Zoya, Veruschka

I wore this polish for last Christmas, in lieu of all the people wearing ChG Emerald Sparkle/Ruby Pumps/things that are red, green, gold, silver, and shiny. I liked the velvety look of Veruschka, like expensive wrapping paper or like warm comforter. It suited my favorite part of Christmas more--less about the glitz and the parties and the wrapping paper, more about the fireplace glow of the holiday.

Anyway, it's September now (already) and Veruschka still seems appropriate for heralding in crisp mornings and red leaves and gray skies. It's a deep, blue-based forest green with a velvety sheen and little tiny silver shimmer particles interspersed within the polish to give it more depth than a flat, creme-like matte base would usually allow. I'm under the impression that it also helps with the overall smoothness of the polish--matte may normally allow for a lot of mistakes to show, but I could be wrong. Veruschka is my only matte polish.

Like any other matte (so far as I know), Veruschka dries extremely quickly, so there is little time to paint a nail completely. I still found application fairly easy and applied two coats just in case--if I were faster and more careful, one would probably have been enough. Of course, one should wait until the base coat is completely dry or not wear it at all--this rule also applies to topcoat.

:3

And, of course, this is what it looks like without topcoat--kind of like a finish between the scattered and distinctly-particled glitter/glassfleck, and also the fineness and easily-removeable shimmer. I liked it a lot--it looked like it had tons of depth, although I can't really speak much for the sparkle. The gray days continue. :)

On to other news:  I've recently purged and reorganized my stash in a drawer underneath my desk and I've discovered that I'm a lot less of a brand collector than I thought I was. Also, that I had a ton more OPIs than any other brand. I'd somehow assumed that the list would be dominated by either Essie or China Glaze, but I have one Essie (that is, Jelly Apple:  I gave away the others to people who would've appreciated and used them more) and four China Glazes. My dominant finish of choice is creme or glitter, and there's hardly any other sort in sight. I have never not been on low-buy, and due to my nonexistent budget--I need every single coin I have--I have been on super-low-buy for months.

I know the must-haves for every single upcomming/recent collection, lately, and quite a huge lemming list of my own. But now I'm curious:  what are your top used/nostalgic/signature polishes that you can't live without, regardless of the new trends and the crazy lemmings? What brings you back to all of this, again and again?
 What have you noticed about your own collecting habits, if you collect at all?  :)