I’m a wellbeing editor and this is my favourite advent calendar of 2025

The calendar is filled with full-size wellness products worth hundreds of pounds - (The Independent / Emilie Lavinia)

As a wellbeing editor, I hate to be a cliche, but I’m not crazy about chocolate advent calendars. Lindt for breakfast? Not my thing. I am, however, a big fan of a beauty advent calendar but I’m very choosy about what I put on my skin. I also abhor a mini and it galls me to find that most beauty advent calendars these days are filled with miniature versions of my favourite products.

I love an advent calendar but I want it to be filled with products I love from trusted brands and preferably packed with full-size products. Enter Healf’s advent calendar for 2025 to make all my dreams come true.

Read our round-up of the best beauty advent calendars here

Healf is a health and wellness retailer stocking premium products that aim to support what they call the four pillars of wellbeing – eat, move, mind and sleep.

I opened every drawer in this mega 25-day calendar and found it chock-full of all my favourite skin-safe, health-boosting luxury wellness brands. Now, most of these brands come with premium price tags and while the Healf calendar isn’t the cheapest you’ll find, you’ll make a massive saving on the products inside – the contents are worth £840.

The Healf advent calendar retails at £349, making it more expensive than the iconic Liberty advent calendar and cheaper than Jo Malone’s and Byredo’s calendars. However, in my view, there’s far more variety on offer in the Healf calendar.

It contains food, beauty products, supplements, accessories like dry brushes and tongue scrapers, and products like electrolytes. Read on for my verdict and more details on the contents.

How I tested

I tried every product in this impressive wellness advent calendar (The Independent / Emilie Lavinia)

I opened every drawer for the full experience and assessed the contents of each. I’ve been a health journalist for more than a decade so if there’s a wellness brand worth buying, chances are I’ll know about it. If I haven’t heard of it, I’ll be keen to put it to the test. I judged the Healf calendar and its contents according to the following criteria:

• Packaging: I looked at how well presented the calendar itself and the packaging for each product was, taking various things like “wow” factor, sustainability and the unboxing experience into account.
• Value for money: Most advent calendars allow you to make a significant saving on the bundle of products inside. I totted up the cost of each individual product and worked out whether the calendar was worth the investment.
• Variety: In my opinion, a calendar that offers 25 fragrances or face creams wouldn’t be as impressive as one packed with a variety of products I’d use day to day, so I judged the Healf calendar on the diversity of its contents too.
• Efficacy: Wellness is a mixed bag and while some products are backed by science, some aren’t. I looked into the efficacy of each product and worked out how useful it might be on your health journey.

Why you can trust IndyBest reviews

The Independent’s dedicated shopping section, IndyBest’s expert testers trial products for weeks for unbiased, expert reviews. The team of editors and writers have years of experience in examining beauty advent calendars, so they know which ones are worth your money and which are overpriced.

Emilie Lavinia is The Independent’s Fitness and wellbeing editor and the host of its Well Enough podcast – a show that challenges misinformation and answers the big health questions we’re all asking. After more than a decade of reporting on health and wellness, she knows what separates a quality product from a dud, and where you should invest your time and energy.

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Healf advent calendar 2025

Rating: 4.5/5

Number of days: 25

Number of products: 25

Worth: £840

Highlights: Higher Dose body brush, Bon Charge red light, Loop earplugs, Felix Gray glasses

Why we love it

• Huge selection of products inside
• Trusted health brands
• No unnecessary packaging

Take note

• Expensive
• Some products aren't for everyone
• Calendar isn't vegan

The Healf advent calendar is to biohackers what the Liberty calendar is to beauty snobs – a gift-wrapped celebration of excellence. Inside you’ll find the rockstar brands of the wellness world, plus a few others you might not have heard of. Healf, as a retailer, is generally pretty good at maintaining high standards so I tend to trust it to select quality brands. As such, I was keen to dive in and test every product inside the 25 drawers of the 2025 calendar.

The calendar itself is pretty large. In chrome silver with a white ribbon and powder-blue drawers it looks pretty futuristic and minimalist. There’s no internal packing paper, tissue paper or any bits that might litter your floor when opening each draw – which I was relieved about, but other customers might feel differently.

