🎄 2025 Style and Beauty Advent Calendar Discussion ***SPOILERS*** THREAD 7

[BakeOffRewatch]

New thread!

Fallen behind on the thread again 😂 but just wanted to jump on and say thank you to @BakeOffRewatch for your touching post at the end of the last thread X and so sorry to all of you experiencing difficult times ❤️

Some more of my vinted purchases turned up today 😈
The Graff Lesedi La Rona VI perfume - I love it 😍 I've decided to start wearing it straight away and not put it in Frankenstein. It's perfect for autumn.
A set of minis, which unfortunately the sdj Beija Flor body had leaked all over everything 😔 I'd also bought a 40ml Medik8 cleanser and a 3ml Dr barbara sturm glow drops (it's so cute 😍). They're going into my travel bag for my Christmas market break next month.

So that means that my Frankenstein BAC is finished! 🎉🎊💃

Thanks to the poster who provided the 15% off code for Harvey Nichols BAC. Just treated myself. Not a bad buy at £212.

😂

Hello! I am loving this thread and have been enjoying reading all your discussion and your joy around BACs. I look forward to BAC every year from summer on and it's the one thing I treat myself too.

This year I'm on a right budget and can only afford one which I've saved for. I like the look of the look fantastic one - do you wonderful experts know if if they ever do a discount code that works for it? And if it tends to sell out so I should hurry up or can I wait a week or two to buy? I also like the look of asos.

I should say if money were no object I would have gone for liberty this year and I like the look of fenwicks as quite a lot of brands there I've never tried but I'm enjoying reading about them through you all! Thanks in advance !

@TabbieMctatty - in 2022, LF reduced the a/c on BF - literally just for a couple of hours at £51, then the price went back up.

I’m not aware of them doing anything similar since, but if it doesn’t sell out in the next week or two, I can see them offering a discount code for 10% or so. Of course, it could also sell out tomorrow 🤷‍♀️

ASOS were giving 10% off theirs last week with a code, but that’s stopped now. Again, I would expect a small discount if it’s not sold out soon, (but no guarantees).

There’s a code knocking around for £5 off the GlossyBox a/c but I can’t remember what it is. Someone on here will probably know.

One way to maybe get a bit of money back, (but not guaranteed to track), is by going through TCB or Quidco - both of which were offering a little bit back on those advent calendars the last time I looked.

There are so many a/c out now and with sales starting so much earlier, it’s hard to know when these will sell out/if there will be any reductions.

Having said all that, some people get paid next week, others at the end of October, so I would expect increased sales during payday periods.

@TabbieMctatty Quidco are giving £10 off a £50 spend at various retailers today only;

Boots, Clarins, Holland and Barrett, LOOKFANTASTIC and Space NK

The LF a/c is tracking at 3% cashback

You have to opt into the deal and it’s the first 3000 people only.

@TabbieMctatty TCB are offering 5% cashback on the LF calendar and 5.1% on the GBox calendar - but the 5.1% is only for new GBox customers.

I also succumbed to the bargain. This is what happens when I look on here late at night. I have spent a fortune this week!

I’m hoping the TCB also tracks to bring it down to £195, but if not it’s still a bargain. Lots of items I wanted but other BACs just had the edge - now I can justify it. There’s a few things out of this one that I also want to gift for Xmas, so it’s a win / win.

I decided to sleep on a few things last night and have decided not to go for Harvey Nicks (but was tempted with that discount) I'm also still tempted by Fenwick but only if they pull out a GWP. Elle I'm still pondering; may get it if it goes lower than £109. Next premium I will most likely get if a discount situation occurs.

In the meantime, I have just pounced on a beautiful eve lom bargain on Vinted. Got the limited edition sold out Radiance Rituals set (was £110 when it was available) for £30. I'm happy with that! And it's in a beautiful box.

I've not gone for anymore so far.

I've cooled on Fenwick a bit. It would have to be reduced or stack with a very good gwp.

Still really like Niche Beauty but even with the code it's still more than Harrod/Liberty/SNK were at full price and only has 24 products a few of which are filler stuff I'm not keen on. There's about 5 products I would really like which are very expensive and full size but I would have a hard time justifying the purchase.

I maybe should have gone for HN. I've bought 3 of the scents I was interested in from Vinted. There's a couple more I'd like to try but I'm calling it a day. There's a line with buying stuff from an AC on Vinted where it gets to the point it would have been a better idea financially to buy the AC and sell on the stuff you don't want. I'm still under that line and I did get to use some Vinted balance towards it but no more HN frag purchases for me.

Still like the idea of PDM so haven't totally discounted the idea of getting it but I've managed to cool off a bit by just sitting with the idea.

