Continuing with my advent calendar for this year, I can’t’ believe Christmas is so near. I can’t’ wait to go on vacation for the holidays, but this also means that soon I will be done with opening the few surprises. Let’s see what I’ve found this weekend in the Douglas advent calendar.

Douglas Collection Stay & Care Gel Effect Polish

I was pleased to find a beautiful red nail polish that is supposed to have a gel effect. It’s always nice to have a red nail polish for the holiday season. The nail polish is full size – 10 ml – and it’s in the color 4-Sublime Song, a dark red that is supposed to last for up to 7 days on the nails. The nail polish retails for 33 lei – 7,33 euros.

What I got last year

For the 7th of December, I received a My Honey shower gel from Toni Gard. It was a travel size of 30 ml and it retailed for 2,49 euros. Although I liked the shower gel, I didn’t even think about buying the full-size product, because I don’t spend much of body care stuff that I go through quickly such as shower gels, body lotions, soaps and other stuff like that.

STARSKIN Dreamkiss Plumping & Hydrating lip mask

This is not currently available in the Douglas online store, but I found it in the Douglas Germany store retailing for 9,99 euros. It’s a sheet mask for the lips that you apply and leave on for 15 minutes after which you remove it. The serum does absorb into the lips and it makes them soft and smooth, but I can’t say I saw any plumping effect. It doesn’t tingle or anything, so it’s very comfortable to wear. Personally, I wouldn’t pay 10 euros for a one-use lip mask, but it was nice to try it out. It was a full-size product.

What I got last year

For the 8th of December, I received a Douglas lipliner in the shade 02 Bois de rose, a dark pink color. I still have the lipliner, it’s nice and creamy and I even used it on the eyes and didn’t have any reactions to it. The lipliner was also a full-size product with a retail price of 7,33 euros.

Moonlight by Ariana Grande EDP

This was a sample size of 7,5 ml of an Ariana Grande eau de parfum. I received another perfume from this brand in last years’ calendar and I still have it. This perfume I can’t say it’s my cup of tea because it’s very girly, sweet and fruity, clearly targeted towards teens. I do love the bottle though. While last year’s one was clear, this one is also shaped like a diamond but it also has a shimmering holo effect to it. Moonlight has notes of blackberries, plums, peony, marshmallows, sandalwood, black amber, and vanilla. A 50 ml of this perfume retails for 207 lei – 46 euros, so this little sample bottle is worth 31,05 lei – 6,9 euros.

What I got last year

For the 9th of December, I got a Douglas bath fizzer from the Home Spa collection, called Harmony of Ayurveda. It was ok, it smelled nice and it added a little bit of orange color to the water, but I can’t say it was that great. The fizzing cube thing retailed for 1,55 euros.

Comparing the two sets of products, I would say this year’s advent calendar comes on top. I got a beautiful nail polish, a lip mask and a perfume sample – which I do like as long as they are a little bigger, not just for one use. Last year I got a shower gel, a lipliner and a bath cube, which were all ok products, but not something I could get much use out of.

As for the retail value, the three products from this year have a total worth of 24,22 euros, which is great. The products from last year had a total retail value of just 11,33 euros, less than half basically.

For the first 9 products of the advent calendar, this year’s one has a retail value of 54,87 euros, which I think is great, especially since I liked almost all of the products so far and I can’t say that there was something I hated.

My next update will be again on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how interesting the next days are.