Gimme Glitter: Essie - Shine of the Times

Hi there guys, hope you are all having a great time. As usual I have a Gimme Glitter post, and this polish... Ok I went to TK Maxx and as if I didn't already love TK Maxx I went searching through the polish and saw Shine Of The Times (with some other polishes, one of them I will be showing soon) and thought "Is this real?".
It's obviously not the rarest polish but I put that on my wishlist in the early days of my polish obsession, years ago and bam it's there. See there was no way I was going to get it for full price after quite a long time and me convincing myself I didn't need it, also I couldn't find it, I thought when Essie came to Boots (the summer of the beginning of my obsession) Shine Of The Times would be there, but no.
But there it is in TK Maxx glowing like the sun (ok not the sun), I had searched the place thinking there was nothing good but once I saw the little set (which was reduced, bonus!) I snatched it up. And oh my, it's wonderful.

Shine of the Times is a clear base packed full of opalescent flakies, ok I've mentioned I don't like opalescent before, but Shine of the Times is different because it's so pretty. And that was before I'd experienced the real deal, this is the real deal, China Glaze Luxe & Lush was a not pretty and rough lie. The flakies are also much smaller and I don't know work together better, probably doesn't make sense but I like the flakies smaller.
Shine of the Times is mesmerising, the shift from red to green (with orange and yellow in-between) is fantastic, it was great when all the colours could be seen at once. I loved the combo with Barry M Guava but my camera hates teal so it's looks more blue but it was beautiful. Over a darker polish the flakies would go insane, I'd really like a multicoloured flakie polish too now, need to try and find a good one.

This polish was from Essie's 2011 Holiday Luxeffects and this was definitely the standout for me, my young polish mind couldn't handle it. Well facades were broken by certain polishes (still looking at you Luxe & Lush, I gave it to my friend by the way) but if I had got this when I was looking for it, my mind would've been blown.
The Luxeffects line is still going which I like cause ya'know it's glitter, but nothing that really grabs my attention (like this anyway) but there's still the hope that something incredible will come (I'm so dramatic sometimes :/) :P

This was 1 coat, packed I tell you packed it was!! And the spread was great, not tricksy whatsoever. This is clearly the way flakies are meant to be, and the manicure was smooth (other flakie polishes were not smooth, we know who I'm talking about). Everything is going swimmingly with this polish and I intend to keep it that way when I use it for nail art (how I'm going to use it, I don't know, but we'll find out).

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!! :)