimes we just make them bend that way! LOL
I rarely need to photograph all my fingers while holding a bottle though.
i love this look! (if only i had enough nailpolish in the same colour to do this)ive been to ceader point 2 times, and i compleatly L-O-V-E the rollercoaster “raptor”
How long does it take you (on average) to do your nails? How long do you wait between coats?
The ombre look is cool. I just did something sorta like that on my toes. I did a rainbow/ spectrum array of colors, P ROYGBIV (I added the pink to get ten and I also added a coral and aturquoise). I did pink through yellow on one foot, then green through violet on the other. To top off the rainbow effect, I added some silver glitter with different sized sparkles that reflects the light in a rainbow way. I’ve gotten a ton of compliments and it looks totally cool! Would you try a rainbow thing?
This is so cute! I love the gradient effect! x
Hey!
This is cute but no one is really using it anymore since nail trend are changing so fast lately… (But I LOVE IT and I use it!) I`m from Brazil and here it`s not as easy to find colorful polishes as it is in US. So what I do is to make up my own shades! I usually just gets a container and mix up the darkest color with pure white and so on until I get 5 diferent shades! It works pretty well.
Love ur blog! XOXO
I agree, mixing is great as well. I mixed two greens to get the middle shades and I loved the look but I didn’t feel like messing around with all that last night. This is definitely simpler.
Looks great! Love love Cedar Point! It was the sight of my first roller coaster ride. Headed up that way in a few days to Cedar Point and Kalahari Water Park. Have fun!
Oh cool! Have fun. I’ve never been to Kalahari but I hear it’s fantastic. Much better than Great Wolf and Castaway Bay.
I LOVE the ombre concept for nails! I bet I can do that with purples.
Oh definitely. The original post I did on this look showed a purple gradation that was in InStyle.
Cedar Point is so much fun, but soooo much walking. Have a good time!
Thanks! It’s one of my favorite places. Partly because of the nostalgia, partly because their coasters rock!
I’m so sad to say i kind of don’t like the ombre nails. : ( I wonder how it would look if you did the ombre effect on each nail as opposed to a different color per nail?
Don’t be sad. It’s not a look for everyone. You like what you like. I did an ombre on the nail last week with a teal to purple gradation. That’s definitely fun but I wanted to do something different. It’s fun for a weekend.
Very cute! I love the ring!
Yes! I am feeling it. I love it. I’ve been doing this all summer with blue or coral and mixing it with white a few drops at a time to make it lighter. My only problem so far has been it drying a little too quickly once I mix it out of the bottle.
Oooh that’s funny I did the same thing last week with purples
It looks gorgeous in blue too!
I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile now but I’ve been trying to fill in my blues -because I only have like 20 something and apparently thats not enough!
anywho I like this better than mixing because I’m one of those people who doesn’t want to “ruin” polish. I know I know that’s my crazy talking. But this is a great idea and I looove the way it looks on you. Too cute!
Your blue shade selections are positively perfect…I’d love to try this myself in teals!
Love the ombre blue! The HK ring is really cute :)Have fun at Cedar Point!
This is pretty. I love ombre nails, in fact, I love ombre almost anything. I’ve been wanting to try a soft purple ombre mani using violets, lavenders and lilacs. Maybe you’ve inspired me to actually get on top of that!
That looks wonderful, I sure do like blues plus I haven’t seen that kind of manicure locally, either!
I just took off a gradation manicure w/ (from thumb to pinky) OPI Paint My Moji-toes Red, China Glaze High Hopes, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI The “It” Color, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. I LOVED it and the people were commenting on how it suited (or showed) my “colorful” personality. I doubt that they would ever venture to pull it off themselves – people here only go for red or french manicures – but I totally enjoyed the look of my nails, and that’s what’s important :))). So next mani: this one!!!
I love it! I think I shall try it for my next mani but in pink.
I would love to try this. I wonder if there are any “recipes” out there for different versions of an hombre using existing colors. I’d like to try one going from Essie Body Language to OPI YDKJ, maybe with Chinchilly somewhere in the middle… I’ll have to sort out the other two colors, but I feel like there are enough greigy-taupes out there to do it.
Love it! Ive been meaning to do the same thing with grays!
a gray-taupe one would be fantastic. OPI YDKJ would be a perfect fit.
I thought about this instead of trying to do a gradient look on all the nails! Very nice!
The colors are perfect for the ombre effect, and, the overall look is classy. Cool!
i looveee this manicure! so cute. now i’ve gotta try it. you know ever since i stumbled upon your blog here, i’ve spent SOOO much money on nail polish!! But i am not complaining
wish i found it sooner!
I did an ombre mani lat night. I mixed my colors from OPI Funky Dunky to OPI Rumple’s Wiggin’. I have to say, I didn’t really like it, BUT that is because I didn’t like the creme polish on my nails. So, tonight I put a coat of CND Gold Shimmer over it and finished it off with Essie Good To Go topcoat and now I like it much better!
Oh that sounds so pretty. I like the idea of mixing those two and I bet with Gold Shimmer on top it looks fabulous.
this is absolutely gorgeous! i love the post u did on the graduated manicure also. i will definitely be giving these a try!
LOVE the hello kitty ring! where did you get it??
oops! i see the link.
Ogre The Top Blue, what a cute name! The mani looks good!
I absolutely love this!! I’ve not really been a fan of rainbow manis, where every finger is a different colour, but this is perfect! I also love your Hello Kitty ring – so cute.
i wanted to let you know my bf asked me to copy this look in pink! thank you for inspiring him!
i love it, too, obvs.
I just used these two blue colors together to do a design with my nail art stamper – they really are pretty together!