Sephora: five advent calendars, and which one is worth choosing

On the site

The Sephora advent calendar, at a glance

Every line Sephora currently runs, each with its own listing, price and stock status. Based on our records, Sephora usually opens its UK waitlist in September, ahead of a wider release, and that’s also when the Favorites line tends to sell fastest.

The brand

Sephora’s story, from a Limoges perfume shop to a UK high-street name

Founded

1970, Limoges

Owner

LVMH (since 1997)

First UK shop

March 2023, Westfield London

First calendar on our file

2017

Dominique Mandonnaud opened a self-service perfume shop in Limoges, in western France, in 1970. Letting customers pick up and try products themselves, instead of asking an assistant from behind a counter, was unusual for the time, and it became the store format the chain still uses today. He built it into a chain, and in 1997 sold the business to LVMH, which owns it today alongside Louis Vuitton, Dior and dozens of other names.

Sephora’s UK story is more recent, and it went online before it went physical. The brand returned to Britain by completing a £132 million acquisition of Feelunique in September 2021; that site was rebranded Sephora.co.uk in October 2022, and Feelunique closed for good on 3 April 2024. Its first UK store opened at Westfield London on 8 March 2023, and the brand had seven UK stores by late 2024, with an eighth planned for Liverpool ONE in spring 2025; we haven’t checked whether that number has moved again since.

The own-brand Sephora Collection and the Beauty Insider loyalty scheme sit underneath a much bigger business: hundreds of other labels sold under one roof, from drugstore names to brands that don’t usually share shelf space. The company says it doesn’t test its own products on animals, though it doesn’t require every brand it stocks to meet the same standard, which is one reason its advent calendars can carry both cruelty-free logos and brands that don’t.

Data · the range

Five lines, five different reasons to buy one

As of 4 September 2026, its UK site carries five separate advent calendars, all marked ‘Available soon’. Only one, Favorites, has a confirmed date so far: 7 September 2026.

The value figures above are the ones our system holds for each listing; where we’ve been able to check them against Sephora’s own marketing or independent coverage, as with Collection and Favorites, they match. Take them as the brand’s own claim, not an independent recalculation: nobody has physically added up the contents of every line for this page.

Data · evolution over time

The top price has climbed from £139 to £225 since 2022

Our own archive photos tell part of the story. The earliest calendar we have on file, from 2017, is a pale pink fold-out shaped like a village, its windows cut straight into the card. By 2023, the format had become a stacked wall of individually numbered drawers under the name The Future Is Yours, disco balls and holographic finishes included. The most recent packshot we hold, from 2025, shows a bolder teal, pink and gold box. The packaging changes most years; what’s stayed constant is the idea of several products behind numbered doors, at more than one price point.

Why the top price has moved more than the entry one is only partly guesswork. The clearest driver is size: UK coverage put the Favorites line at 36 products in 2023 and at 41, 24 of them full-size, in 2025, and a bigger box justifies a bigger number on the front. It’s also not a coincidence that the climb runs alongside Sephora’s UK retail expansion, from an online-only return in 2021 to eight shops by spring 2025: a brand opening physical stores has more reason to make its flagship calendar an event. Neither of these is proven beyond doubt, but they fit the pattern better than a simple price rise would.

The price, autumn by autumn, since our records begin

Figures for 2022 to 2025 come from full exports of our own live database, taken each autumn. A separate note kept by the team in 2022 recorded £119 for one line, not identified in our records: a reminder that a season’s median across several lines and a single line’s price aren’t the same measurement.

Six seasons, in pictures

Packshots from past editions, archives adventcalendar.co.uk, collected each season since 2017.

Reception

What reviewers and shoppers actually say

The Independent’s beauty desk has reviewed several of Sephora’s UK lines on their own terms, as separate products, which is itself a sign of how differently they’re pitched. Its verdict on the £89.99 Collection Premium calendar (24 products including 14 full sizes, valued at £235.76) was that it suits a teen looking for a mid-range calendar, not a top-tier countdown for the 20-and-older market. Its most recent look at the Favorites line, an exclusive first look published ahead of the 2026 launch, notes that the 2026 price was not yet confirmed at the time of writing (£225 in 2025), counts 41 products for 2026, 27 of them full-size, worth more than £1,000, and gives an early, largely positive verdict on the handful of 2026 items Sephora has revealed so far, including full-size Medik8 and Dr Sam’s skincare.

The clearest sign of demand is what happens once a line sells out. In a November 2024 look at whether luxury beauty advent calendars are worth the money, the BBC pointed to Sephora’s Favorites calendar, then sold at £199 and valued by the brand at £1,000, turning up on eBay for as much as £399 once official stock had gone. That’s not a discount story, it’s a scarcity one, and it’s worth knowing before deciding how early to buy.

Data · against the field

Sephora against the high street: how four rivals compare

We track its calendars alongside four other beauty and skincare boxes in a similar price band, all sold in the UK: a pharmacy chain, a marketplace listing, and two mono-brand skincare names.

Prices and values shown are for the specific calendar named on each line, taken from our own catalogue. Where a rival brand runs several lines, we’ve picked the single calendar closest to Sephora in price to represent it, ignoring the rest of its range.

Multi-brand or mono-brand is the real fork here, more than price. Sephora, and the Amazon box, hand you dozens of labels you may or may not already use; Yves Rocher and the Body Shop hand you more of a brand you’ve presumably already decided you like. Boots sits in between: skincare-focused, but still spreading its box across several names instead of one. None of that shows up in a price column, and it matters more than the numbers do.

Data · price and promotions

Where and when to buy the Sephora advent calendar at the best price

As of 4 September 2026, all five Sephora lines are marked ‘Available soon’ on our catalogue. Only Favorites carries a confirmed date so far, 7 September 2026; the other four don’t yet show one.

We haven’t come across a Sephora advent calendar discounted before launch in the records we hold. What we have seen, in November 2024, is closer to the opposite: a sold-out line reselling above its retail price on eBay. If a specific line matters to you, particularly Favorites, that points toward buying as soon as it goes live: our archive gives no reason to expect a reduction afterwards.

We track these listings directly on Sephora’s own UK site, where all five calendars are sold.

You can also browse every calendar currently on offer on our deals and discounts page.

Frequently asked questions

What people actually ask us about the Sephora advent calendar

Read on: our deals and discounts page, the Boots and The Body Shop pages, and the current Sephora Favorites listing.