Proving once again that luxury beauty advent calendars have become a countdown-to-Christmas ritual, the ones many of us had at the top of our lists are selling out in a flurry.
As the first of the month quickly approaches, don’t miss out on securing a luxury beauty advent calendar that is still available. These include multi-brand offerings at Liberty and Sephora, as well as festive treats from Dior and Diptyque.
Intrigued? These are the best luxury beauty advent calendars we deem worthy of the investment, as well as a list of any sold-out offerings to stop you searching.
There's a reason people queued around the block when the Liberty beauty advent calendar launched – it's beautiful and stuffed full of the retailer's leading beauty bestsellers. This year, Liberty's 2023 beauty calendar features an illustration of the iconic shop front in white and pink patterned tones making it a real collector's item. The offering inside is just as good: the products are worth £1043, and 20 of the 29 products are full size with brands including Augustinus Bader, Votary and Le Labo.
Beauty insiders always flock to Sephora to try something new within their haircare, skincare or makeup routines, so it makes sense that there's a lot of that on offer within the retailer's statement advent calendar too. That includes an incredibly generous 36 products within the box, which might be the largest offering we've discovered. It includes 23 full-size treats from Tarte, Elemis, Rare Beauty and Drunk Elephant, for only £189.
If luxury candles and fragrances make your heart skip a beat, look no further than Diptyque's festive almanac. With 25 fragrant delights to discover in total, the 2023 version features limited-edition festive candles that you can't get at any other time. Plus, they will make your home smell truly Christmassy. The Pine Tree aroma is a particular highlight, transporting you on crispy winter walks, without needing to leave the house.
Dior's advent calendar this year really delivers in terms of its limited edition offering, including multiple travel-sized candles, mini fragrances, and samples of the luxury skincare and makeup; plus a Christmas decoration that you won't be able to buy anywhere else. It's all contained in a box that is beautifully designed to look like the façade of the historic boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne, so it's one of the prettiest on the market too.
Fortnum's impressive collection of 30 nourishing rituals, worth over £1020, is designed to help you rest and recuperate as Christmas approaches. Basically an indulgent spa experience in calendar form, it provides one of the strongest bodycare and wellness assortments on offer this year, from brands including Aromatherapy Associates, ESPA and Acqua di Parma. The addition of a Charlotte Posner makeup bag is a lovely touch for storing all your beauty gifts too.
You'll now have to go into store to find a Jo Malone London advent calendar (it's sold out online), but the journey is worth it. What we like most about Jo Malone London's gingerbread-inspired advent calendar is that it acts like the ultimate teaser experience for the brand's best-selling scents. You'll be able to try classic fragrances, as well as some special festive favourites within the 25-day offering, making your choice of a 2024 signature a little easier.
Rituals’ 2023 beauty advent calendar is a beautiful festive decoration in its own right, with a pop-up format that sees you open 24 beautifully decorated, miniature houses in the run up to the big day. Inside, you’ll find festive treats galore, including nourishing body creams, the brand’s best-selling foaming shower gel, and home fragrances. There are also other options for smaller budgets, such as the Classic Advent Calendar, which is brilliant for gifting.
If generous gifting is on your agenda this Christmas, La Mer's 12-day countdown calendar is guaranteed to bring a big smile to the faces of your loved ones. It features the classic cult cream that is particularly effective at nourishing winter-worn skin, alongside products for every step of your skincare and bodycare routines in sizes perfect for travelling. You'll enter 2024 with a revitalised complexion worthy of many a compliment.
Dr. Barbara Sturm's advent calendar is basically an indulgent opportunity to build a full travel-sized routine filled with the brand's best-selling skincare products. From daily cleansers and face masks to active-driven serums and eye creams, every gift has been chosen to lift and boost the radiance of your skin. There's even a treat for your body, in the form of the Anti-Aging Body Cream.
However much fun and excitement Christmas can bring, it can also be a stressful and busy period, which is why we love that ESPA have a luxury beauty advent calendar to soothe and calm stressed minds. Featuring 25 little gifts across skincare and aromatherapy, you'll feel like you are escaping to the quiet of the spa this December, even if you are surrounded by your whole family.
Sold Out Beauty Advent Calendars for 2023
Lookfantastic launched not one but two advent calendars this year – one covering beauty and the other grooming – and both were snapped up quickly. However, the retailer has promised a restock so keep an eye out, as both offer a full bounty of 25 products for well below RRP. The beauty version covers skincare, haircare and makeup, from ELEMIS, MAC and Origins, specifically targeted to supercharge your winter party season, but if you are shopping for the men in your life, we highly recommend the grooming almanac too.
Did you manage to secure a Harrods 2023 luxury beauty advent calendar this year? If so, we wouldn't blame you if you cheated a little, and opened more than one door each day on the sold-out almanac. You can expect products from Charlotte Tilbury, Dr. Barbara Sturm, 111SKIN and Acqua di Parma inside, meaning its an at-home tour of the iconic store's beauty hall. Plus, the contents are worth £1173, so you can try the brands for less than a quarter of the RRP.
One of the first calendars to sell-out this year, we can see why: the breadth and uniqueness of the products within Selfridges' 2023 beauty calendar really impressed us. There's a Byredo lipstick, Kylie Cosmetics plumping gloss, Pleasing by Harry Stiles nail polishes, and skincare from Biossance and Byoma – with many of the brands never being available in an advent calendar before. The calendar's contents are worth over £1094, with everything you need for all your festive trips, at home or abroad. There's even a £45 Selfridges gift card included for some very happy beauty shopping come the new year. Fingers crossed it comes back into stock soon.
Worth over £1000, this curated edit was one of the most talked about advent calendars this year, selling out particularly fast – probably due to the fact it offered a lot more than just 25 products. If it does restock and you get your hands on one, inside the compartments you'll find 33 items from leading beauty brands including Tatcha, Hourglass, Rose Inc and Olaplex, meaning it's a particularly nice balance between makeup, skincare and haircare.
Charlotte Tilbury is one of the most requested beauty brands on Christmas wish lists, so it's no surprise that the 12-day advent calendar (or more accurately beauty chest) has sold out again this year. Whether you are eyeing it for yourself or as a Christmas present, if more boxes become available you'll have everything you need for a makeup artist-worthy festive look – from the cult status Magic Cream to the brand's classic highlighters and lipsticks.
John Lewis' beauty advent calendar rushed off the shelves this year and is now out of stock. There's no word whether there might be another release to come, but we hope so, because the calender will certainly shake you out of a beauty rut this December, at a brilliantly low price. Providing 31 little festive rituals across skincare, makeup, haircare, and fragrance, including from Neom, Charlotte Tilbury, Sunday Riley, and Clinique, each offering (16 of which are full-sized) is just the tonic for dark, cold mornings.
Elemis has outdone itself in terms of the design of its beauty advent calendar this year – it's sweetly shaped like a Christmas post box – so it's another offering that's sold out. If you do manage to have secured one, there's 25 nourishing little treats to keep your skin in top condition, with travel-sized versions of all the British brand's best-selling products. Plus, the icing on the (Christmas) cake is the award-winning Pro-Collagen moisturiser as a full-sized sample.
Main image: DIOR
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