Christmas Gift Guide Part 2: £20-£50
Sisters, friends, daughters or all-round good eggs. As ever, our criteria for choosing gifts for our annual Beauty Bible Gift Guides is: ‘Would we be happy to receive this ourselves…?’ Answer, with any of the below: yes, yes, yes. (Note to own family: do feel free to take this as a hint!)
Bamford Geranium Christmas Gift (main image above)
We are massive fans of this range, showcased here as a Soil Association-certified duo of Body Wash & Body Cream, the latter of which ticks all our boxes: sinks in fast, isn’t sticky but IS instantly nourishing, with that wonderful, aromatic geranium scent. (We are as obsessed with scented geraniums as founder Carole Bamford.) This stuff’s so good, it’s the annual Christmas gift request from an entirely NON-beauty-minded friend in California, and we have to parcel it up and send out there!
£48 - buy here
Aromatherapy Associates 3 Step Introduction to Sleep (above)
To sleep, perchance to… dream of this three-piece, brilliantly mind-calming range, to which we remain eternally devoted for its power to help us drift off. The trio includes the legendary – and we mean that – Deep Relax Bath & Shower Oil, in a 9ml size that’s enough for three treatments, a super-nourishing Deep Relax Body Cream, and the Deep Relax spray, for spritzing pillow and PJs. Great for any sleep-deprived chum or relative.
£40 - buy here
Benefit Jolly Brow Bunch (above)
Benefit’s brow products have consistently swept the board (as well as testers’ brows) in our Beauty Bible Awards, over the years; this is a great-value set, showcasing full sizes of the brow-taming/enhancing products that we swear by ourselves: the brilliant one-step Gimme Brow; Precisely, My Brow Pencil; and 24-Hour Brow Setter. There are four shades of this kit to choose from, so make sure you get the right one, but it’s amazing value because together, these would normally set you back £70.50. Such a cute tin, too!
£32.50 - buy here
Elemis Superfoods skincare The Glow-Getters Trilogy (above)
Elemis have always done Christmas – and ‘sets’ – awfully, awfully well. Among their many seasonal offerings, this is a perfect trio for reviving skin that’s experienced the post-festivities ‘blahs’, a properly glow-getting line-up of Superfood Glow Cleansing Butter (Jo uses this several days a week) Superfood Glow Priming Moisturiser, and Superfruit Fruit Vinegar Liquid Glow. The promise of radiance, restored.
£42 - buy here
Floris Rose Geranium Luxury Soaps (3 x 100g) (above)
Um, have you gathered yet that we love geranium…? Well, so do so many people we know. With an absolutely iconic scent, from heritage Jermyn Street fragrance boutique Floris (Marilyn Monroe used to order the bath oil in this fragrance, in large quantities), they really live up to the ‘luxury’ promise: properly long-lasting, not ever going squishy as so many soaps do; what we like to do with them before use is tuck the glassine paper-wrapped soaps in our knitwear and underwear drawers, where they impart their lovely fragrance.
£23 - buy here
Perfume Society Feel-Good Fragrances Discovery Set (above)
As you may know, Jo originally set up The Perfume Society with Lorna McKay (Lorna bought Jo out, last year), and the discovery boxes that are offered on a monthly basis are a fab way for both the connoisseur and the newbie to explore fragrance, before springing for a full size. This curated box focuses on perfumes to boost a sense your wellbeing, but also includes a full size of Weleda Skin Food Body Butter, a Beauty Bible Award-winner which never fails to impress, when people discover it for the first time. (This box is actually just £19 if you’re a Perfume Society V.I.P. Club member.)
£23 - buy here
L’OCCITANE Festive Crackers Collection (above)
A four-cracker set from L’OCCITANE whose contents sure beat plastic whistles and screwdrivers, in these beauty editors’ opinion, instead showcasing a 30ml and a 10ml size in each cracker, which might include favourites like Shea Shower Oil and Shea Butter Hand Cream, Almond Shower Oil and Almond Delicious Hands, etc.
£22.50 - buy here
OSKIA The Wellness Edit (above)
Oskia scooped more Beauty Bible Awards in 2022 than any other brand, with several of those stellar products showcased in a scarlet vegan leather bag, here: Renaissance Body Treatment Milk (30ml), Moon Salts (75g) and Renaissance Mask (15ml). What we love about gifts like this is the implicit TLC – the idea that you’re also saying to someone, ‘You deserve to lock that bathroom door and enjoy some me-time.’ The set has a value of £55, NB.
£39 - buy here
delilah Cosmetics NUDE LIP WARDROBE (above)
British make-up house delilah have some truly fab and beautifully-boxed Christmas sets this year, including these essentials for a properly perfect nude lip: Long Wear Lip Shine (Buff), a lip liner that is genuinely worth using; Colour Intense Cream Lipstick (Muse), a semi-matte and super-comfy formulation; and Colour Gloss Ultimate Shine Lipgloss (Minx), for a finale of long-lasting, non-sticky shine. A great deal, too; individually, those would cost you £66.
£38 - buy here
Miller Harris Aromatic & Woody Trio: 3 x Eau de Parfum 10ml Tea Tonique, Peau Santal, Reverie de Bergamote (above)
A travel-friendly trio of three bestselling scents from this much-loved British fragrance brand, to take you from a breezy, bergamot-powered morning (Reverie de Bergamote), through to smoochy evening (Peau Santal), and an afternoon wake-up call via Tea Tonique. The brand have LOTS of gorgeous scented gifts, actually, at different price-points.
£45 - buy here
