Skims refunds £158 advent calendar: what UK buyers can claim back

Skims, the shapewear and clothing brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian, is offering customers a full refund or store credit on its Holiday 2026 accessories advent calendar after unboxing videos of its contents went viral. In the UK the calendar was priced at £158, according to the Sun and the Telegraph, against $148 in the US. The twelve doors held hair ties, bobby pins, hair clips, keyrings, a squishy logo toy and a compact mirror, and social media users compared the haul to “something you would find down the back of a sofa”, as the BBC put it.

The refund offer is voluntary, but it lands on top of rights that UK online shoppers already have. This article sets out what Skims has said, what the calendar contained, how the UK price compares with the US price and with British department store calendars, and exactly which consumer protections apply if you bought one, or if you are weighing up a different calendar before December.

What has Skims actually offered calendar buyers?

The clearest statement so far is the one Skims gave to several outlets, which the BBC quoted on 10 November. A spokesperson said that “for some, the calendar didn’t meet expectations” and that the company has “personally contacted every customer” to offer “a full refund or credit to put towards other products”. The BBC said it had contacted Skims for further comment.

IBTimes UK reports that the spokesperson first gave that statement to TODAY.com on 8 November. The same statement said customer feedback would “directly shape how we approach future releases”. It did not set out a timetable for refunds, and it did not say whether later editions would change in format or contents.

What the customer email said

The Sun, in a piece republished from News.com.au, printed the text of an email that the influencer Kayla Ryan shared after receiving it. “We wanted to reach out personally about your recent purchase of the Holiday 2026 advent calendar,” it read. “We understand the product did not meet customers’ expectations, and we are truly sorry. We want every customer to be happy with what they receive, and we fell short this time.”

According to that report, customers were offered a full refund on return of the item, with return shipping covered by the brand, or store credit as the alternative. It is worth reading the wording closely if you are a UK buyer: the refund described there depends on sending the calendar back. Store credit is an option, not an obligation, and nothing in the reported email asks a buyer to accept it instead of cash.

Has the email reached UK customers? The published emails come from creators whose purchases were reported in dollars, so they appear to relate to the US store. Skims says it contacted “every customer”, which on its face includes buyers on its UK site, but no UK outlet has yet published a copy of a UK version of the email. If you bought through the UK site and have not heard anything, the safest course is to contact Skims customer service in writing and quote your order number, rather than wait.

What was inside the £158 advent calendar?

Skims marketed the product as an accessories calendar offering “twelve days of fun surprises”. It sat in the brand’s 2026 Holiday Shop, which IBTimes UK says launched on 29 October. The BBC listed the contents door by door, and IBTimes UK’s description of the product page broadly matches it, with the detail that several doors held multi-packs.

Door	Contents (BBC list)	Detail from product description (IBTimes UK)
1	Tartan teddy bear keychain	Teddy-bear keyring
2	Hair ties	Three-pack of hair elastics
3	Hair ties	Three-pack of satin scrunchies
4	Skims logo hair clips	Three-pack of bobby pins
5	Skims logo squishy ornament	Branded squishy toy
6	Skims logo hair clips	Two-pack of clips
7	Beige elastic straps or hair bands	Two bra-elastic headbands
8	Skims logo hair clips	Three-pack of bobby pins
9	Skims logo comb keychain	Comb keyring
10	Hair ties	Three-pack of satin scrunchies
11	Skims keychain	Logo keyring
12	Furry compact mirror keychain	Faux-fur compact mirror keyring

There are small differences between the two lists in the order of the hair items, which is unsurprising given that the BBC described what was visible in unboxings and IBTimes UK paraphrased the product page. The substance is the same: no clothing, no shapewear and no beauty products, which is what many buyers of a Skims-branded calendar appear to have expected. IBTimes UK notes that the product was explicitly listed as an accessories collection.

Was the list shown before people paid?

This point matters for UK consumer law, and the reporting conflicts. IBTimes UK says the product page itemised the gifts by compartment, “giving shoppers a description of the selection before purchase”. On the other side, the Sun quotes Instagram user Henna Ali saying: “When I ordered this on 10/29 they did not have the items listed in the description.”

Both can be true if the listing was updated after launch, but shopappy has not been able to confirm the listing history. If you bought early, a screenshot of your order confirmation, or of the product page as it stood when you paid, is the best evidence of what you were promised.

Why did the calendar cause such a backlash?

The scale came from TikTok. The Sun says one unboxing by the creator wetsloppyswollen passed 61 million views, and IBTimes UK cites Entertainment Weekly as reporting about 65 million views in three days. Kayla Ryan called it the “worst advent calendar I’ve ever seen” in a video the Sun says reached 17 million views.

