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Liverpool Echo

Entertainment

Narin Flanders

I opened the L'Occitane Beauty Advent Calendar filled with £132 of luxury products

LOccitane (Organization) Luxury Ted Baker (Person)

There are certain brands which feel Christmassy and for me, L'Occitane is one of the beauty brands that falls into that category.

For my budget at least, they're the kind of products I'd buy for other people at Christmas if I found a great deal but otherwise wouldn't spend money on for myself. The award-winning French beauty firm always has a wide range of quirky Christmas sets, both focusing on some of their most popular scents like Amande, Verveine and Cherry Blossom as well as bringing in new, festive favourites.

With stocking fillers starting at £10 and everything packed in bright, festive packaging it's one of my go-to places to look when Black Friday rolls around. But before you start Christmas shopping for other people, this year L'Occitane has also released no less than five different advent calendars perfect to bring a little bit of luxury to life and keep your skin feeling great in the wintry weather.

With prices ranging from £55 to a whopping £510, there's something for every budget. But - if you can find a friend to share the purchase with - the current best deal is buy one get one half price on the £99 Luxury Beauty Advent Calendar which I've reviewed. This is their mid-range offering and, if you shop the offer it means you can get £132-worth of products for almost half that if you split the order with a friend.

So is it worth the money? And what do you get inside the impressively chunky looking box? Read on to find out.

The packaging

L'Occitane prides itself on an ethos of sustainability, both in terms of the natural ingredients in its products and the packaging it uses to get them to their customers. While, I suppose inevitably, plastic bottles are still a thing, albeit made with 100% recycled plastic, the firm also encourages recycling at all its stores and also makes sure to minimise polythene type plastic it uses wherever possible.

This means the advent calendar is made of 100% cardboard and when it arrived I was really impressed by how big and intriguing it looked - as were my children who snaffled the boxes when I was done to set up their own. While L'Occitane sell a separate refill calendar every year, the sturdiness of this box meant it definitely felt like it could be reused again if you were organised enough to save it and refill it next year (spoiler: I probably won't be).

The contents

With so many beauty advent calendars on the market there definitely seems to be a wide variety of options depending on the kind of gifts you want to be enjoying throughout December. I really liked how, barring make-up which I don't wear much and tend to stick to favourite names and products for, this calendar offered a little bit of everything.

There were moisturisers, hand creams, soaps, shampoo and conditioner, night cream and even two perfumes. While all of the products were miniature sized, I was still able to use most of them multiple times, barring the crunchy muesli scrub which came in a one use sachet.

What's more, when I put a generous selection of the minis into a washbag for a weekend away it felt like the ultimate in luxury - and my husband asked what my new perfume was because 'I smelled amazing'.

The calendar contained plenty of L'Occitane favourites and a couple of new items that I'm now keen to buy in full size. (Narin Flanders)

I definitely made a mental note to put a full-sized bottle of the Neroli and Orchidee eau de toilette on my Christmas wishlist after that comment. The full contents of this year's L'Occitane Magic Advent Calendar are (scroll past to avoid spoilers):

• 60g Gentle & Balance Solid Shampoo

• 50ml Shea Ultra Rich Body Cream

• 10ml Immortelle Precious Emulsion

• 30ml Oil-To-Milk Facial Make-up Remover

• 10ml Verbena Eau de Toilette

• 10ml Almond Delicious Hands

• 35ml Cherry Blossom Shimmering Body Lotion

• 15ml Relaxing Pillow Mist

• 35ml Repairing Shampoo

• 35ml Shea Shower Oil

• 30ml Cherry Blossom Hand Cream

• 7ml Néroli & Orchidée Eau de Toilette

• A Wooden Comb

• 50ml Almond Shower Oil

• 15g Almond Crunchy Muesli Scrub

• 35ml Gentle & Balance Micellar Shampoo

• 4ml Divine Cream

• 30ml Shea Butter Hand Cream

• 35ml Repairing Conditioner

• 25g Shea Milk Extra Gentle Soap

• 35ml Cherry Blossom Shower Gel

• 5ml Overnight Reset Serum

• 50ml Almond Milk Concentrate

• 5ml Shea Light Comforting Cream

The pros

With so many of L'Occitane's iconic skincare, fragrance and bodycare products all included, this advent calendar is actually a great way to try products you might not have seen before. What's more, some of the brand's more luxe lotions and potions are included making it the ideal way to see if they're worth the money before you splurge on premium skincare.

As someone who counts herself lucky to get a L'Occitane bubble bath and body lotion gift set for Christmas - my favourite is the light cherry blossom scent - it was a real treat to try products that I hadn't seen before and there are plenty I'll be keeping an eye out in future.

While the crunchy muesli scrub sounds like a bit of a random choice and not the kind of thing you really want to be rubbing over your face I loved how it gently exfoliated my face, while the almond oil stopped it feeling too abrasive and made sure to keep my skin feeling moisturised.

I'd never have considered buying L'Occitane shampoo before and, while I don't know that I'd swap my usual combo, the miscellar shampoo in particular had a lovely lavender scent which made my morning shower feel more invigorating and refreshing than usual.

I also loved the relaxing pillow mist - another product definitely on the list of 'I'd never usually buy this for myself but my goodness it's lovely.' Overall though, I enjoyed using most products in the set and there was nothing that I really disliked or was disappointed by, which feels like quite a win for an edit aimed at the majority of people.

The cons

As someone who prefers to use smaller bottles of perfume so I can choose depending on my mood on a particular day - rather than thinking 'I have this large bottle I have to work through before I try something else' - I I loved that the calendar came with two handbag sized eau de toilettes.

As well as the Neroli and Orchid one there was a Verveine lemon-scented fragrance that is exactly the kind of fresh-smelling citrus scent I love to wear. But both bottles came without a spray or even a little stopper so when you used them you ended up with a lot trickling out. It felt a bit wasteful and meant I got through them faster than otherwise I would have hoped.

It's a minor quibble, but I'd have loved a small spray pump in the same way somewhere like Jo Malone does their perfume miniatures, like this £15 five scent tester set for example.

Overall verdict

I love the idea of a grown up's advent calendar although I find the price of beauty advent calendars a hard one to justify in the run up to Christmas, when I'm trying to budget my spending on other people.

But this L'Occitane advent calendar was a great selection of products for the money, particularly bearing in mind the fragrance and luxury skincare products included. Especially with the current buy one get one half price deal - if you were telling me I could get all of that for £75 I'd definitely consider snapping up a payday treat of my own.

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