Unboxing and honest review of L'Occitane's 2015 Beauty Advent Calendar, Holiday Gift Idea
2015 L'Occitane Advent Calendar, picture taken with a SONY Alpha 99
The little girl in me squealed like a piglet in mud when I found out that there's something called a "beauty advent calendar", a gift box set of 24 surprise beauty items for the receiver to open, one day every day during the 24 days before Christmas.
I first heard about beauty advent calendars when TheFaceShop sent me an email about their beauty advent calendar which I can purchase for $69CAD. Every one of their 24 items in this set are "regular-sized." Woot, sweet deal! I tried to buy it online, only to realize on the Checkout page that the item can only be shipped to residents of Canada. Bummer.
So last night, I visited TheFaceShop in midtown NYC. The employees there didn't even know that an advent calendar existed. They "oohed" and "ahhed" over the pictures of their brand's advent calendar on my phone. I really hope the store manager there will stock up on their advent calendars. I can see that the employees in the store wanted sets for themselves!
I did some more research online and found that you can purchase only a few sets for affordable prices in the US. Advent calendars are more popular in the UK. You can find only two in Sephora (I'm not excited about either of those). The Body Shop sells one for $105USD, and though I've never been a fan of the Body Shop, I will admit that they have a strong advent calendar set. The price, however, is not attractive.
The box artwork is gorgeous. The numbers are all over the place and not in order.
Unboxing and Packaging
I almost didn't want to rip off the plastic and unbox this advent calendar. I love everything about the packaging and the box. The artwork is just so pretty, bright, and festive. Love the red ribbons. The box is like a beauty suitcase. I don't like clutter, so I will throw the box away after Christmas, but it will pain me a little to do so. Also, the back of the box lists all the items so that will spoil the surprise if you look at the back, but it's there so that you can also see the list of ingredients for each item.
4.5/5 Pandas
What is behind number 1?
an Ultra rich face cream!
Variety of Items
[SPOILER ALERT] Of the 24 items, seven are non-beauty items. They will be useful for the holidays; however, the other beauty advent calendar sets that I've researched include mostly, if not all, beauty items. There are a few too many hand creams. There's one shampoo and one conditioner. There's at least two soaps if I remember correctly. I guess I would have liked it more if there were more soaps or face creams. I only have two hands, albeit gorgeous ones, so I really don't need that many (meaning five) tubes of hand cream! 3.5/5 Pandas
Size of Items
I guess I can't expect L'Occitane to provide full-sized items in this set for this price; however, for 20 more dollars in CAD, you can get 24 full-sized items from TheFaceShop. 3.5/5 Pandas
I may need a fresh manicure, but my hands are lovely. Need a hand model, contact me haha
Gifting
For fans of L'Occitane, or the people in your life who love beauty products, this is an amazing gift, 24 days before Christmas or even during Christmas. My sister in law has a December birthday; I can give this to her during then. I feel that a lot of these products are unisex, and though the boxing is very feminine, I think men wouldn't mind this gift. They may just share some of the products with the women in their lives. I could repackage and regift all those miniature hand creams. (Yes, that's very cheap of me, but as a mom in NYC, you must be a little frugal now and then.) 4.5/5 Pandas
This box is just so gorgeous!
Final Score and Comments
The 2015 beauty advent calendar set from L'Occitane can create all sorts of giddy, happy, schoolgirl feelings in an adult woman like me. It's so fun to open the "surprise" items. Not every item will satisfy everyone; however, you will definitely find at least 50%+ of the products useful and desirable. The box itself is so attractive and pretty that it pains me to throw it away; I wonder how I can repurpose it. I recommend this beauty advent calendar and fully believe that it makes for a wonderful holiday gift. The customer service is also zippy. I had an error in my shipping address; after I emailed customer service, they corrected the error the next day, and I received my shipments the day after that. I did not receive a free holiday gift wrapping set even though I had asked for it on checkout. After sending two emails to customer service, L'Occitane resolved this error and proceeded to ship me the missing gift wrapping set free of charge. I have no complaints about their customer service, and am highly satisfied with this beauty advent calendar. It makes me want to buy more!
4.1/ 5 Pandas!
So, what do you think about this beauty advent calendar? Will you buy one as a gift and/or one for yourself?
This post is sponsored by Groupon. As always, all opinions are my own and unbiased regardless of sponsorship. I was interested in this product and really wanted to try it, so I purchased it and did not receive it free of charge.
Number three houses gift tags with candy canes.