The comments did the rest. Viewers said the items were “basically everything that falls between my car seats”, and some accounts filmed themselves clearing out their own sofas to “recreate” the calendar, the BBC reports. The Sun’s headline quotes critics calling the product “disrespectful” and compares it to “Temu junk”.

The case for the defence. Not everyone agreed. The Sun quotes a TikTok user who argued that “an advent calendar is not the big gift”, and IBTimes UK cites The Cut reporting that the beauty influencer Glamzilla defended it as an “experience” for Skims fans rather than a set meant to deliver high monetary value. IBTimes UK also stresses that the harshest remarks were individual opinions, not independent valuations of the items.

That distinction is fair, and it is also the heart of the commercial problem. A shopper paying £158 for twelve doors is paying about £13.17 a door (shopappy calculation). Whether that feels reasonable depends entirely on what the buyer believed they were getting, and for a brand known for clothing, the gap between expectation and contents was wide.

How does the UK price compare with the US price?

The calendar was $148 on the US site. The BBC converts that to about £110, which matches today’s mid-market rate of roughly 0.745 pounds to the dollar ($148 is about £110.26 at current rates). The UK price reported by the Sun and the Telegraph was £158, so British buyers paid about £48 more than a straight currency conversion, or around 43% (shopappy calculation).

Part of that gap is tax. UK prices for consumers must include VAT, which is 20% on most goods, while US list prices are quoted before state and local sales tax. Adding 20% to the converted US price gives about £132.31, so even on a like-for-like tax basis the UK price was about £25.69 higher (shopappy calculation). Duties, shipping into the UK and local pricing strategy may account for the rest; Skims has not commented on how it sets UK prices.

Market	Reported price	Approx. in GBP	Notes
United States	$148	£110 (BBC); £110.26 at 0.745	Price before sales tax
US price plus 20% VAT	n/a	£132.31	shopappy calculation for comparison only
United Kingdom	£158	£158	Sun and Telegraph; VAT inclusive
Australia	$213 (reported by Nine)	n/a	Headline figure; currency basis not confirmed by shopappy
Canada	$276 (CBC headline)	n/a	Headline figure; may reflect resale or a different listing

The Australian and Canadian figures come from headlines and shopappy has not been able to read the underlying pages, so they are shown for context only. The UK and US prices are the ones that matter for British shoppers, and both are confirmed by more than one outlet.

How does Skims compare with UK advent calendars?

The BBC asked market researchers about the backlash. Helen Wing, head of innovation at Ipsos, told the broadcaster that people are willing to pay a bit more for an advent calendar but the contents have to justify the price tag. She used Liberty’s £285 calendar as an example of a retailer that is “very open about the value of the contents”, saying: “They will say there is over £1,000 worth of content.”

That habit of publishing a “worth” figure is standard among British beauty calendars, and it is the reference point many UK shoppers now use. The table below collects the prices and claimed values reported for 2026 by UK editorial guides including Mumsnet, ITV’s This Morning and Marie Claire UK. These are retailer or editorial claims, not independent valuations.

Calendar (2026)	Price	Claimed contents value	Claimed value per £1 spent
Liberty Beauty Advent Calendar	£285	about £1,300 (BBC quote: “over £1,000”)	about £4.56
Selfridges Beauty Advent Calendar	£250	about £1,278	about £5.11
Cult Beauty Special Edition	£245	over £1,100	about £4.49
Boots 24 Days of Luxe	£150	about £709	about £4.73
Lookfantastic Beauty Advent Calendar	£120	over £665	about £5.54
Skims Holiday 2026 accessories calendar	£158	no value figure reported	n/a

The per-pound column is shopappy arithmetic on the claimed figures. Some guides report stock as sold out or show different member prices (Mumsnet lists Liberty at £260 for its Beauty Drop members), so check the retailer before buying.

Why the comparison is not like for like. A beauty calendar’s “worth” figure is built from the full retail prices of the products inside, many of which are sold separately. Skims’s calendar held branded accessories that are not sold as stand-alone products at stated prices, so there is no obvious way to calculate a comparable figure. That is part of why the reaction was so sharp: buyers had nothing to anchor the £158 against except their own sense of what hair ties cost.

It is also a reminder that a big “worth” number is a marketing claim. UK law requires price and value claims to be truthful and not misleading, and regulators have spent the past year warning retailers about inflated reference prices, as shopappy reported in its coverage of fake countdown deals in the early Black Friday sales. A “worth £1,300” claim is only as reliable as the prices behind it.

What are your UK rights if you bought one online?

Skims’s offer is a goodwill gesture, but UK shoppers do not need to rely on goodwill. If you bought from the UK website, three layers of protection may apply, and they are independent of whatever Skims decides to do.

