🎄 2025 Style and Beauty Advent Calendar Discussion ***SPOILERS*** THREAD 6

[BakeOffRewatch]

New thread!

That's no fun 🤣 I'm impressed by how strong you're being 😍 we keep dangling them in front of you and you keep batting them away 💁🏻‍♀️

I think you’ve both got a really sensible way of looking at this and I agree wholeheartedly 😆. I must admit I’m starting to get a bit anxious about my hoard and keep telling myself that it’s going to outlast me by many years at this rate 🤣🤣

I succumbed and ordered it although I had discounted it and decided I didn’t want it.
Like others I will sell off the ones I don’t want/like and agree next year I will be shopping my stash before buying any new fragrances.

Are we all going to be as strong willed and not buy the Space NK calendar? 🤣🤣

Ooh! It includes a Trudon candle, too. I can never get my head around paying so much for such tiny perfumes though. But...pretty!!!

There are 20 products in it though 😍 a total of 145.5ml of fragrance plus a car fragrance and a candle.

@Growlybear83 I hope so or I'm going to have to sell a kidney to fund it all 🤣... That's not a bad idea actually 🤔

I was irrationally annoyed by them putting on 2 very similar fragrances, blanche and lazy sunday morning, neither of which im a fam of, and wrote them off for that reason.

Last year's was a million times better

I’m not succumbing. Holding out for SNK as I have credit to spend. However I will be in Corfu next week, so hope I can get it.

Ok my version of not buying HN was to send a link to DH instead in case he takes it as a hint for my upcoming birthday. I don't hold out much hope, however there is a small chance he will take the hint and for that reason I absolutely can not buy it for myself...

I may be although hope they release their Christmas Edits so I can spend my credit on them instead 🤣🤣

I very much agree. Don't get me wrong we all deserve a little treat, and I'd usually be the first to defend a beauty advent calendar or two. It's Christmas after all. But some of the posts on this thread this year have really given me the ick, it's buying for the sake of buying. Total overconsumption. They're not even that good value now, I know I'm not the first to say that the glory days of BACs are over. The fun factor of these threads has dropped off for me (the debating and the comparing and the critiquing) because some people are just buying anything and everything. Maybe I just need to go and watch some Cosmetopia to balance it out.

I’m not having much fun with it this year, I don’t like the buying to sell on and make the money back thing (especially when it’s buying lots to sell the majority). It makes it all feel transactional and greedy.

It reminds me of those awful days when people would stock pile the “it toy of the year” and sell them on for a fortune to desperate parents at Christmas.

Oh well - your post has well and truly pissed on my chips 🙁

I don't see it that way myself - I'm not doing this to make any sort of profit, just a way of buying for myself as I'm selling on the bits I don't want which means they aren't sitting in a drawer gathering dust. It's not like I'm buying multiple packs to sell on for cold hard cash.
I don't have a problem with people who do buy to sell and make a profit, in this cold hearted capitalistic world it's everyone for themselves and for some people this is a way for them to make a bit of dosh on the side and who is to argue with that in a COLC? It is also giving people of more limited means who cannot afford the whole advent calendar the opportunity to buy a few things on vinted at a lot less than the shop price.

It’s the current trend though. It is a reason I stay away from minis myself in edits and GWP, Harrods value wise would have been good for me but all the minis make me feel bad about packaging. Probably meaningless, as the full sizes come in tons of unnecessary packaging too.

I’m most definitely not buying to resell. Apart from advent calendars, I have literally not spent a single penny on any make up, haircare, or skin care products this year and have only bought one perfume edit and a couple of separate bottles of perfume with my BD edit since this time last year. The advent calendars I’ve bought are my one luxury treat for the year, and will last me for the whole of 2026, and I set money aside to treat myself. I will no doubt end up listing any black mascara or black eyeliner that comes in my calendars on Vinted but I choose which ones I want carefully to avoid getting unwanted items. If things don’t sell within a few weeks on Vinted then they go into the charity bag.

