For five years, I’ve eyed the Liberty Advent Calendar. After the craziness of the last three years and believing that the world is going to end soon, I decided to purchase two advent calendars. After watching several YTers, low key stalking makeup announcement and release instagram accounts, and just generally, searching the internet, I whittled my list down to four from which I decided to pick two.
For a while, the Flannel and Liberty calendars were the finalists… till I realized that Flannel doesn’t deliver to Canada. With my heart broken, I had to eliminate the Flannel calendar from the shortlist.
I then decided to purchase one western and one eastern/K-beauty calendar. Which meant that I had to choose between Liberty and Cult. While Cult had more products, it had so many fillers and products I wasn’t interested in. For K-beauty I couldn’t find much information about a calendar from Stylevana and I did like the contents of the Yesstyle calendar.
How I made my choice
When I was searching for a calendar I was looking for one that included the Augustus Bader cream and/or a Foreo UFO. Cult and Flannel calendars included the Augustus Bader cream, but I could choose only one between Liberty and Cult. And as mentioned before Flannel doesn’t deliver to Canada.
When I had decided on the 4 finalists, I created a spreadsheet with all the products listed out. My decision was made based on: how many products I’d use, how many I’m excited about, how many I knew I wouldn’t use and how many full size products were included. I also didn’t want a calendar with any or many hair products (which Cult had).
Here’s a comparison of the Advent Calendars:
| Liberty | Yesstyle | Cult | Flannel |
| 4 hair care, 15 skincare, 4 make up, 2 masks, 3 perfumes, 2 candles | 0 hair care, 13 skin care, 9 make up, 1 mask, 1 make up remover | 7 hair care, 20 skin care, 5 makeup, 1 mask, 1 perfume, 1 sleep mask, 1 gummy, 1 candle and 1 perfume | 2 hair care, 9 skincare, 9 makeup, 1 scent, 1 candle, 1 nail polish and 1 lashes |
| Out of 30, 20 are full size | Out of 24, 20 are full size | out of 38, only 13 products are full size | out of 24 products, 11 full size |
| I’m excited about most products | I’m excited about most products | 6 products I’m excited about | 4 products I’m excited about |
| None I hate | None I hate | 2 products I hate | 2 products I hate |
| Positives | Positives | Positives | Positives |
| More perfumes | No Hair care | Includes Augustinus Bader | Includes Augustinus Bader |
| Better products | Foot mask as opposed to face masks | Full Charlotte tilbury palette | Includes a Pat Mcgrath palette |
| Less Hair | No fillers | Glow recipes | Lesser hair |
| Makeup heavy | |||
| Negatives | Negatives | Negatives | Negatives |
| Too many mascaras | Some shimmer eye shadow I don’t care about | too much hair care | Too many lipsticks |
| Lots of fillers like sleep mask, gummy, | Too many fillers like lashes and nail polish |
I’ve created separate reviews for the two calendars I finally picked:
Featured Image by Torsten Dettlaff: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-calendar-on-white-surface-195030/