The 14-day cancellation right

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give anyone who buys goods online in the UK the right to cancel within 14 days of receiving them, for any reason or none. You must tell the seller you are cancelling, then return the goods within a further 14 days. The trader must refund within 14 days of getting the goods back, or of receiving evidence that you have sent them.

The refund must cover the price and the standard outbound delivery charge. You may be asked to pay the return postage unless the trader has agreed to cover it, and the Skims email shared online says it will. If the trader failed to tell you about your cancellation rights before you bought, the cancellation period can be extended by up to 12 months.

Does opening the doors cancel that right?

Opening a product to see what it is does not by itself remove the right to cancel. The regulations allow a trader to deduct an amount for “diminished value” only where the goods have been handled beyond what is necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and functioning, which is the same test you would apply in a shop. With an advent calendar, opening the doors is arguably the only way to establish what you bought.

There is an exception for sealed goods that are not suitable for return for health protection or hygiene reasons once unsealed, which some sellers apply to items such as earrings or cosmetics. Whether hair ties and scrunchies fall within it is open to argument, and it would only bite if Skims sought to rely on it. Its public offer of a full refund suggests it is not trying to.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015

Separately from cancellation, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires goods to be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. Information given before purchase, including a product description on the website, forms part of the contract. If what arrived did not match what was described when you bought, you have a short-term right to reject the goods for a full refund within 30 days of delivery.

This is where the conflicting accounts of the product page matter. If the listing itemised the doors when you bought, it will be hard to argue the contents were not as described, however disappointing they were. If, as one buyer claims, the list was missing at the time of purchase, the case rests on whatever the page did promise, such as the “twelve days of fun surprises” wording. Disappointment alone is not a breach of the Act; a mismatch with the description is.

Can you claim on your card instead?

If Skims’s own process fails, your card issuer is the next route. Which route applies depends on how you paid.

Route	When it applies	What you need	Applies to a £158 calendar?
Skims voluntary offer	Any buyer contacted by Skims	Accept the offer and return the item	Yes, per the company statement
14-day cancellation (CCRs 2013)	Online and phone purchases from a trader	Notice within 14 days of delivery	Yes, if bought online in the UK and in time
Short-term right to reject (CRA 2015)	Goods faulty or not as described	Evidence of the description and the mismatch	Only if the contents did not match the listing
Section 75, Consumer Credit Act 1974	Credit card, single item over £100 and up to £30,000	A breach of contract or misrepresentation claim against the seller	Yes on price; needs a valid underlying claim
Chargeback	Debit card, credit card and some other cards	Request through your bank, usually within 120 days	Possible; a scheme rule, not a legal right

Section 75 makes the credit card provider jointly liable with the retailer for a breach of contract or misrepresentation, but only where the item costs more than £100 and no more than £30,000. At £158 the Skims calendar clears the threshold, which most advent calendars under £100 would not. It is not a “changed my mind” route: you would need a genuine claim that the goods were misdescribed or not delivered as promised.

Chargeback is run by the card schemes rather than set in law, and banks tend to expect you to have tried the seller first. If you paid with a buy now, pay later product, check its own dispute process; the protections differ by provider.

Did Skims break any UK rules?

On the evidence published so far, there is no suggestion that any regulator is looking at the calendar, and shopappy is not alleging that Skims broke UK law. A product that disappoints is not the same thing as a product that was mis-sold, and Skims has moved quickly to offer refunds.

The wider framework is still worth knowing. Since 6 April 2025, the unfair commercial practices rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have let the Competition and Markets Authority decide for itself whether consumer law has been broken and impose fines of up to 10% of a business’s global turnover. Misleading actions and omissions about the main characteristics of a product are squarely within those rules, which is one reason British retailers have become more careful about value claims and pricing presentation. The CMA has been using those powers on pricing, as shopappy reported when the regulator warned online shops that the first price shown must be the total.

The Skims case also shows how quickly a social media verdict can force a commercial response. The company had a refund offer out within days of the first viral unboxing, without any regulator getting involved, because the reputational cost was larger than the revenue from the calendar.

What does the episode say about UK advent calendar buying?

Advent calendars are now a significant seasonal category in their own right, spanning chocolate, beauty, toys, alcohol, jewellery and, increasingly, fashion brands. The BBC reports Ipsos’s view that “the buzz around them has reduced a little bit”, while price and value scrutiny has grown.

Kate Vlietstra, senior director of food and drink at Mintel, told the BBC that the backlash was “something we have been seeing a bit more in recent years, particularly with the trend for unboxing on social media”. Her point was that unboxing culture turns every calendar into a public value test: “if people are not feeling they’re getting the value that they have hoped for… then yes, there is going to be a backlash.”

Unboxing as a buying signal. For younger shoppers in particular, TikTok and Instagram are now where many purchase decisions are made and unmade. shopappy has looked at how Gen Z uses TikTok as a product search engine, and the Skims calendar is a clear example of the flip side: the same platforms that sell a product can sink it within a week.

