Welcome to the first-ever Christmas Gift Guide on this blog! Being an avid lover of beauty and seeing how over the years brands keep one-upping the previous Christmas gifting season, I decided to create two gift guides – one for her and one for him.

So if you are a confused boyfriend or girlfriend, a friend in need of ideas, a co-worker looking for a cute Secret Santa gift or a parent who wants to know what is trending in the beauty industry, I hope this gift guide helps you put smiles on the faces of your loved ones through gifts on both ends of the budget spectrum.

Click on the items to shop – some prices might differ if on sale.

Let’s begin with the knicks and knacks, such as stocking fillers or maybe gifts for a Secret Santa exchange, all under £20.

Sanctuary Spa created a luxurious body cream and scrub duo and priced it for £6. It has notes of Patchouli, Sandalwood and Jasmine which is said to stay on the skin for 12 hours after use. They also put together a set of four minis, which contains a body wash (75ml), a foaming bath soak (75ml), a body scrub (50ml) and a body lotion (75ml), for £10.

Caudalie, an amazing skincare brand, created lip and hand cream duos for this year’s festive season and retailed them for £11! The set comes in different scents, such as orange blossom and Jasmine, infused with white musk and ginger, or rose and rhubarb combined with notes of musk.

Mario Badescu created a gift set called The Multi-taskers with the iconic Aloe Herbs and Rosewater face spray and the Rose hand cream worth £14, which you can find on BeautyBay.com along with some other gift ideas from the same skincare brand. This skincare set helps soothe the skin and is suitable for any skin type, plus everyone needs hand cream during the winter months.

Makeup Revolution always pulls through with the affordable gift inspiration for all types of budgets. They have released a diamond-shaped blender and a case and retailed it for £8.

Too Faced had released an adorable ornament-shaped gift with the popular Better Than Sex Mascara and priced it at £12.00.

Makeup sets for beauty enthusiasts

All beauty-related websites and online shops are flooded with gifts and small bundles ready for the Christmas time, perfectly packaged to make your decision-making easier. For example, for a beauty and makeup lover, I would recommend this set from Real Techniques brushes, amazing quality at an amazing price. The set is worth £35, but you can get it on LookFantastic.com for £19.99.

Farsali has released a Skin “Goals” gift set with all of the social-media favourite primers, which includes the Unicorn Essence drops and the Rose Gold Elixir, in 50ml bottles for £23.

To help perfect the flawless base, Laura Mercier has put together the iconic, and one of the best powders in the industry, Translucent Loose Setting Powder, with the Foundation Primer -Radiance for glowing skin in the Prime and Set Collection, for £25.60.

You can find at Benefit the Cheek Champion Blush set for £25, which includes five shades: Dandelion, Dandelion Twinkle (a highlight shade), the famous Hoola Bronzer, Hoola Light and Dream Rush.

Benefit has The Great Brow Basics gift set in nice silver tin packing, which includes the Precisely, My Brow Pencil, The Gimme Brow gel and The Goof Proof Brow Pencil, for £32.50.

Anastasia Beverly Hills is always a good idea for any makeup lover, especially since the quality is purely amazing. They have a brow set called Power Duo (a mini dipbrow gel and the brow wiz) with which you can achieve perfect brows for £25.

Anastasia Beverly Hills also has palettes for £46 which are super pigmented and long-lasting. My personal favourite is the Sultry palette, which has 14 neutral shades and shimmer shades, with which one can create glamourous or subtle looks. You basically get the best of both worlds in one stunning palette.

Speaking of makeup palettes, Huda Beauty also has breathtaking shades in the latest collection called Nude Obsessions, retailed for £27. Depending on preferences, you can choose between Light Nude Obsessions, Medium Nude and Rich Nude. The quality is high as Huda has proven time and again – the shades blend so easily, the payoff is incredible and the fallout minimal.

Fenty Beauty has put together a limited edition gift set, the Trophy Wife Life, which includes the best-selling Killawatt Freestyle Highlighter, the Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer in the Trophy Wife shade, the Hyper-Metallic Liquid Eyeliner in a gold finish and the Hyper-Glitz Lipstick. The set is retailed for £53, comes in a patent leather makeup bag and in beautiful and sleek packaging. It is a must-have this festive season.

