Tonic Dulcinea

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When prompted to pick a color for my next mani, the man went with red, specifying a "rosy" sort of shade.  Well, one can only do so many linear holos in a row, and this was a lovely change.

Tonic Dulcinea
indoor, CF lighting
Dulcinea is a polish that utterly mystifies me.  I swear that when I hold the bottle up to angled light, I get that tell-tale emerald green flash of a Clarins 230 type polish... and yet, there is approximately none of that on the nail.  I do get a lovely dusting of gold at angles though, so who knows?

Tonic Dulcinea
outdoor, afternoon sunlight
This polish is almost every shade of red you'd want all in one bottle, so it's a good choice if you can't pick from among all your reds.  It's a subtle duochrome, shifting from a more cool rosy pinkish-red on over to a warm brick red, hitting true candy apple right in the middle.

Tonic Dulcinea
outdoor, direct sunlight
I'm showing 2 easy coats here, and had no problems with application.  The current Tonic brust is just a scooch too wide for my slim pinkies, but not as mess-inducing as the flat paddle-shaped brushes, so quite manageable overall.  This is of course a red with that degree of saturation that means anything stuck to your cuticles will cling persistently, so careful painting or a serious scrub is in order.

Tonic Dulcinea
outdoor, shady daylight... is that a suggestion of green at the edges??
In bright light, the shimmer particles threw off a whole lot of sparkle, while in lower light, Dulcinea had a lovely metallic/pearlescent gleam.

Tonic Dulcinea
outdoor, shady daylight - yes, each of these 3 nails appears to be a sliiiiightly different shade
To keep this mani going, I stamped with the cool pinky-gold of Esmaltes da Kelly Princess Leia using a symmetrical mandala design from BM-S185.  The overall effect was an embroidered brocade, right up my alley.

Tonic Dulcinea and BM-S185
window-filtered daylight
Tonic Dulcinea and BM-S185
outdoor, shady daylight
Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, an utterly lovely classic-with-a-twist red that should be wearable by many skintones because of it's subtle shifting properties.  This had a great formula, and wore decently, with only minor tipwear after several days.

Where to buy:  direct from Tonic Polish.

~Michelle

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