Beauty advent calendars 2024 #5

[virgocatlover]

Continued advent calendar discussions. Please share thoughts, purchases and if you see any discounts!

I've had both and they were both equally lovely. The only reason I haven't bought one of them this year is that I've still got quite a bit left from the last three years and the contents aren't that much different this year, so I would have ended up with too many duplicates. I think the Jo Loves box is gorgeous this year.

I love elemis and personally I'm aiming for the qvc deal when it starts

I am increasingly tempted by Elemis as I love their moisturisers but would not use the cleansing balms or body oils - are those items easy to sell on eBay?

I bought myself the Look Fantastic advent to try and stop an expensive advent purchase but really want a second calendar and the cheaper ones have too many drawers of doom…

I had Jo Malone last year and really enjoyed it

@Growlybear83 yes I love the Jo Loves box which is pulling me towards it! I've just checked the Jo Malone contents and I already have minis of 4 of the perfumes they have and prev had another 2 of them. I like the idea of all new perfumes in Jo Loves as I've never had any of them, plus you get a perfume voucher too to redeem. But it's so ££££££!! Hmmm first world dilemmas! 🙈🤔

@MidnightMeltdown not sure why the terrible reviews for Elemis. I think it is one of the best of the single brand calendars, and I rate Elemis generally. Weirdly, there was a stupidly expensive Harrods Elemis version (£425!) that appears to have sold out.

The single brand calendar I’m most tempted by this year is actually the Neals Yard one.

@MidnightMeltdown i also bought ByTerry last year at a bargain price and loved it. It wasn’t a brand I’d tried before but I rated the skincare highly and would definitely look at purchasing again if a bargainous opportunity arose.

Look fantastic has a coming soon banner for By Terry
www.lookfantastic.com/p/by-terry-terryfic-glow-24-day-advent-calendar/13889376/?srsltid=AfmBOopZi4Dpj7SbsnXd0le_-Ibv4CmqsuCX_Fmpt_rkMHcoySxzRw7F

I think the reviews of Elemis are because of the number of minis. I’m also keeping a close eye on the £300 Elemis box on QVC (12 full sized items) as I’m certain it’ll be heavily discounted at some point.

We went to buy MiL’s M&S calendar this morning as we need to give it to her today. We got it and the store was heaving with them everywhere with sales assistants promoting them. We did get it as it’s an easy gift for her and she loves them but seeing the contents out was really unimpressive. So many minis.

@AprilLady and @Doubleraspberry yes the Elemis complaints seem to be about the small sizes/poor value. Although it is usually the case that you get poorer value with single brand advents. Not really sure why that is. You would have thought that when a brand is giving out their own products, they could afford to be more generous. Beauty products are mostly cheap to produce. They must be making huge profit margins on those items.

@Addictedtobeauty I saw that but I thought that it was an old page for the 2022 calendar? Not sure, but they're very late if they are releasing one!

My ASOS calendar with 30% off arrived in good condition, I know some people’s had got damaged. Haven’t checked the contents as I’m wanting to wait till December 1st.

Yes, the Elemis box looks great and they are sure to reduce it at some point I would have though? I got a really good Elemis mystery box from QVC in the summer for around £50 but the contents were worth far more

Does this win the prize for most expensive calendar of the season. On the plus side, there is no black eye liner in it

Good grief! The perfumes are only 8.5 or 10ml! It says that it's extremely limited so I wonder if people will be brawling in the aisles like they were at Harrods 😆😆

I’ve ordered mine already @OchonAgusOchonOh - didn’t want to risk missing out like I did with SpaceNK 😹

I bought a few of them as stocking fillers.

I like your thinking @OchonAgusOchonOh 😹😹😹

The Harrods advent calendar contains the Valmont Prime Renewing Pack which retails at £233 which is almost the full cost of the calendar!

Ok Beauty is offering a free Rays of Beauty edit when buying their advent calendar

Apparently Aldi have SDJ spray dupes that are very similar. Never seen any in mine but one to keep an eye out for especially if you have teens.

I managed to find the DE dupes so bought the Protini and La La dupes. Not sure why because I've not tried the real thing so have no way of comparing them. I'm also not short of creams waiting to be tried but couldn't resist.

Also bought one of the sleep masks but have put that in DSis advent calendar.

They had the heated eye patches but I resisted as I know I'm crap at actually using that type of product.

Same here, @OvaHere I had a sample of DE once but not enough to be able to compare with the Aldi, but I am likely the whipped cream dupe so far.

Speaking of SDJ, I had an experimental spray of a few of them in Boots yesterday - one smelt disgustingly of warm food, but the other was lovely - can’t remember which was which🙀

I'm just not keen on the sprays. They're a bit too cloying for me. I like the scents in cream form though - so I like the Bum Bum cream but not the matching spray or shower products.

H&B is now showing as sold out. I was pondering on this one as the price point is really good and a practical selection of items. Now I don't need to think about it anymore.
LiB sent a generous £43.85 off over the weekend for pro members with 2 free mystery boxes and it still didn't tempt me.
OK is still in the reasonably priced bracket and the offer posted earlier by another PP is very decent. Yet, this is another one that doesn't tempt me enough.
Still have a 20% off voucher to spend at Flannels but, again, not excited enough to go for their Christmas cracker.
So far, I've been unbelievably good and am waiting to bridal Beauty mystery Christmas bag/box. They did 2 last year and I liked them very much.
I definitely liked the French Pharmacy AC, I knew it would sell very quickly but felt I should keep my money for bridal beauty this year.
I do love reading all the posts on this thread, entertaining and, at times, stressful with all these delayed deliveries and damaged boxes.

For those dipping their toes in the Aldi sea of unknown offerings.
Some of their dupes are very good as stand alone products but I can't compare with all of the real products because I haven't tried them all.
What is very annoying: you never know when they will be back in stock or if they would ever bring them back at all.
The concealer in a clicky pen is better than the original YSL Touche Eclat in my opinion but I missed it when it came in stock last month.
They did a dupe for Estee Lauder serum with an additional eye serum as well. It was pants. However I can't tell how good the original EL is because this is one of the very few brands that irritates my skin so I haven't used anything of theirs in 20 years.
I still haven't tried the La Mer copy , bought it last year and no idea what it's like, I need to find it and give it a try. But if I like it, will I ever be able to re-purchase?!
The Sisley Black Rose range was really, really nice on its own, but the original is so much better in my opinion and I don't think they can compare.
One of the very good copies was a recent find, a dupe for Dr Jart Cicarepair. I do like this one and went back to buy a spare.
There are lots of others but I can't remember them all right now.
Anyway, I think all these skincare special buys are worths a try but you have to accept you might never find a replacement when you run out.

Space NK were teasing again this morning, one calendar available but it didn't let me check out.