Annual beauty Advent calendar craze is changing how cosmetics brands court new shoppers

While lounging on Prince Edward Island’s Brackley Beach this past July, I opened my iPhone to an e-mail from Liberty London prompting me to join the waitlist for the 2024 edition of its beauty Advent calendar. “Worth £1,205 but yours for £260, it’s packed with 28 products, including 18 full-sized, from the most covetable brands in skincare, makeup, hair and fragrance,” the unseasonable e-mail read. It tempted me further with visuals of the calendar’s whimsical packaging, which is illustrated with scenes of the English retailer’s landmark London flagship by the artist Clym Evernden. With the sun in the sky and the Atlantic at my feet, counting down the days to Christmas was the furthest thing from my mind. But the timing of the e-mail was a clear indicator that the hype surrounding these limited-edition beauty collectors’ items has reached another level.
The beauty Advent calendar format dates to the early 2010s when marketers at brands such as the Body Shop and Boots saw the potential of reinvigorating this childhood tradition by giving it a cosmetics-centric makeover. Trading slivers of chocolate for petite and full-sized versions of bestselling and limited-edition products stashed discretely behind the doors of festive packages, the calendars give customers a chance to discover new makeup, skincare and fragrances while reliving the nostalgia of unveiling a precious little surprise every day.
This year’s offerings run the gamut from ultra-luxe sets on counters at Holt Renfrew by brands including La Mer, Augustinus Bader, Dior and Sisley (with prices hitting the four-digit range) to Dr. Hauschka’s all-natural skincare and Diptyque’s fragrance-forward versions. Retailers are also curating their own calendars, like the Shoppers Beauty 25 Days of Beauty Surprises, a mix of items from brands such as Kylie Cosmetics, Stila and Mario Badescu, and the Sephora Collection calendar filled with 24 makeup, skincare, bath and accessory gifts from its in-house brand. In a cheeky move that will undoubtedly up the ante on next year’s Advent calendar offering, the LVMH-owned beauty behemoth has extended the holiday gifting season even further with its After Advent Calendar, a set of eight products hidden in seven boxes meant to be opened from Dec. 25 to 31.
“The calendar offers the ultimate beauty trial experience,” says Leith Sinker, a senior vice-president at the Bay, which has been carrying beauty-specific calendars since 2016 and launched its own in 2021. “Navigating beauty products can often feel overwhelming, and this program allows customers to try before they buy, often exploring products they may not have considered before.” These Advent calendars offer a return to sampling at a time when magazines have mostly abandoned ads with fold-out scent strips and skincare packets and in-store foot traffic is more sporadic. It creates “a unique opportunity to sample and reach potential new customers and engage existing ones,” Sinker says.
With the goal of creating an opportunity for discovery by combining a mix of products from well-known brands while also representing smaller, emerging ones, the Bay begins its calendar curation process a year in advance. In this year’s edition, 24 brands are featured offering 33 products across the skincare, haircare, makeup, fragrance and beauty-device categories. Valued at more than $1,300, it retails for $225.
Emilie Hood, a consultant on beauty and consumer health at data analytics firm Euromonitor, says that creating a sense of value is the biggest challenge when developing these products, pointing to calendars past that contained cheap filler products that left beauty lovers feeling jilted. “They’re increasingly aware of gimmicks,” she says.
“People do like trying new things and I can understand the need for a little treat every day,” she says, but Hood thinks the future of the beauty Advent calendar lies in offerings focused on a specific niche. Liberty also sells a Men’s Advent Calendar of grooming and wellbeing essentials while the Quo 12 Days of Bath calendar at Shoppers Drug Mart promises tub-goers almost two weeks’ worth of indulgent soaks.
These Advent calendars’ sense of discovery is something that Toronto-based mother and daughter, Tara Hendela and 12-year-old Sky, are looking forward to this December. Last year, Hendela gifted her daughter her first beauty Advent calendar, a set from Sephora. “I didn’t want an Advent calendar that was just full of chocolates. I wanted something I was actually interested in,” Sky says. This year, she’s got her eye on calendars by Benefit and Charlotte Tilbury, the British celebrity makeup artist whose annual Advent calendar is usually a viral sensation.
Tilbury’s 2024 edition, dubbed Charlotte’s Beauty Treasure Chest of Love, contains 12 of her makeup and skincare products housed in a fanciful heart-shaped chest of drawers adorned with sparkling star and heart-shaped crystals. After the holidays, it can live on as a playful vanity object. “People go mad about these drawers,” says Tilbury, noting the calendar already had a waitlist of nearly 40,000 people by mid-September. “They’re so beautifully made and crafted that [customers] keep these and store their jewels or their trinkets, treats and treasures in them all year long,” Tilbury says. “I put a lot of magic energy into creating these.”
The impact of Tilbury’s efforts is obvious to Hendela, a marketing, communications and public-relations professional. These desirable sets go viral by bringing the influencer-inspired experience of unboxing products to the average consumer regardless of the size of their social-media following. But what’s truly most important to her is the emotional experience of enjoying a daily surprise with her daughter. “Advent calendars let you have a little moment every day,” she says. “For us, it’s a shared moment.”