The calendar contains products from trusted health brands I love like Ancient and Brave (The Independent / Emilie Lavinia)

The products themselves were mostly from reputable brands I’d heard of and covered a nice range of requirements – from home fragrance to sleep aids, supplements to bodycare. Everything was low-tox but interestingly not everything was vegan.

Wellness has many faces and this calendar firmly embraces the bone broth, tallow and colostrum crowd over the vegan crowd. Although the chocolate inside is vegan, and very fancy too.

At £349 it’s not exactly cheap, however the products inside are all from brands that you could end up spending a small fortune on if you shopped for them individually. Given they are mostly full size, you do end up making a significant saving.

Some of my favourite products to test were the Dirtea cacao drink (£13.49, Healf.com), which came in individual sachets, the Freja bone broth (also sachets, £4.04, Healf.com), the manuka honey and the Artah supplements (£28.79, Healf.com). The tongue scraper (£14.99, Healf.com) was also a highlight and if that makes me a weirdo, I do not care.

Some of the contents might divide opinion, but wellness is a broad church and most of the products impressed me (The Independent / Emilie Lavinia)

Some of the larger ticket items also impressed me. The Higher Dose body brush (£51.49, Healf.com) is a product I already use and that I’m a big fan of. It usually retails at £70 and in my opinion, is the best version of this tool available. The Artah cellular defence supplements are usually £36 and the Bon Charge red light face wand goes for almost £100 on its own, so the calendar really does deliver on value for money.

I was pleased to see that the calendar wasn’t packed full of supplements. Along with the Artah capsules there are magnesium supplements, spirulina and chlorella tablets and ashwagandha capsules too. There are two electrolyte products inside – possibly overkill – and there are also some lovely body products like deodorant and perfume – both made with no nasties, of course.

I thought to myself, “who would appreciate this the most?” And settled on wellness evangelists who would recognise and appreciate all the brands inside. Then again, if you were keen to start taking your health more seriously, this calendar essentially provides a crash course and cuts out all the nonsense – you go straight in at the top with a full collection of lifestyle, beauty, sleep and nutrition tools from the best brands on the market.

Buy now £349.00, healf.com

Should you buy the Healf advent calendar for 2025?

For me, the only drawback is the price. Mainly because you don’t need to spend a ton of money to be well. However, if you’re into biohacking, consider yourself a wellness enthusiast, or you love these kinds of products, the Healf advent calendar will likely bring you untold joy.

Some of the products inside are my go-tos for daily self care and health rituals, and they’re all great quality and from trusted brands. There are a couple of small criticisms I’d make and this is why the calendar scores a 4.5 instead of a full 5 stars. For example, two electrolyte products and two fragrance products seems unnecessary. However, one fragrance is for you and one’s for home, and similarly with the electrolytes, with one containing a mix of electrolytes and one being magnesium based.

Some products might also be a little divisive, such as the the colostrum and the tallow lip balm. The inclusion of these products means the calendar isn’t suitable for vegans. The calendar also contains honey, another opinion splitter where the vegan-friendly stamp of approval is concerned. I’m also not totally sure about the efficacy of the red light device, which is the star of the show in door 25.

However, on the whole, the products are brilliant, premium and come from brands I’d personally recommend. I particularly loved the Higher Dose copper body brush, the Agent Nateur deodorant, the Dirtea mushroom cacao, the Loop ear plugs and the blue light blocking glasses from Felix Gray. All fabulous gifts.

The supplements included are excellent all rounders and are all ideal for the winter months, helping to support energy, immunity and great skin. Just be sure to read all the ingredients, and check for any contraindications or exceeding the recommended daily dose if adding to your current supplement routine.

On the whole, I’d say this is one of the best advent calendars you can buy for quality, value for money and diversity. There’s a brilliant and broad range of products inside, they’re actually useful and they’re all good for you. If self care and wellbeing is your bag and you’re embracing healthy habits throughout December and into 2026, this investment is one I would personally be happy to make.

Not for you? We’ve tested 46 different beauty advent calendars