7 alternatives to chocolate advent calendars

We're mere days away from December. Then the count down begins. Oh my.

Have you got to that age where although chocolate is still awesome, you feel like chocolate advent calendars are a little done? There was a time where eating chocolate first thing in the morning was exciting. It felt naughty. Now it seems to have lost its novelty. Each year more and more brands are jumping on the advent calendar band wagon. Admittedly mostly beauty brands / products. But as you will see below, there are some lovely other little surprises to be found behind each door:

Body Shop advent calendar: I've seen this featured on some blogs lately and the selection looks amazing. I haven't managed to locate any online or in my local store though. Not sure if it sold out, or if it was just a blogger promo / sample type dealio.

Yankee Candle advent calendar: Fill your house with the smell of Christmas on the days leading up to the holiday - to me, this feels like the most festive of all the advent calendars I've seen. But then I have major candle bias. Love 'em.

Benefit advent calendar: A great way of trying out new beauty products

Boots advent calendar: A more affordable version of the Selfridges one (below)

Whisky advent calendar: If you like whisky and you've got more money to spare, this would be a very merry count down!

Ciaté nail polish advent calendar: A nail polish a day. Genius.

Selfridges beauty advent calendar: Always sells out in record time. But with daily delights from Lancome, Yves Saint Laurent, etc, this is hardly surprising. Each year I um and ah over the price - trust me, it's a LOT. I decide to give it a try and what... it's sold out? Well I guess that answers that then.

What would your ideal advent calendar contain?

The prettiest nails you ever did see // Revlon x Marchesa

Some of you eager fashionistas may have already spotted images of Revlon's wonderful new collaboration with red carpet favourite Marchesa:

Image credit for all above: Marcio Madeira - found via Brazilian Vogue here

Image credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images; Revlon - image found here 

All nail designs are based on gowns from Marchesa's AW collection

They look like they cost the earth but in actual fact they will retail at....... £8.99. With nail polishes increasing in price these days - what's the deal with that? - £8.99 isn't all that bad, comparatively. And this is Marchesa we're talking about. With gowns retailing in the thousands, I think I can deal with £8.99.

Each nail design is truly beautiful - a work of art. With an increasing demand for nail art - we've seen diversity from the likes of Ciaté's latest feather nail manicure, shatter effects, nail cavier and Illamasqua's speckle nails - any form of new nail product that wants to stand a chance in the current market needs to stand out. These ones from Revlon + Marchesa sure do and I predict that we'll be seeing a lot of them on blogs, Instagram and the alike once they go on sale.

I'm very excited to see if Revlon and Marchesa continue to work together in the future. There is potentially a cosmetic line in the works - with a focus on eyes and lips - but everything is still very hush hush. If it's anything like the sneak peak of their nail art range [above], then it's very promising indeed!