Holland and Barrett 12 days of Beauty Calendar

I have a confession to make here.   I have been feeling uncomfortable about the expansion of all those Advent Beauty calendars that have been taking over Advent for the last few years.  I like the idea of them in the sense it is quite innovative and you get 'a good deal' in terms of what you get with them but I just feel that we are all over-saturated with gifts at Christmas anyway so having a whole month, practically, of gifts to ourselves is just excessive; the amount of packaging and waste it produces (a box for the Advent Calendar, individual sections within, the packing of the actual products individually)  for me, yet again, detracts from the simplicity of Advent- the excitement and much makes it too much. I have had no intention of buying one of them.

Thus it seems rather hypocritical for me to be writing about what I am writing here.  Holland and Barretts did, as well as their 'Advent calendar'- a 12 days of Beauty calendar, which I can only surmise must perhaps have been something you might buy as a gift for someone at Christmas.
I was in Holland and Barrett in Felixstowe and I wanted to buy something because I like to support the High Street there when I visit- I was looking for a particular natural face cream that I usually use which seems to have been discontinued and thought I might find some rogue bottles in there. I prefer to use more natural beauty products and generally buy mine from Holland and Barrett.
Alas, I didn't find any, but they seemed to still have sale stock from Christmas on the shelf.  I was surprised to see one of these on the shelf and I commented on it to the shop assistant. She said that they were trying to get rid of them and they were reduced to £10.  I could see that that was a good deal and since I wanted to buy something from there and saw that the contents included face-cream, decided to give it a go.  I decided that I would buy it for my birthday at the end of February and open one window a day from my birthday onward.


What did it include:

You can see that the products it included, for £10 in the sale, were excellent. 

The Calendar Includes: 

Weleda Skin Food 30ml - 

Beauty Kitchen Karine Jackson Shampoo 75ml - 

Sukin Facial Cleanser 50ml - 

Miaflora Eucalyptus Oil 10ml - 

Pure Papaya Lip Balm 10g - 

Burts Bees Lip Balm 4.25g - 

Faith In Nature Orange Soap 100g - 

Dr Organic Aloe Vera Cream 50ml -

Naturtint Colour Fixing Conditioner 50ml - 

Elifexir Body Contour Cream 40ml - 

Andalou 1000 Roses Body Lotion 50ml - 

Salt Of The Earth Travel Deodorant 50ml

More natural products, those excluding certain synthetic nasties like Aluminium, Sodium Laureth Sulphate and containg more essential oils and organic products tend to be more expensive to buy so I certainly felt I got a lot for my money.  On the day I opened the window and pulled out the Eucalyptus oil, I had discovered that my Eucalyptus essential oil had run out (I wanted to put some in the oil burner to make my Mother in Law's room smell lovely and soothing) so I was delighted to find I had a whole new bottle of this!  Some of the products like the Aloe Vera Cream were full size products which I was pleased about.  

The total  value was apparently £59 (which I can well believe) so £10 was an excellent price.  A lot of these are brands I use anyway.

What about the waste factor?

Well, the box itself is substantial cardboard and the box CAN be used again- it is a decent box which could house a paper collection or worksheets or other items- and of course, could be composted.

BUT, inside, every item was held in position in a large clear plastic container. This CAN be recycled but is a lot of packing. In addition, most of these products were all in tiny individual plastic bottles and obviously, using tiny bottles is definitely not environmentally friendly in terms of plastic pollution.  This made me feel definitely uncomfortable about buying it especially since I am really trying hard to reduce my plastic waste.

It proved a very nice birthday present to myself from myself- I don't receive loads of presents, which I am glad about as I have so much anyway, but it was nice to have something to open for 12 days but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one,definitely not for Advent- too much waste and rather excessive for real Advent, but it was a nice little experiment as an effort to give my custom to Holland and Barrett, Felixstowe.

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