Make Christmas lunch a beauty feast this year with these perfect Christmas crackers

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Christmas crackers are a joy at the best of times with their pretty packaging and simple jokes. But imagine the excitement if you were to find a luxury mascara or expensive perfume falling into your lap at Christmas lunch instead of that fortune telling fish?

Thankfully, beauty companies have got in the festive spirit this year with a handful producing their own crackers for Christmas. Top of our wish lists is Jo Malone’s Christmas Cracker, which is filled with a mini Pomegranate Noir Body and Hand Wash, a Lime Basil and Mandarin Cologne and Orange Blossom Body Creme, priced at £28 (unfortunately this is sold out online but if you hurry they are still available in boutiques; www.jomalone.com).

For a stocking filler, we love Cowshed’s Cracking Cow which contains a mini Wild Cow Invigorating Shower Gel plus a Knackered Cow Body Lotion, £10 (www.cowshed.com).

But to spread joy amongst even the most fraught mothers/wives/girlfriends/daughters this Christmas lunch, bring out a set of Lancome’s Christmas Crackers, £50 for 6, which contain samples of Lancome’s Visionnaire, Genifique, Hynose Mascara, L'Absolu Rouge Lipstick, Juicy Tubes and Bi-Facil. Guaranteed beauty hysteria.