Benefit the gorgeous grocer beauty 24 day advent calendar
- Worth: £295
- Number of days: 24
- Number of full-size products: Four
- Advent calendar highlights: Benefit POREfessional smoothing face primer, Benefit badgal volumising mascara, Benefit brow setter 24-hour invisible shaping and setting gel, Benefit roller liner eyeliner, Benefit hoola matte bronzer,
- Available: Now
- Why we love it
- Cult products
- Taster of all the brand’s make-up
- Reusable storage basket
- Take note
- Repetitive products
- Lots of mini size products
Inside Benefit’s beauty advent calendar, you’ll find 24 make-up products spanning mascara, eyeliner, bronzers and blushes, primers and eyebrow pencils.
There are four full-size products each worth around £30 alone, which will elevate your make-up looks long after the festive season. Full-size favourites are the cult badgal black mascara (£21.60, Lookfantastic.com), which adds volume and drama to lashes, the roller liquid black eyeliner (£22.50, Lookfantastic.com) that helps me create the perfect cat-eye look that lasts all day, POREfessional smoothing face primer (£32, Lookfantastic.com) to minimise the look of pores and the brow setter (£20.80, Lookfantastic.com) for shaping and setting your arches. The roller liner and badgal mascara are both staples of my routine, with the full-size products boasting impressive staying power while a little goes a long way (you won’t need to rebuy any time soon).
Aside from these four favourites, there are 18 deluxe and mini products, making them perfect for travelling or topping up your make-up on the go.
Of course, there’s the hoola bronzer (£13, Lookfantastic.com), which is just as popular as when it first launched in 2001. The matte formula glides onto the skin effortlessly with a brush and blends seamlessly with other face products. There are four blush shades to compliment the hoola bronzer. My go-to is the Willa, a dusty pink (£13.20, Lookfantastic.com) that adds a healthy flush to your cheeks while starlaa is a rosy bronze blush (£16.50, Lookfantastic.com) that’s nice for darker complexions. Despite being a mini size, they should last you a long time, with just one stroke adding a decent amount of colour to the cheeks.
As well as the full-size badgal mascara, the Benefit calendar includes three other formulas: the roller mascara (£15, Lookfantastic.com) which is perfect for a subtle, everyday curl, the they’re real! (£15, Lookfantastic.com) for a more voluminous look and fan fest (£12, Lookfantastic.com) for length and definition.
Benefit is practically synonymous with brows and its calendar features four of the brand’s bestsellers. The precisely eyebrow pencil (£14.50, Lookfantastic.com) is my daily staple for creating perfect definition in just a few strokes while the 24-hour brow setter finishes the look for all-day definition. There’s also the fluff-up brow wax (£14.50, Lookfantastic.com) for Lily Collins-esque volume and the tinted gel (£14.50, Lookfantastic.com) to mask any sparseness.
The calendar does start to feel a little repetitive when it comes to the lip products, with four tiny lip tints (£21.50 for 6ml, Lookfantastic.com) – fans of the brand might be disappointed by unboxing similar shades of pink and red day after day. But Benefit redeems itself with four different products from its skincare range, including a foaming cleanser (£11.20, Lookfantastic.com), which works effectively to remove make-up and grime, and a deep clay mask (£14.40, Lookfantastic.com) for a little pampering during party season.
Packaged into a reusable pink grocery crate, the calendar is a nice departure from the throw-away boxes that most brands use. The crate can be repurposed as storage long beyond Christmas, adding a dose of dopamine to your bathroom or vanity table.