EP191. The rise and impact of beauty advent calendars

As we get closer to the end of the year and as we near the holiday season in many countries, many of us start thinking about the gifts that we can give to others as well as the gifts that we might like for ourselves. Now, arguably, we're perhaps all a little bit too fond of those gifts. And I know many people who now think more about gifting experiences or homemade presents, as well as supporting small brands, as well as simply honouring the change of seasons everywhere around the world, rather than the big corporate consumption drive that bombards our screens with adverts. And one trend that the beauty industry in certain countries has embraced with both arms is that of beauty advent calendars. I first saw one, I think a couple of years ago and I didn't really think much about it. But as with all beauty trends, this one seems to be taking off like a rocket and is now definitely on the industry's radar screen. Now, if you live in a country that doesn't use Advent calendars as the listener base for green beauty conversations is global. Then they were invented by the Germans the 19th century as part of the Christian countdown towards Christmas. Now initially they were generally little paper calendars where you opened a door and then behind the door was a little picture. This was also the case when I was a child. Now then that morphed into opening the door and finding a little chocolate, which, let's face it, every child much prefers to a little picture. I can certainly vouch for my children that they much prefer that. And now the cosmetics industry is making beauty advent calendars and encouraging all of us to buy them. Small disclosure here. I've never actually bought or used a beauty advent calendar, so I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to these products. And I'm also totally puzzled by this trend. And that's why on today's podcast I'm joined by Formula Botanica Education manager Anna Green, who used to work as a green beauty blogger and has much to say on the topic of Advent calendars. So settle in for another slightly controversial podcast. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, make or sell your green beauty formulations. In my weekly episodes, I explore the sustainability of the beauty industry and encourage you to join me in changing the industry for the better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 190 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty for formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode, I'm joined by Anna Green, Formula Botanica Education Manager, long time beauty industry expert and regular guest on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast. Anna has a wealth of experience in understanding beauty trends, beauty brands, cosmetic ingredients and everything to do with the wider industry. It is always a pleasure and a privilege to have Anna on the podcast with me. So let's get started. Hi Anna, how are you doing today?

Hi Lorraine. I'm really good, thank you.

This is going to be a really interesting one. I'm thrilled you're back on the podcast. I always love our chats. So, for those listeners who haven't yet been bombarded with online adverts about beauty Advent calendars, what is a beauty advent calendar?

Well, essentially a beauty advent calendar is a way of packaging up beauty products to be sold for the holiday season. They are sort of these in some of them can be quite substantial. You can have big boxes of beauty products essentially that are marketed for opening as you would other advent calendars. So we've seen chocolate is the, the original sort of advent calendar, but then we've had tea advent calendars and biscuit advent calendars and all sorts of other things pop up in terms of food. And now we've got beauty advent calendars where your beauty products, you don't just go, go to a shop and buy them anymore. They come in the form of a massive advent calendar where you're open bit by bit. And I will say their popularity seems to have boomed over the last few years and they seem to have gone from a relatively rare phenomenon to being absolutely everywhere and taking over a lot of the gifting market as well for beauty. I mean, we know that gifting is a huge thing for the beauty industry every single year and the holiday season is a big part of that. So at the moment, every sort of major brand and retailer seems to have a beauty advent calendar on their website. They're just everywhere.

My goodness. Goodness. Well, I've certainly been targeted by all the ads and a lot of these calendars, for those people who are listening who haven't seen one before, they're often these sort of big boxes with little drawers almost that you can pull out. And of course, the advent calendars that I was given as a Child were often paper ones, they were flat, you know, you'd open them up. I was even pre chocolate at one point, you know, where you just had a little picture. So this idea of us moving from like an A4 sized calendar where you open up little flaps to a giant box almost like a wardrobe with drawers in it has been a fascinating transition to watch. How are you supposed to use them? Are you meant to open a door a day like you do in a traditional advent calendar or are you supposed to use a product a day? How does it work?