Sephora is one of my favourite stores in the entire world and sadly we do not have one in London but for my fellow Romanians, there are some amazing gift sets like the Too Faced Sex on the Peach lip balm and lipstick set for 58 RON.

If you are getting a gift for a lipstick lover, then you cannot go wrong with Sephora’s lip stain gift set, which includes six different shades, extremely longlasting and some of the best I have ever tried, priced at 142 RON.

Skincare

Moving on to skincare, this is a more complicated category due to all the different skin types and particular needs. However, there are some amazing gift sets in the skincare department.

L’Oreal launched a three-step set called Beauty Like a Boss Gift Set for £20. It includes The Pure Clay Glow/Detox Mask, which will leave the skin soft, cleansed and luminous, The Micellar Water for dry to normal and sensitive skin and The Miss Baby Roll Mascara for an instant lash lift.

Kiehl’s has The Ultra Facial Favourites Set for £52, which includes The Ultra Facial Cleanser (150ml), The Ultra Facial Toner (250ml), The Ultra Facial Cream (50ml) and Creme de Corps (75ml). These products will leave the skin softer and more hydrated.

Elizabeth Arden has put together a gift set called Miracle Moisturisers, featuring the famous 8-hour skin protectant cream plus the 8-hour miracle oil and the 8-hour hand treatment, for £30.

The Ordinary created The Daily Set for £15 with their top-sellers: The Squalane Cleanser (50ml) balm to remove makeup and impurities, The Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 (30ml) to keep the skin’s moisture intact and The Natural Moisturising Factors (30ml) to help hydrate the skin.

The Body Shop is known to have amazing Tea Tree products which are perfect for blemished-prone skin. They have a set called Tea Tree 123 Clearer Skin Kit for £12, which is the perfect starter for someone who might like to try the range. It includes a mini skin-clearing toner, a mini face wash and the highly-concentrated tea tree oil with will make spots vanish.

The Body Shop has another amazing skincare gift set for glowy skin, The Glow Power, which has two of the premium masks, the British Rose Plumping Mask and the Purifying Charcoal Mask, retailed for £32.

Sand & Sky created The Legend gift set with the beauty lovers’ favourite Australian Pink Clay Porefining Face Mask, for which everyone went crazy a while back, the re-usable Best Mitt to remove the face mask and the Flash Perfection Exfoliating Treatment to detox the skin. It is priced at £39.75 on beautybay.com.

Mario Badescu has a gift of the three-set iconic mists called Spritz.Mist.Glow. It includes the Cucumber And Green Tea to wake up the skin in the morning, the Aloe, Herbs And Rosewater for setting the makeup or refreshing the skin and the Aloe, Chamomile And Lavender to soothe the skin at night and it is sold for £17. I have personally bought this set for myself and also offered it as a gift twice and it was thoroughly enjoyed.

Body Care

Let’s finalise this lengthy Gift Guide with body care.

The Body Shop has lots of sets for body care in lots of scents, from fruity and floral to nutty. An amazing one, suitable for most skin types, is the Almond Milk and Honey Premium Gift Set. It has almond milk from Spain and honey from Ethiopia and most importantly, it is suitable for sensitive skin. It includes a full-size body scrub, full-size body butter, a shower gel, hand cream and a bath lily, all for £30.

Origins put together a Treat Yourself gift set with three moistuirising body souffles for £25. The body souffles are fragrance, alcohol, parabens, sulphates (and more) free and the set comes in ‘Gloomaway’ Grapefruit, ‘Ginger’ and Smoothing Souffles.

Sanctuary Spa has a nice set called Beauty Sleep Bedtime Story for just £18 and it includes the Beauty Sleep Face Mask (30ml), the drift off bath soak (75ml), the relaxing, body butter (100g), body wash (75ml) and an eye mask.

Lush offers a box of four bath bombs for £25 called Happy Christmas. They are vegan and perfect for a bath lover.

Soap and Glory is a good choice when it comes to body care and their packaging looks gorgeous! The Bag a Little Beauty gift set is retailed for £20 and comes with the Clean On Me Shower Gel (250ml), The Righteous Butter Body Butter (200ml), the Scrub Of Your Life Body Buffer (200ml), the Party Recovery Radiance-Boosting Mask, the Off Your Face 3-in-1 Daily Purifying Cloths and a toiletry bag.

Good luck with your Christmas shopping and hopefully, you will leave today a little bit more inspired.