Since today was the last day of the advent calendar and I got my last Christmas beauty gift, I decided it would be a good idea to draw the line and see if this really was worth it. First, let’s see what was hidden in the drawer number 25.

ESPA 24hr Balancing Moisturiser

Like I would have expected it, we got a full size product, a moisturiser from ESPA, which makes me believe I have enough face creams to last me at least two months. Not that I can’t appreciate it,but the calendar was skincare-heavy so it doesn’t come as a big surprise. The moisturiser retails for 237.30 lei on the Lookfantastic website, so it’s definitely an expensive one, at least much more expensive than what i would pay for a face cream.

First of all, let’s see if the products are really worth as much as it was advertised, having a value of 460 UK pounds. This means we should have a total of 2506.80 lei worth of products and it was available for 460 lei or 380 for subscribers (which is how I got it). So we should have about 8 times the value in it. Now, I wrote down everything that we got in the advent calendar and this brings us to the grand total of 2421.97 lei (minus the sleeping mask because I don’t know the price of it) and given that I have to do the conversion and base my pricing on some of the products from other sources because they weren’t sold on their website, I would say that those 80 missing lei should be taken as a “give or take” kind of thing. So yes, the value is definitely there and there’s no way I would have so much money to spend on beauty products (because that’s my entire salary for a month to be honest).

Of course, like I said this is a very skincare-heavy calendar, so it’s not for everyone. We got 12 skin care products, 7 makeup products, one makeup tool, 4 body care products, one hair care product and one accessory. I mean, 7 makeup products is not that bad (just that two of them were kind of boring, the eyebrow pencil and the eyeliner pencil) and they could have thrown in a couple of more hair care products in there, but overall it was good. I mean yes, there are 3 face creams in there, but one of them is a night cream and one of them is just a travel size, so it’s not that much.

There were no tiny samples in there, no foils or packets, just full size and travel size products. Plus, there were some very expensive brands in there and just a few drugstore or drugstore-priced brands.

The most expensive product was the Avant face mask at more than 400 lei, followed by the Elemis night cream and the ESPA face cream (so all the most expensive items were skin care ones). The cheapest product was the Mio body cleanser (it was just a mini size), followed by the Caudalie Cleanser (also a travel size) and the Ren facial toner (also a travel size).

As for my most favorite products in the calendar, there are many. I love the Luxie highlighter brush (Luxie brushes are really good, I became a fan of them), the Natasha Denona mini face duo (the blush has a gorgeous pink shade), the Illamasqua liquid lipstick, the ABH mascara ( don’t know why I didn’t like it on first application, because now I LOVE it, it makes my lashes so thick and long that everyone thought I had falsies on), the Avant face mask (smells so nice and feels so good on the skin) and the two face creams (Elemis and ESPA).

I also discovered some new brands that got me intrigued, like the Ren AHA toner and the Rituals body scrub, both products that surprised me in a good way.

However, there are some products that I didn’t like, the most “guilty” being the Eve Lom cleansing balm which is just overpriced vaseline in my opinion (don’t feel offended if you like it) and the Tan-Luxe self-tanning serum because it’s too sticky feeling and it doesn’t have any self-tanning effect.

But, even if leave out the two products that I genuinely disliked, there are still 23 products that I liked (many of them that I really love), so for me it was definitely an advent calendar worth buying and I have no problems recommending it. Good job, Lookfantastic! I will certainly make an effort and buy next year’s advent calendar as well eve if I have to do what I did this time and put on monthly payments for 3 months to afford it.

That was it for this year’s advent calendar, I’m sad it’s gone, but I will remember it fondly. Plus, the box it came in was so beautiful that I can’t bring myself to throw it out. I may reuse it, maybe preparing an advent calendar for mom next year.