Hi lovelies!

I don't know about you, but I find myself in such a good mood nearly every day in December! I think it's because of all of the festive joy that comes with Christmas, and the fact it's also my birthday month - what can I say, I'm a child at heart!

I've come today to share with you the beauty Advent Calendar I've decided upon this year - the Sleek MakeUp A Gift A Day Advent Calendar! I purchased mine from Boots for £35 (now gone down to £26.25) and it was in the 3 for 2 Christmas gift offer they do, so I bought this, a Christmas gift for my sister and as my best friend was with me, she chose herself a lovely Ted Baker perfume gift set that was free - I love Boots at Christmas time (let's get real, I love Boots all year round)! So I'm going to be sharing with you what I get on each day and comparing the £35 price tag to what I'd be paying separately for each item, as Sleek is a company that I love and purchase from anyway.



The design of the Advent Calendar itself is absolutely gorgeous and I think it's sophisticated and (forgive me) sleek. I adore how the numbers aren't written on the doors in the standard way every other Advent Calendar is - some are written as words and others are written as numbers, e.g. 'nineteen' and 'four' and '15' and '24'. I also love the way in which the doors are shaped - even at the age of 22 (23 a week today!) it still gets me excited, and it helps me to get out of bed every morning because I'm excited to see what's behind the next door.




















Day 1:
'Excited' was a bit of an understatement for the first day of December. I couldn't wait to open the first door in my Advent Calendar, yet at the same time I couldn't believe I was finally allowed to open it! Day 1 was behind a lovely, shiny, golden door and my first gift was a blusher in in 'Rose Gold'. The colour is very similar to the Nars blusher I currently use and a No 7. blusher I have previously loved - I already felt this calendar was hand-picked for me!




Item: Blusher.
Shade: Rose Gold.
Item size: 6g, whereas a full size blusher is 8g so really not far off - if someone had told me this was a full sized product before doing my own research, I would have believed them.
Price: £4.99 (Boots).
Rating: I LOVE this product! Couldn't fault it, from the colour to the pigmentation.
Total calendar worth: £4.99/£35.




Day 2:
After a very successful Day 1, I was keen to open Day Two, which was behind a very intriguing shaped door. Behind the door was an eyeshadow brush - a brush that reminds me very much of my Real Techniques bold collection eyeshadow brush. I will use this for some very precise crease work or, as an alternative, to apply concealer, as the brush is very dense and the bristles aren't too fluffy.



Item: Eyeshadow Brush.
Shade: N/A.
Item size: Full size.
Price: Although I couldn't find this specific brush, I did manage to find a set for £13 (Sleek) so worked each brush in there to roughly be about £2 each.
Rating: Again, another product that I really like and am happy with.
Total calendar worth: £6.99/£35.

Day 3: Day 3 might have been my favourite so far. One of my most favourite makeup products is a liquid lipstick and, you've guessed it, that's what I found behind my patterned door of Day 3! This gorgeous Matt Me lip cream is a a beautiful colour, and it wears so well. The formula is top notch and it dries so quickly too - comparable to Mac and Jeffree Star!




Item: Liquid Lipstick.
Shade: Rioja Red.
Item size: 3ml, so half the full-size at 6ml.
Price: £4.99 (Boots).
Rating: Quick drying, long lasting, high pigmentation, another five star product for me.
Total calendar worth: £11.98/£35.




Day 4: Sticking with the Christmassy theme of 'red', behind Day Four's door was a truly stunning matte nail varnish. Although I do usually have a professional gel manicure for my nails, I do have a vast collection of nail varnishes and love doing my own nails. I plan on having my nails done a nice red colour with some Christmas nail art a little bit closer to Christmas, so might just paint my toes with this beautiful red to match.



Item: Nail Varnish.
Shade: Rioja Red.
Item size: 7ml.
Price: I can't, for the life of me, find this anywhere online so I'm just hazarding a guess based on their prices of other products, purely for the purpose of this blog series - £4.99.
Rating: The product itself I love - however next to some of the other items from the calendar, the nail varnish seems slightly on the smaller side.
Total calendar worth: £16.97/£35.




Day 5: Another intriguing shaped door for Day Five - these first five days have certainly not been a disappointment in the slightest! Day 5 brought me a Twist Up Lip Pencil and I'm so pleased with it. Visually, the packaging is beautiful - although I am a huge fan of Sleek's classic black packaging, the beautiful pinkish red colour of the packaging (which is close to the colour of the product itself) is new and innovating. The lip pencil glides on like a dream and is, again, long-lasting.




Item: Lip Liner.
Shade: Sugared Apple.
Item size: 0.22g.
Price: £2.99 (Sleek).
Rating: Another product I just can't fault! A gold star from me!
Total calendar worth: £19.96/£35.




As you can see, Days 1-5 were total successes for me and I'm so excited to share with you what Days 6-10 bring me in my next blog post!

Thanks for reading,