Well, that depends on the brand and how they've positioned the calendar. The majority countdown from the 1st of December to the 25th and you have a product per day to like you said, a drawer or a box in some cases to open with a product in it. And then the idea is that use that product in your own time. I don't think anybody's expecting you to just open a product and use it on the day because that's not really how skincare works. But you open your products bit by bit. The cynic in me and I, I was the child who would just eat the chocolate on day one and then leave the rest. You know, many, many people will probably look at their calendar and who's going to wait until the 25th to open all the doors? I don't know, maybe some people will. But I can't help but feel that whilst they're designed to be opened a drawer or box a you know, you have a new thing a day that many people might just receive the calendar and delve into the goodies straight away. But I know that's not how they're designed necessarily to work. But it would annoy me having a big box around until the 25th of December. I would want to put things away.

I love it. I'm laughing because I would be that person who would open one a day. I do it with the chocolate as well. I'm very disciplined like that. There you go. We're all different in how we do these things. So who makes these beauty advent calendars? Is it many brands? Is it retailers? What sort of price ranges are we looking at?

Well, it's really interesting because there's a bit of a split going on. So you have multi brand calendars which are created by retailers and think of all the big retailers that we have in the uk. Harrods has one Liberty of London Space nk these sort of premium beauty retailers all have their own. And then when you look at online you have places like Cult Beauty and places that specifically market sort of to the natural or clean market like Naturissimo also have their own advent calendar this year. There's some in Europe also that are sort of more focused in on natural products as well. You have those sort of big brand multi brand calendars where you're purchasing from a retailer and you get a selection of products, but you also get single brand calendars which tend to be a little bit smaller in most cases because it's easier, I suppose, to curate when you're working with lots of different brands than from a single brand. But I have seen some interesting ones where they are single brand and you literally sort of end up the entire product range by the look of it. You know, you get either miniatures or full sizes and they're, you know, quite substantial price ranges tend to go from the lower end is sort of 30, 40 pounds. For smaller ones, you might not get a product a day for 25 days. In those, you might get sort of little miniatures or you might get, you know, 12 days instead of 20, you know, 25 days. But they can go up to 250 plus pounds for some of the premium ones. So like your Liberty's and your Harrods, you're looking at a substantial investment. And they carry premium brands that have a substantial price tag to them as well. So there is a little bit of, you know, competition for the brands in wanting to appear in the calendars. Yeah, I get that.

Wow. I mean, those are quite some prices there also for our listeners. I mean, our listeners are all over the world. We're talking about the UK here. I did have a delve around to see if this is a thing in other countries as well. I found a New York Times roundup of the best beauty Advent calendars for 2023. Interestingly, they were still referring to quite a few of the British brands and even the British retailers. So the UK seems to be leading the way in this. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, we'll come to that. But it's quite interesting to see how it hasn't really taken off in all other countries yet. And I would imagine it's only a matter of time before other beauty brands and retailers globally catch on and start to think, hang on, there's money to be made here. I mean, typically advent calendars are something you I suppose, buy for yourself or your parents buy one for you when you're little and you open them up. In this particular case, is a beauty advent calendar something that you gift to someone or is it something that you buy for yourself?

Well, the marketing doesn't really specify how that is supposed to happen, whether, whether the retailers and the brands are marketing to purchase this for somebody or purchase it for yourself. For the most part, they're marketing on the value of the calendar and the fact that it's covetable and people want it. And I looked for some sales data to see if we had any data online about who's purchasing these advent calendars, and I couldn't find any. But anecdotally, I know plenty of people who will purchase a calendar for themselves. They're beauty addicts. They, you know, they love their beauty products and they will purchase for themselves and then sometimes if it's something a little bit more expensive or special, they will ask their partner or family to kind of club together and purchase it for them. So I think it's probably a split. I think many, many people probably buy these for themselves because they like the look of the beauty products inside and they want to just treat themselves. And I think there has definitely been a increase post Covid in this sort of treat mentality of what small things can we do to make ourselves feel better. And I suppose beauty advent calendars would fall into that category of, you know, you've got the reward of disciplined people like you opening one drawer each day. You know, it's, it's, it's just that sort of small micro award each day and every day sort of being special, I suppose.

