One Direction is apparently set on taking over whatever small parts of the world they haven’t currently conquered. Their 4th anniversary is coming up tomorrow, and it’s hard to believe they’ve been filling stadiums with happily sobbing girls for so long. Hot on the heels of their new fragrance release and news of their upcoming movie, I’m excited to be among the first to tell you about their new makeup line!

“The Looks Collection” comprises three keepsake tins inspired by One Direction’s globe-conquering albums, “Up All Night, “Take Me Home” and the latest chart topper, ‘Midnight Memories.” Each tin comes complete with everything you need to show off your personality. Are you a rock n’ roll girl, a fun party girl or the girl next door? We have just the right collection for you and illustrations to help show you just how to get your perfect look. All your beauty essentials are housed in a LIMITED EDITION collectable keepsake tin with removable sleeve, complete with ONE DIRECTION doodle stencils to decorate your keepsake tin and make it uniquely your own!

International release dates are still to be determined but The Looks Collection will be available in the US on the following dates:

Macy’s – August 11th
Stage Stores – August 25th
Dillards – August 25th
Beauty Brands – August 25th
Lord and Taylor – August 25th

I’m personally in love with the collectable tins. My regular readers and friends know how I feel about creative packaging- it’s such an under-utilized aspect in the cosmetics world. The fun, bold colors are also calling my name!

Pretty soon I will be posting a review of their line, but I simply couldn’t wait to share the news with you, as well as the most awesome part. You, my sweet yams, can be the very first to own one of the three available collections- for FREE! All you have to do is enter through the easy giveaway widget below. Make sure to tell all of your friends, because the more lovelies who enter here, the more sets that will be given away and the higher your chances of winning!

A little birdy tweeted in my ear that 1Ders are also currently blowing up Twitter. Check out #MTVHottest if you don’t know what I mean. ;-)  And I will just leave you with the new trailer for their concert film, coming in October, “Where We Are.” You’re welcome for the chills!

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This is a sponsered post powered by BrandBacker but all opinions and enthusiasm are my own!

Yesterday saw the passing of one of the great matriarchs of poetry, her voice so embedded in the history and landscape of this country that it is almost impossible to imagine it gone. How do you fill the space once occupied by a luminous giant? How do you describe an aching maw of silence with mere syllables? While I hope her soul finds rest, equally I hope her words never do. I hope she haunts us.

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise..

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?..

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide..

I rise
I rise
I rise.”

Excerpts from “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

On Saturday, David Lamb of the folk band Brown Bird succumbed to leukemia in Providence, Rhode Island. He was only 35.

Their music has always seemed displaced in history to me, as if you would expect to see them in grainy black and white footage at some deep south dance hall, the roof and walls shaking in time to their irrepressible rhythms. Frail humans making thunder on earth for the gods to hear. The entranced audience would dance and twirl, the air growing dense and humid with gallons of sweat as the beat gets darker and the gravel in his voice unpaves every civilized road in your soul.

I guess all I missed was the old voodoo woman in the corner, rolling out the bones and seeing the years abruptly cut short each time. But his music will live on along with the beaming joy he took in performing.

Black tape, Gitane Demone and Christian Death, Clan of Xymox, Faith and the Muse…these were the Victorian side of my personality, the part of me that felt I’d been born long past my time, that felt this modern world to be garish and unseemly. Too many silicone breasts and blaring infomercials shoved up against me, rubbing me raw. The part of me that skipped school just so I could read more books. My memories of these bands are draped in endless yards of black lace, dragged out of dusty thrift-store boxes, tied up in black velvet ribbons and smeared with venomous red lipstick. Black fingernails, glistening spiderwebs, surf bats. I remember lying on the floor dreaming with a moon-pale, stick-thin strawberry girl, debating the merits of Billie Holiday singing Gloomy Sunday versus the Gitane version. Of course Billie won. Every single time.

Billie Holiday- Gloomy Sunday