As Twilight fever continues to sweep the nation with the release of New Moon last month ($230 million in ticket sales and counting!), it’s hard to deny that the film hasn’t only had a marked impact at the box office, but on the cosmetics industry as well. Now, and I’ll say this up front, I’m definitely not a Twihard (though we do have a few in the office, and I have one tweenage member of Team Jacob at home), but I’ve read the books, seen both films, and can most definitely see the appeal and its natural progression toward influencing beauty trends. Between its target demographic of makeup-loving teenage girls, its stars gracing every possible magazine cover, and the fact that Edward, Bella, and co-stars are all just so unbelievably attractive (at least as measured by the average teen girl’s “scream-o-meter”), it makes sense that the beauty world is taking cues from Twilight.

First of all (and this is great news for skin), we can all thank vampire chic for making pale cool again. Fashion magazines and beauty blogs across the globe are reporting that tanning and bronzer sales have seen a huge drop-off, seemingly replaced with sales of ivory and rose powders, particularly Bare Escentual’s illuminating Mineral Veil, all of which have skyrocketed 200% in the past month. No doubt it’s in an effort to capture Bella’s wan complexion (courtesy of Washington’s lack of sunlight from tall trees and overcast skies) and the Cullen lady vamps’ luminous translucent skin (courtesy of their immortal, bloodless, inhuman state). We can only hope that in everyone’s effort to look pale that the sunscreen gets slathered on as well!

Not surprisingly, a Twilight-themed line of cosmetics called Twilight Beauty is now available at Nordstrom, and even though Beautypedia doesn’t review limited edition makeup lines (nor have we had any subscriber request to review the line—not that we expected to), professional curiosity brought me out to Nordstrom to see for myself what this Twilight Beauty was all about, and I have to admit that what I found more than surprised me.

Designed by the team behind mid-range makeup brand DuWop, Twilight Beauty is actually not novelty junk. Sure, the testers looked like they’d been handled by every teenager in the state (and they probably had), but the products themselves were better than I expected. Consisting of two sub-brands—Luna Twilight and Volturi Twilight—the products aim to provide lots of shimmer in body sprays, illuminators and cream-to-powder mousse blushes, all with swirls of pearlescent shine (even the mascaras all had metallic sheen to them!). The effect is overtly glowy and shiny, but if that’s the look you’re going for, product-wise you could do a lot worse. To my surprise, I was slightly enamored with the lip glosses; the texture was lovely; the color opaque, and the finish was perfectly glossy, but not high-shine. (Word of warning: avoid the awful Lip Venom stain: it’s a stinging cinnamon lip plumper made to look like a vial of blood that can end up making lips chapped and dry).

To me, the most impressive products were the palettes. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I might have bought the Rosalie palette had it not been sold out (the salesperson told me that she couldn’t believe the amount of stock they’ve gone through: “Piles and piles,” she said.). They’re all smartly-packaged in slim plastic cases, with two eye shadows, two lip glosses and a creamy blush. The powder shadows were butter-smooth, intensely pigmented and the shades (apart from the ghastly Alice) were distinctive and gorgeous. The thing that really appealed to me about the products was that even though, yes, they’re blatantly cashing in on the Twilight phenomenon, everything seemed age-appropriate for their demographic, and the quality was hard to deny.

While I can’t imagine a grown woman wanting to wear any of these products on a regular basis, the line really reflected the frivolous freedom of being a teenager without any of the obnoxious pandering (I’m looking at you Too-Faced!). I left the counter feeling more than a little nostalgic for my own teenagehood, which is very much how I felt when I read the books and saw the movies—a fact which makes me think that, for better or worse, DuWop did an excellent job of capturing the spirit of Twilight.