Beauty advent calendars: pricey Christmas treats or genuine value? Shoppers are getting savvier

Julia, 39, a senior commercial manager in engineering, admits she is tempted every year by a luxury beauty advent calendar, perfume ones especially. But she shops like an auditor. Before she buys, she reads the list of what's inside, and she only goes ahead if she likes enough of the fragrances.

Her approach has become more relevant this week. Skims, Kim Kardashian's brand, offered refunds to every customer who bought its $148 (£110) advent calendar, after heavy criticism on social media over what was in it. Some buyers compared the hair clips, scrunchies and keychains to things you might find down the back of a sofa.

Julia says she earns a good salary but wants value for money and doesn't want to spend on things she won't use. Last year she paid £160 for a Space NK fragrance calendar. It contained scents she had wanted for a while, at well below the recommended retail price, and the ones she didn't like she sold on for slightly more than she had paid for them.

Beauty calendars have existed for more than a decade, often costing upwards of £100 and sometimes much more, and the marketing around them has become more sophisticated. High-profile brands warn that stock may run out, which can encourage early buying. Influencers post unboxing videos that create a sense of surprise and delight. It appears to work: Ipsos data indicates that around 15% of all advent calendars sold are beauty ones, and people aged 18 to 34 are especially willing to spend.

Yet shoppers seem to be growing wiser. Priya Raj, a 30-year-old fashion journalist, loves beauty but rarely buys the calendars. In her view they are pricey and often hold only a few items she wants to try or that are trending. She does see one benefit: trying products at small scale before committing to full size, then hoping to find a bargain in the Boxing Day sales.

Rhea Somaiya, a 28-year-old podcaster, likes the idea but is sceptical in practice. She says some brands take customers for granted, filling each day with something so menial that people are bombarded with irrelevant, cluttering items. When that happens, she says, the excitement of opening each window turns into irritation rather than joy.

Marketing consultant Jessica Jasper is more positive and thinks calendars are worth it. Even so, she believes some companies are simply jumping on a trend and that some brands are getting a little carried away with pricing.

Heather Widdows, a philosophy professor and beauty expert, notes that you might buy some of the products individually, but almost certainly not all of them. Calendars can offer many products at a good price, she says, and can be fun and feel sensuous. But it is exceptionally unlikely you would use everything inside, so they are probably not worth it.

This year Julia spent £99 on a John Lewis fragrance calendar and thinks it is good value, though she won't keep everything. She has joined a Facebook group where people swap the items they don't want for ones they do. What she keeps, she says, already works out much cheaper per millilitre than retail. The question for brands is whether other buyers will keep applying the same test to what is behind each window.