Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate Nail Polish is a rich dark chocolate color, just as it is named. In the bottle it’s a reddish warm milk-chocolate brown. On the nails it darkens to a deep espresso shade without any visible red tones. The formula seems a bit thicker than most Dolce & Gabbana nail polishes but applies smoothly with 2 coats. There is a naturally glossy finish. In my experience, Dolce & Gabbana nail polishes last well past the usual 4 days for me for manicures and over a week for pedicures. I just applied Chocolate today for swatching purposes (not a full manicure) so I can’t assess the lasting power of this color in particular. Overall Dolce & Gabbana’s nail polish formulas seem very consistent for me and are highly under-rated.
Two coats without any top coat
While Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate is very basic, there’s something about the depth of this color that seems sophisticated to me. It’s not the most unique brown since I found it very similar to Dior Underground (from the Rock Your Nails collection) and Chanel Imperial. The difference is very slight with Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate being the richest and darkest, Dior Underground has more grey, Chanel Imperial has the most visible red. I added a comparison of Bronze Libertine from Dior (I think this was a Neimans exclusive?) for another brown-bronze comparison. Although it’s not super unique, I still like it.
In the bottle Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate looks most similar to Chanel Imperial. But when applied on the nail, you can see Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate actually resembles Dior Underground more. Odd, right?
Finally one last comparison to Jake’s spots. He wouldn’t sit still for a photo as he was too busy chomping down his treat. Compared to Dolce & Gabbana Chocolate his spots now look more tan rather than brown. Here you can see the natural shiny finish of the polishes (all without a top coat).
Overall lovely, rich and deep. This will be perfect for fall. I do however suspect this color will be easily dupeable. If I had had the access to all these shades at Saks I would have passed on this since it’s so close to the Dior. However, this is never the case because so many shades are either limited edition or exclusive to certain stores (why we all often end up with dupes). I suspect that this will also be very similar to the upcoming US release of Dior Ebony (as seen on Cafe Makeup from her Paris trip).
What do you think? Will you be wearing chocolate tones on your nails this season? Or when the real fall season arrives? Or are there other colors that catch your eye? This year, the colors for nails seem to be all over the place!