Yeah, I get it. Totally. But I suppose why are beauty brands and retailers advertising them already in September? Because my ads on TikTok and Instagram, all I've been seeing is particularly Liberties of London. They've just been hammering me with adverts everywhere I go. Why have they started so early?

Well, it's interesting because obviously I think it, it's, it helps the brands and the retailers to make sales before the Christmas sales kick in. Because if these are designed to be open during December, then it's sort of a slightly earlier push. I mean, we've seen that grifting and Christmas in general, for those countries who celebrate it starts earlier and earlier each year. I mean, it seems to get, you know, as soon as Halloween is out of the way in the US and the UK predominantly, then things seem to go on the shelves for the holiday season. So I think that's a reason why. Also, I think with some of these calendars, like the premium ones, like Liberty, a lot of the messaging around it is around scarcity. This will sell out. This is premium. You want this this is special. It will be gone by the time we get to November. That is sort of the, the way that they're positioning it and, you know, using some of the, some of the common tricks in the market, like having a waiting list, you know, making it seem like it's. It's going to disappear soon, that kind of thing. So I think that is the marketing of them starting that little bit earlier, because, let's be honest, if they don't sell by December, then they're going to have all these products that they're going to have to rehouse. They're going to end up with excess packaging and things. So I'm sure there is a lot of logistics involved in terms of making sure that the retailers and the brands don't have lots of excess product left over with Christmas gifting, because, you know, it's a big thing, isn't it? We see that with Christmas gifts sets going on sale in January. So I don't think this is any different. I think they've tried to get that scarcity mindset going, get people to buy early so that they don't have money left over to be worrying about discounting in January.

Interesting. So why do you think Advent calendars have then suddenly mushroomed in popularity over the last few years? Because you said it earlier, there's really been this boom in the last few years in the uk, and I expect we'll start to see this boom elsewhere too. So what's driving that obviously started with.

A handful of brands and the reality of it is that more wouldn't be made if they weren't selling. So I think it was, you know, one of those things where people took an interest and they started to sell. Brands could see that they were doing well and lots more brands jumped on the bandwagon for them. You know, for any of our listeners that don't know, I used to be a beauty blogger, I used to write about beauty and one of the most popular posts that I've ever done has been a roundup of beauty advent calendars in terms of clicks. So the interest is absolutely there, something that people are interested in treating themselves to. So a lot of the marketing, as I said, is around the perceived value of these Advent calendars. So I think, for example, some of the premium ones are saying that you get £1,000 worth of beauty products, but you're paying £250. So there is an element of really trying to hype up the value that you're getting to encourage sales. I do wonder whether this sort of bubble that the Advent calendars have had will burst eventually because we've seen that with other things like beauty boxes, where there was a, a big spike in popularity and that has waned a little bit. I mean, they're still around, they still exist, but it has waned. So I'm. Yeah, I'm not sure. And also it will be interesting to see how these calendars sell this year. I mean, the world is undoubtedly in a more difficult place and these are a, you know, a luxury. Let's be honest. If you're spending £250 on a beauty advent calendar, that is a luxury for many. Not, you know, not everybody can afford to spend that much on skincare in one go.

Yeah, true. And I don't suppose they'd use all the products all the time in the calendar either. Is that something you found as well?

