Beauty-ful Christmas Crackers 2013

Morning all!

Today I'm talking Christmas crackers. Beauty Christmas crackers, to be precise.

Gone are the days when Christmas crackers just contained a cheap plastic toy, a paper crown, and a terrible joke. These days, there is something much more special to entertain your friends and family with on Christmas Day. Crackers filled with beauty products! That's right, beauty products! And whether you're looking for some crackers to accompany a festive meal or as a little something to treat the ladies in your life to this Christmas, I've got you covered! I hunted down all the beauty themed crackers I could find, and I've bought them all together for you in one handy post!

Let the Christmas posts commence!

Nails Inc Christmas Crackers £29.50

Let's start with my favourite of the bunch, and the one I think will appeal to all you nail polish addicts- the Nails Inc Christmas Crackers. A set of six crackers, each with a different nail polish and fashion quote inside. The nail polishes are full size and usually retail for £11+ each, so for £29 this set is excellent value- especially considering what great quality Nails Inc polishes are. There's a lovely selection of colours and effects, too. These crackers would add a touch of glamour to your festive celebrations, and I think they would be fantastic for a festive meal with the girls, for a work Christmas do or even for giving as little gifts. Oh how I want them!

Clarins Christmas Crackers £39.00

If you really want to give the girls a treat this Christmas, why not indulge a little on these Clarins beauty crackers? They come in a set of six, and each cracker features a different miniature Clarins beauty product. The sets includes: Beauty Flash Balm, Eau des Jardins, Hand & Nail Treatment Cream, Gentle Refine, Mini Rouge Eclat Lipstick and Mini Wonder Perfect Mascara. The crackers are exclusive to Selfridges for a lavish £39.00, but are sure to go down a treat with beauty loving ladies everywhere.

Autograph Beauty Crackers Gift Set, Marks and Spencers £18.00

Marks and Spencer's have also put their spin on the novelty beauty cracker with a set of six in their Autograph range. Each cracker includes a special make up product and beauty tip, including two mascaras, two lip glosses, liquid glow illuminator, and a kohl eyeliner pencil, which are also suitable for all skin types. The set is not badly priced at £18, but still more than your average box of crackers will cost you.

Floozie by Frost French Christmas Crackers £7.00

The Floozie Christmas Crackers by Frost French for Debenhams are a set of six crackers each containing vanilla bath salts, with a strawberry bath fizzer also included in the set. This set could be given as a gift, (although that would be a little boring with the same product in each cracker), or they could be used as dinner table entertainment.  The set is a friendly £7.00, and would appeal to a wide variety of ages.

Cowshed Cracking Cow Christmas Cracker £10

The Cowshed Cracking Cow Christmas Crackers (wow, that's a mouthful! Try saying that three times fast!) is a little gift set packaged as a cracker. It contains two mini bath and shower gels: Knackered Cow (I love the name!) which is a relaxing shower gel containing lavender and eucalyptus, and Grumpy Cow that is designed to revitalise. It contains mandarin and grapefruit essential oils to improve circulation and leave you feeling refreshed, which is exactly what we need during the festive season, am I right?! They're £10 a cracker, which is reasonable for a little luxurious treat, but expensive if using as a substitute to the classic Christmas cracker.

Anatomicals: A Smacker in a Cracker. £3.00

I really do love the names Anatomicals come up with for their beauty products. A Smacker in a Cracker...  a cracker that contains a minty tingling lip balm and breath freshener called Snog Me Senseless. I don't know about you, but I would be a little offended to be given  breath freshener as a Christmas present- which I'd say this is more intended for than for the Christmas dinner table- even if it did guarantee a snog from the one you love. At £3 a cracker, you could buy several and put them around the table, but I'm not sure the whole family would see the funny side.

Green and Spring Christmas Cracker £17.50

The Green and Spring cracker is another gift set packaged in a cracker, but I think it would also go down well with the girls around the dinner table (if you had the budget to splurge on a few). Sadly, I don't. The set contains three mini skincare bottles; an indulging bath and shower foam; a revitalising and refreshing body wash; and a relaxing body lotion. This set is handmade in Britain, and it's free from artificial colours, fragrances, and parabens- although, not cheap at £17.50 each.

Well, that concludes my Beauty Christmas Crackers post of 2013. The Nails Inc crackers are easily my favourite from this batch of festive loveliness, but I wouldn't decline an invitation to pull any of these babies with my loved ones this Christmas.

Have you got beauty Christmas crackers put away for this year's festivities? Do you usually stick to the traditional Christmas crackers, or do you prefer to go with something a little different? I personally love to make my own... but, we'll save that for another time.