Not sure how I'll hold up if stuff does start getting really discounted towards BF. I do have a list of non AC stuff I have in mind for BF discounts though so we'll see.

Could you repost the code please?

I’m a bit gutted to see the HN discount as mine arrived this week and is sitting under my bed. I did sign up to Quidco to get £50 off so I guess I can console myself with that.

I’ve never bought one so early before either. I’m also planning a second one but not sure which one and will be subject to discounts.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and hugs to those who are going through sad times. 🤗

Glad my post has helped some, and probably encouraged spending so, I'm also sorry!

@Linesman code was HNBEAUTYX.

I haven't bought myself, but I'm looking at spacenk fragrance, and possibly vogue if a discount comes up

Repost as requested. 😊

I have popped a much cheaper item into one of my Liberty drawers to replace one of the perfumes. I have also added a Benefit blush that I couldn’t fit in my DIY calendar into Day 25, as it’s a big drawer.

I still need to find something to put into two of the drawers to replace the other perfumes I don’t like.

In the past, I have known a DOD has been coming, left the item in and been ‘sad’ on the day 😹 I do think it’s better to take unwanted items out in advance, and replace them. (But I wouldn’t have bought Liberty if it had more than 3 DODs, though.)

I am glad I have Liberty, but wish I had held off until the BD Rewards week, (which I didn’t know about until too late!)

@psuedocream3Thanks! There were a few items that I really liked in the HN. Already have the Liberty calendar, and wasn’t going to buy another, but I will sell a few of the items I don’t like on Vinted to take the sting out of it. 😉

Maybe I should try Vinted - I always use eBay as I hate Vinted’s postage arrangements.

You could always message them and ask them if they could refund you or threaten to return and rebuy? It's worth a shot 😁 just say how disappointing it is that yours had only just arrived when the discount code became live.

I was initially disappointed when harrods BAC was reduced, but I'd had mine a couple of weeks, had sold 2 DoDs and even had received the money in my vinted balance, so I definitely couldn't threaten that 🤣

@IlovePond, Vinted’s posting arrangements are really easy (much more than EBay in my opinion). You can select the postage methods you will allow the buyer to choose from which for me are Evri and Inpost as the shop for these is only five minutes walk away. I don’t allow Royal Mail as too far and a bit of a hassle.

@psuedocream3 Thanks for the HN code. I didn’t realise you were the OP for that.
I woke up this morning with zero buyers remorse! I definitely can’t buy any more but my plan is to take out items I don’t want from the BACs (already sold a few) and condense into 2 BACs, with a few spare items being planned for Xmas gifts.

@IlovePond I think more people are using vinted now. I did buy another FDB sirene last night on ebay though, that particular perfume is going for slightly cheaper on ebay then on vinted.

@OvaHere I'm impressed with your strength to resist, I totally agree about making sure you keep under the line where you don't end up spending too much that it would've been cheaper to buy a calendar and sell what you didn't want. That's what happened with me with CB stuff, I ended up paying nearly £100 for 8 products, so it would've been a lot better if I'd bought the calendar and sold things, which is why I ended up buying the SNK calendar and why I've bought the HN fragrance. I wonder if you've bought any of the fragrances from me 🤔 which ones did you buy? So far I've sold kilian, Debaser (I think I seriously underpriced it, but nm) and EM 01.

Vinted is like that nursery rhyme. When it's good it great when it's bad it's horrible. Vinted CS is not good, most stuff is automated and trying to get a real person to respond to an issue can be nightmarish.

That said about 95% of my transactions as a buyer or seller have been fine but I wouldn't sell anything much above £50 on there (or whatever sum you would feel comfortable losing and writing off) as a seller you don't have much in the way of protection. I know Ebay can be similar but they do have better CS that isn't just bots (I think).

At the moment I have funds held up in a suspended transaction because a parcel I sent couldn't be found at the parcel shop. It turned up on the 3rd day but the buyer suspended, says they can't unsuspend it from their side and Vinted isn't responding to anyone. It will probably sort itself out eventually but it's a pain.

Outside of certain coveted items you won't get a lot for stuff regardless of RRP. I view it as a way of decluttering what I don't want and any money back is a bonus.

If you go in knowing all this I think it's mostly fine.

Good idea!! I’m going to email now. Thanks for the push to do it.

I posted it yesterday morning too 🥰 but you can never have too much of a good thing!

That sounds like a great plan and something similar to what I've done 😁

One lady who bought a load of space nk stuff from me, I realised that the week before I'd bought a load of cult beauty things from her, so it did feel a bit like we were just swapping things 😍