Yeah, I mean, when I was still blogging, I got sent some press samples. I, I got to see some of these calendars. And, you know, the full sizes are great if you love the product, but if you don't love the product, then it feels like a waste because you have to gift it onto somebody else or, you know, it end in the bin. And, you know, when you've got small fiddly sizes, it's great if you travel a lot, but if you don't, they can also end up being sort of just occupying space. So when it comes to purchasing, people have to be quite sure that the contents are what they want. I think the brands do go to quite some effort to try and make the products as universal as possible, but there's always going to be things that you don't like. So it is one of those where there is going to be some waste involved somewhere.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm glad you brought up the topic of beauty boxes, actually, because it was something where I could see a parallel with the Advent calendar and the beauty box. And of course, as you say, you know, beauty boxes went through this massive boom. They seem to have just sort of disappeared, really. I know there are still some out there, but no one's talking about them in the same way. And certainly in the brand community that we have, where we work with thousands of small brands, I used to see people put up all these huge photos of like, here's the 10,000 lip balms I'm just providing to this beauty box, that doesn't happen anymore. However, maybe advent calendars are trying to sort of muscle in on that space a little bit. And of course, the reason that brands went into beauty boxes is because they were often trying to reach a new audience. So do you think advent calendars could work for beauty brands and help them reach a new audience? If they're curated by retailers?

Yeah. There's lots of parallels, definitely between the beauty advent calendars and the beauty boxes. I think brands do have to view beauty advent calendars as a marketing exercise. It's, you know, the value that is there, the margins. Even with the margins on beauty products, when you look at the shipping of some of these boxes, which is huge and you know, the amount of product in there, there can't be a huge amount of profit for the brand taking part. So if you're working with a retailer, I'm almost sure that perhaps it's even part of the contract that you, you know, you provide a certain amount of marketing material and that might be included in, you know, the advent calendar activity as well. It makes it difficult for smaller brands to take part. And I think many smaller brands perhaps have been burnt by providing a lot of samples, like you said, and then realizing that perhaps it's not always going to result in repeat customers. It's always been a concern of mine. If you're purchasing lots of products that you would in a beauty advent calendar, to get through all of that in a year is going to be a struggle. So then is that beauty customer going to remember that product from last year? Are they going to like it enough to then come back and be a repeat purchase customer? Which is ultimately what every brand needs and wants is people that are going to keep coming back to you. So I find it a little bit ambiguous on whether it is actually good for the brands involved to be taking part. And the other thing I've noticed this year especially is a lot of the brands in the premium calendars overlap. So you see the same names in several calendars because they obviously have big marketing budgets that can afford that kind of relationship. They're also in the big retailers like Harrods and Liberty, that kind of thing. So it's really interesting. I'm not sure whether it is a cost effective exercise for brands involved, but I think those who have big marketing budgets, clearly the kudos of being in the Liberty calendar or whatever seems to be worth it to them because they keep taking part. So something must be happening there.

Maybe they have huge profit margins and can afford to give away mountains and mountains of free product. Who knows? Well, let's come on to another topic that I really wanted to cover in today's podcast about the sustainability challenges of beauty advent calendars. What are they? Because you've already alluded to the fact that they're big and shipping might be an issue, because presumably it's like shipping a cupboard in some cases. What sustainability challenges do you see?

Well, the big one, I think, with these Advent calendars, and this is certainly what I found when I tested some and received some samples of some, is the packaging element of it. Because if you've got lots of very heavy products on their package, like you said, they come in almost these little sort of drawers, very heavy cardboard, almost too nice to throw away. But then I think, well, what would you do with it afterwards? That's one of the things. It's all very well and good to say upcycle and reuse, but there's a limit to how much you can do that without filling your house full of stuff. So you certainly, if you're going to have another one the next year, you certainly are not going to keep last year's around. So that's a lot of very heavy cardboard that is going to almost immediately be discarded. I mean, that's one of the things that happens in the holiday season, isn't it, that the day afterwards you fill your recycling bin with things that, you know, everything shrinks significantly because a lot of it is packaging. I had one year that had 24 little muslin bags, so everything came in a little bag, a little white bag. So every single little tiny product was bagged at the time. I remember thinking, well, that's cute, but what do I now do with these 24 bags? So I went out of my way to find things to put inside the bags to gift to other people so that they wouldn't just get thrown away straight away. But a lot of the packaging options are done, obviously, for esthetics, because these calendars have to look beautiful in order for people to get, you know, to part with their money. And it's not necessarily thought through in terms of being the minimum amount of packaging. And I think that's also an interesting switch because I think pre Covid, we were really looking towards minimizing packaging in the beauty industry, and we seem to have taken a step back a little bit in terms of aesthetics and, you know, less concern over sustainability and more. More about actually just selling the product, making it beautiful so that it will fly off the shelves. So, yeah, there's a few things in terms of shipping, like you said, they're also heavy. I mean, most people, like I said, don't purchase £250 worth of beauty products at once. You will buy smaller amounts there's also a risk of things going off before you can actually use them, depending on how much you already have. The types of people that buy these calendars, from my experience of working in the industry and speaking to people who are beauty addicts, tend to be people who already have a stash or a hoard of products anyway and they just don't want to miss out on the advent calendar either. And there is a limit, and I've been guilty of this in the past and it's something I've really had to work hard to move away from. There is a limit to how much you can put on one face and there is always, unless you're sort of dishing it out between friends and family, there is always a risk of something's going to get stuck in a cupboard and it's not going to be used.