For British brands planning their own calendars, the lesson looks simple. Publish the contents in full before sale, give buyers a way to judge value, and price for the UK market in a way you are prepared to defend. For shoppers, the lesson is to look for the full contents list and do the per-door arithmetic before paying.

What should you do now if you bought one?

If you bought the calendar from Skims’s UK site, these are the practical steps, in order.

1. Check your inbox and spam folder for an email from Skims about the Holiday 2026 advent calendar. If it offers a refund on return, follow its instructions and keep proof of postage.
2. If you have not been contacted, write to Skims through its customer service channel, quoting your order number, and ask for the refund the company has said it is offering. Ask for cash rather than credit if that is what you want.
3. If you are within 14 days of delivery, state that you are cancelling under the Consumer Contracts Regulations as well. This sets a legal clock running regardless of the goodwill offer.
4. Keep everything: the order confirmation, screenshots of the product page, the box and all twelve items. A return usually needs the goods back in a reasonable condition.
5. Escalate to your card provider if a refund you are owed does not arrive within 14 days of Skims receiving the return. Mention Section 75 if you paid by credit card and have a misdescription claim.

Timing matters as December approaches, because returns compete with Christmas parcels for space in the network. If you are sending the calendar back by post, check Royal Mail’s Christmas 2026 last posting dates and get proof of postage, since a refund clock usually starts when the retailer receives the item or evidence that you have sent it.

If you are still choosing a calendar. Look for three things: a full door-by-door contents list, a clear statement of how many items are full size, and the price per door. A calendar that lists a “worth” figure should also make it possible to check the products behind it. The same discipline applies to other seasonal treats, where shopappy has found that price per 100g tells you more than the headline tub price.

What happens next?

Several questions remain open. Skims has not said how many calendars it sold, whether UK customers have received the same email as US buyers, or how long refunds will take. Availability is unclear too: IBTimes UK reports that E! News saw the US listing marked as waitlisted on 9 November, that The Cut said the listing had been removed, and that the UK website was showing a waitlist option. The Sun says the item is listed as sold out.

The company’s valuation puts the episode in proportion. The BBC reports that Skims was valued at $5bn in 2025 when it raised new funding, about £3.7bn at current rates. A refund on a single seasonal product will barely register in those terms, but the brand’s response suggests it takes the reputational damage seriously, and its statement that feedback will “directly shape” future releases implies another calendar is likely next year.

For UK shoppers the practical takeaway is that a viral backlash produced a quick refund offer, but the legal rights underneath it exist whether or not a brand trends on TikTok. If you are unhappy with any calendar bought online this season, the 14-day cancellation window is your first and strongest tool.

Frequently asked questions

Is Skims giving refunds for its advent calendar in the UK?

Skims says it has “personally contacted every customer” to offer a full refund or credit towards other products, according to a spokesperson quoted by the BBC. The company has not separately confirmed the UK process, so UK buyers who have not been contacted should email Skims with their order number.

How much was the Skims advent calendar in the UK?

The Sun and the Telegraph report a UK price of £158. The US price was $148, which the BBC converts to about £110. Even after adding 20% VAT to the converted US price, the UK price was about £26 higher.

What was in the Skims advent calendar?

Twelve doors containing hair ties, satin scrunchies, bobby pins, hair clips, two bra-elastic headbands, a branded squishy toy, a teddy bear keyring, a comb keyring, a logo keyring and a faux-fur compact mirror keyring. There was no clothing or shapewear.

Do I have to return the calendar to get my money back?

The customer email shared online says the full refund is given on return of the item, with return shipping paid by Skims, or you can choose store credit. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations a refund after cancellation also normally depends on returning the goods.

Can I return an advent calendar after opening the doors?

Generally yes, within 14 days of delivery for online purchases, because opening a product to see what it is does not by itself remove the cancellation right. A retailer can only deduct for diminished value if you handled the goods more than was necessary, and a narrow exception exists for sealed hygiene goods once unsealed.

Does Section 75 cover the Skims advent calendar?

The £158 price is above the £100 single-item threshold, so a credit card purchase can qualify. You still need a valid claim for breach of contract or misrepresentation, such as goods not matching their description; disappointment alone is not enough.

Which UK advent calendars publish a contents value?

Most beauty calendars do. For 2026, UK guides report Liberty at £285 (worth about £1,300), Selfridges at £250 (about £1,278), Boots 24 Days of Luxe at £150 (about £709) and Lookfantastic at £120 (over £665). These are retailer or editorial claims rather than independent valuations.

Is store credit better than a refund?

Only if you plan to spend it with the same brand. A cash refund keeps your options open, and nothing in the reported Skims offer requires you to take credit instead of your money back.