Skims is offering refunds on its $148 advent calendar after a TikTok unboxing pulled in 65 million views in three days.
The November 6 video came from creator @wetsloppyswollen, who opened a teddy bear keychain, hair ties and satin scrunchies along the way. Day four and day eight were both bobby pins. Other shoppers posted their own unboxings, beauty creator Kayla Ryan called the box "terrible" to her 1.6 million followers, and some creators lined it up against calendars from P. Louise and H&M. By November 8 the brand was offering refunds. A Skims representative said the calendar "didn't meet expectations" and that the company had contacted every buyer. Customers can return it for a full refund or keep it and take store credit.
The contents were not hidden. When the calendar launched on October 29, the product page showed what sat behind each door: seven days of hair accessories, four keychains (one with a comb, one a fuzzy compact mirror) and a Skims squishy. The original product URL now redirects to the brand's accessories page, and the calendar appears to be sold out.
That last detail matters. Plenty of buyers and fans defended the box as a fan item, and one X user noted it was labeled as an accessories calendar. So the problem was less disclosure than arithmetic: $148 across 12 doors comes to roughly $12 a day, and a video that opens every door lets viewers judge each one in seconds.
An advent calendar is a surprise product, and the surprise is where value is supposed to live. A repeated pair of bobby pins undercuts it. A box that moves fast on a launch page can look very different once strangers have opened it on camera, and Skims is now finding out what the refunds cost against a sellout.