Yes, I think everyone will recognize that, listening to this. I suppose the other thing is it's just encouraging mass consumption in one go, really, which follows on from everything he was saying because ultimately the brands are going just buy, buy everything we have in one go. And you know, you're quite right, you only have one face. You can't just put everything on at the same time. What do you think? Are they a good thing or not? Because I've not seen anyone criticize beauty advent calendars. Instead what I'm seeing is just endless roundups of them by the beauty press, which then include dozens and dozens of affiliate links to those calendars. And they constantly tell you, you need to know about this for the festive season. You need to be prepared for this. Why is no one criticizing them?

Well, like you say, Lorraine, my experience was that at the time when I wrote about them, there was interest and that's why I got messages, I got emails asking me to write about them. So there was interest there when they would. And at that point they were just sort of, that market was just blossoming. So a lot of them were relatively new and publications want to make money. So if people are googling the best beauty advent calendars, they are going to write about that and they are going to pepper that with affiliate links to make money and to survive, even if it's not particularly exciting content, even if they don't particularly have anything to say about them. These roundups work in terms of click throughs to retailers. So they wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't that financial element to it. I am torn as to whether they're good or not. I know people get joy out of them and Some people like giving themselves that treat. Some people might even save up for it. You know, I still purchase beauty boxes every now and again or things like that if I think that what is inside is worth it. But in the case of beauty advent calendars, I do feel like they have spiraled a little bit out of control and the size of them and, you know, all the retailers trying to outdo themselves in terms of what you're getting, it's just become a little bit excessive. And I can't help but think that what goes up must come down at some point and whether people this year, the way the world is, will have money just to spend on something like a calendar like that. I'm not sure.

No, I think you're probably right. However, I think we're nowhere near the peak of beauty advent calendars. I expect we're going to see a lot more of this take off around the world as well. So we're probably on that upwards curve at the moment. And if it feels slightly crazy at the moment, I wonder where we'll be in five years time. Anyway, Anna, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. What a fascinating topic and I'd love to hear what all of our listeners think as well. So do come and chat with us on social media because we want to find out what you think. Lovely to have you with me, Anna, again, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.

Thanks, Lorraine.

Bye bye. So, as I said, I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Have you ever bought a beauty advent calendar? How do you feel about them? Do you think you'd buy one? Tell me what you think. Leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. And if you want to hear more about some of the topics we covered, please do delve back into the podcast archives as well. Go and listen to episode 135, in which Anna and I looked at the sustainable beauty alternatives to Black Friday, which is of course another major sales period in the beauty industry calendar. Or go and listen to episode 141, in which Anna and I tackle the controversial topic of celebrity beauty brands, which seemed to really reach a peak in hype last year. Or stay tuned for next week's episode in which I'll be looking at gifting beauty sustainably for the holidays with my top tips. There is a wealth of information in our old episodes and I do encourage you to go back and listen to them. Thank you for joining Anna and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty conversations. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is, and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn we're everywhere and come and give me a Follow Lorraine Darmeyer on Instagram, visit our website@formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course Today Day.