One Direction and their three four Billboard #1 albums generate excitement everywhere they go. This fame even transcends to the level of the press release, which blared from our editor’s inbox: WORLD’s #1 BOY BAND – ONE DIRECTION – MAKEUP!! PERFECT HOLIDAY STOCKING STUFFER !
Luckily, I also feel ALL CAPS EXCITED about One Direction. I recently watched 75 percent of the One Direction movie “This is Us” on YouTube before realizing it was actually an unauthorized fan-made documentary. (I finished watching it.) According to the film’s questionable fact-checking, Liam, Harry, and Niall are the each youngest members of 1D. Armed with this piecemeal knowledge and a whole lot of love, I pushed on to spend a week wearing makeup from the One Direction Midnight Memories Collection. Midnight Memories is the “rocker girl” kit of the three available by the band; the others are Up All Night (for the party girl) or Take Me Home (for the girl next door). I unironically wore a studded belt for many years, so I felt confident in Midnight Memories as my kit choice.
The Midnight Memories Collection comes in a reusable tin mocked up like a badass wall of bricks. Our dudes are brooding in greyscale on with a sheaf of plastic that hugs the makeup we will soon apply to our very bodies. As one Directioner (the name for One Direction fans) said in a recent Guardian article about the band’s fragrance, “They might have touched it. They haven’t. But they might have.” I’m disappointed in the band members’ autographs on the packaging — right above the Total Net Contents information — but at least they’re in red, the color of love. Harry’s signature H A R R Y is large, strong, in print. The other Directioners write in the vaguely legible scrawl of cavemen with inferior hair. We all know who the Timberlake is here.
The most distinctly 1D piece of makeup in the kit is the neon pink lip gloss. Named “Liquilights glow gloss,” it glows under UV light — not, in fact, in the dark, so don’t stand alone in your bathroom with lipgloss on and lights off waiting for the glow to kick in, wondering if your life is meaningful. The lip gloss goes on clear with a ton of glitter; the lipstick is RED. Some may even call it “Taylor Swift red.” The choice prompts many questions, chief among them: should I wear this lipstick every day until I run into Harry Styles on the street? I eventually move on to the eyeshadow, because I’m really more of a Zayn.
Marketing materials call the shadows “neutral.” I would call them “Hot Topic.” I hung out at Hot Topic on weekends so far be it for me to criticize, but the colors in this palette are a SCOOCH much unless you are indeed going to a rock concert. (In other news: I’m a Grandma.) I would also have loved the eyeliner in high school, which is certainly the point. It’s closer to a lip crayon in size and perfect for the winged look that Zayn for sure prefers.
Just had a great meeting about 1D make up! it’s that good im gona start wearing it myself pic.twitter.com/XKqZW45Buc— Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) June 23, 2014
Here’s Niall, the token “funny one,” modeling the polish options on Twitter. Our British rocker’s nail varnish is a surprisingly trendy metallic steel that I would call goth if it wasn’t being sold to me by One Direction for $28.50. A+ varnish, would varnish again. We also get stencils of lightning bolts, diamonds and arrows. I nicknamed them Liam and threw them in the trash.I never feel too old for One Direction. Maybe that’s because they work so hard to keep “the girl” in their music nameless and faceless. Unfortunately, I don’t need to feel it; I can see it in the mirror. But I’m keeping the red lipstick.