‘I opened Glossybox’s 2025 Beauty Advent Calendar for £90 but it’s worth £624’

Senior beauty writer Eve Rowlands unboxed the Glossybox Advent Calendar 2025 to see if it was worth its £90 price tag…

Advent calendars are not like they used to be. They’ve had a serious upgrade in the last few years. Of course, the classic chocolate-filled calendars are still around and come from all sorts of confectionery brands. But for the beauty fans amongst us who’d rather have something that can be used way past Christmas, retailers like Glossybox are pulling out all the stops with an advent calendar that comes packed with beauty products.

The Glossybox Beauty Advent Calendar 2025 is chocca with 27 items, 19 of which are full-sized and include some incredible brands like Iconic London, Rituals, Rodial, Morphe, Avant, Sweed and more.

Costing £90, it’s not exactly cheap. But its entire contents is worth over £624, which essentially saves £534 on products. With a combination of make-up, skincare, hair products and some delicious fragrances that have left me and my house smelling stunning, it’s a stellar haul that makes not only a great self-care treat. But it also makes for some pretty nice stocking fillers for friends and family.

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While the box doesn’t exactly have ‘doors’ like traditional advent calendars, it does have boxes in which the products lie – and they’re all tucked away in drawers. The box itself has Glossybox’s signature marble swirl decorating its exterior, which is super pretty and looks quite neat out on display.

The contents and worth of the Glossybox advent calendar rivals Lookfantastic’s £105 alternative, which is worth over £655. This Christmas treat includes the likes of The White Company, MAC and Sol De Janeiro. I’ve also been eyeing up Anthropologie’s £98 24 Days of Beauty Advent Calendar – especially after reading our own Jessica Brunt’s review of it.

Pros

• What I love about the Glossybox Advent Calendar is how many luxury products that are inside – that more than justify its £90 price tag. For example, the Avant Pro-Intense Hyaluronic Acid Illuminating Day Cream, which comes in a 50ml travel size, is £97 usually on the Avant website, which means for this deluxe product alone, you save £7. Which is mad but makes me excited to savour it. Alongside this, the Doctors Formula – Probiotic Lifting & Radiance Eye Serum (Full Size) is worth £89 and promises to smooth the appearance of lines and wrinkles and dark circles around the eyes.
• I also like that the make-up products inside have a neutral colour palette, making it a good choice for pretty much anyone – for example, the brown Sweed eyeliner, the Natasha Denona golden-brown Glam Face Palette (£60) and Iconic London’s Triple Threat Mascara in black.
• It contains 19 full-size products

Cons

• While I loved the scents of the candle, Rituals room diffuser and Commodity Milk perfume, not everyone will love this range of fragrances, and so it’s a bit of a punt as to whether they’ll be used. Although the plus side is that they can be passed on as luxury treats to loved ones.
• Some of the boxes can also be quite hard to open, which was quite frustrating when trying to get the product out and meant that they sometimes ripped before finding out what was inside. This then also caused a bit of difficulty when putting the box back.
• The calendar on a whole is also quite a chunky box that takes up space – which isn’t great for those who live in a relatively compact space.

Is Glossybox’s Beauty Advent Calendar 2025 worth it?

The box costs £90, which is quite the investment for an Advent calendar. But with over £620 worth of products – one of which costs over the price of the calendar itself – I think it’s certainly incredible value for money. Especially when 19 out of 27 of its products are full-size.

It contains a combination of amazing products that aren’t just limited to skincare, but it covers makeup, hair care, body care and even fragrances for both body and home. It’s a great way to try out more expensive products for way less than their retail price – such as Avant Skincare, whose moisturiser in the calendar leaves skin gorgeously glowy, and Medik8.

Opening the box, I adored the vast majority of the products inside, with my favourites being the following: The Natasha Denona Glam Face Palette, which is an all-in-one make-up stop, is perfect for travel. The powders in the palette are lovely and pigmented.

The Commodity Milk Expressive is also divine with its sweet fragrance that I can confirm will become my scent of the season and transports me to summer. Although its box is slightly misleading as the bottle seems smaller than what you’d expect.

I also love the Iconic London Triple Threat mascara. It gives me such voluminous, bold lashes and lasts all day. Plus it washes off easily. Although it was an inclusion in the Glossbox advent calendar two years ago, so I knew I’d love it having worn it religiously before. With this in mind, I understand if some people would be disappointed with repeated inclusions.

This is something some shoppers were left disappointed with, having got their hands on the calendar early. One person left a two star review which read: “This calendar doesn’t have any or many high end products. Lots of make-up accessories which are just copies of previous calendars. Most items are very small and not exciting.”

One item I wasn’t so enamoured with was the GLOSSYBOX Non-Crease Clips. As someone with relatively thick, curly/wavy hair, they didn’t do a good job in keeping my hair off my face and felt relatively flimsy. On someone with thinner, less textured hair, however, they may work better.

Although others said it is “One of the best affordable Beauty calendars this year. Glossybox never disappoints. Very affordable and there are a lot of products of a variety, decent sizes as well. I’m very happy with it.”