I've stopped watching cosmetopia, she's too negative for me 🤣

I get what you mean about overconsumption though and I'm totally guilty of it this year, but I think everyone has their own reasons for buying and enjoying these things. For me, I’ve had a really hard time recently after suddenly losing someone very close to me (she was 37 and healthy 😔) and all I've done is spend since, much to the horror of my husband 🙈 honestly, getting caught up in the excitement here, chatting about the calendar designs, products and prices has been a lovely little escape for me 🩷 Sometimes a bit of beauty joy is exactly what you need to get through tough days 💕🎁

"It reminds me of those awful days when people would stock pile the “it toy of the year” and sell them on for a fortune to desperate parents at Christmas."

Crikey. That's a harsh comparison and a bit unwarranted.

Anyway, nearly time for a nice new thread.

Ah that’s interesting as a PP had asked Liberty Customer Service and they said they weren’t doing one this year!

£895, contents worth £1,478 www.libertylondon.com/uk/12-days-of-jewellery-calendar-000859926.html

Includes:

1. 9ct Gold Ianthe Star Pendant
2. 22ct Gold-Plated Amazonite Mini T-Bar Bracelet,
3. 18ct Gold-Plated Audrey Stud Earrings
4. 14ct Gold-Plated Vermeil Silver Roscida Heart Pendant Necklace
5. 14ct Gold-Plated Chunky Doune Hoop Earrings,
6. 18ct Gold-Plated Vermeil Silver Interstellar Drop Choker Necklace
7. 14ct Gold-Plated Bleecker Chain Necklace
8. Dome Gold-Plated Hinge Cuff Bracelet
9. 18ct Gold-Plated T-Bar Belcher Chain Bracelet
10. Gold-Plated Mini Organic Hoop Earrings
11. 14ct Gold-Plated Asterales Small Hoop Earrings
12. 18ct Gold-Plated Vermeil Silver Biography Heart Bracelet.

Beauty Detective is keeping a tally. As of today she's listed 297 BACs on the market. Even 10% of that is approx 29 calendars so I do dispute anyone is buying anything and everything.

There's definitely a collective fomo at play but we're all adults and ultimately the decisions are ours. Criticisms of buying too much are valid but I think we all know all of it is a want not a need. If there comes a time when these threads are too much or they make me unhappy for whatever reason then I'll step away.

I like chatting with others whether they've bought one or ten and nobody here as far as I can tell buys purely to sell on. Selling on or passing on the bits they don't want I don't see as an issue. I'm very happy to have picked up a few bits on Vinted.

I'm struggling to see how the thread would work as you hope it to be @owlpassport all the BACs release at different times. Some sell out fast and you have to be quick. We don't always get all the information we want months in advance to ponder deeply.

Pricing is dynamic - the £69 discount on Niche Beauty for example is new information. I wouldn't buy it full price but now I'm considering it in light of that even though I've bought others. I actually would have bought this one over Harrods at this reduced price but Harrods was going to sell out and I made a choice at the time based on that information. I may or may not buy another one. I know I don't need another but I don't see why it should matter to anyone else on the thread.

I don’t think that anyone is buying just to sell on though. People are selling the stuff that they don’t like/aren’t going to use. When you are buying 25+ products in a bundle, it’s almost guaranteed that there were be some things that you don’t want. Not selling (or gifting), and instead putting them in the bin, or leaving them to go off, is far more wasteful IMO. Far better to pass them in to someone who will use them.

I finally bought an AC today from M&S. I’m happy with it. Will start the new thread with some photos.

Yay! Congrats. Glad you love it.

My comment wasn’t limited to this thread but I have seen comments here along the lines of “selling 2/3”, “making my money back”, “made more than I spent”, etc - that feels transactional. I more had in mind the ppl who buy multiple ACs then sell them for a profit on eBay.

Regarding unwanted items, if you can afford a luxury AC then there are many places to donate the things you don’t want.

And what is wrong with being transactional. The 2/3 comment was probably mine, I will sell around this much to afford the whole calendar.

The whole thing to begin with is transactional as every one of us on here is paying money to the retailer in the first place!