THE SURVEY AND GIVEAWAY ARE NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR PARTICIPATING!

It’s survey time, folks!

For the past couple of years, I’ve been running an Annual Reader Survey on the blog for all you lovely readers to tell me all about you and what you’d love to see more or less on BA. We’re almost reaching the end of the year (where did all that time go?!) and I’d love your input in helping me plan content for BA in 2016.

From the last reader survey, I’ve made several changes to the blog per your request and this time, I’d really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill in the simple survey below. You don’t have to answer every question if you don’t want to. It will help me tremendously in knowing what you like and don’t like, and for me to plan new topics for the future. BA doesn’t work without you, so your help is very much needed and appreciated.

Right, onto the survey!

Read More »

© JenkoAtaman

I remembered many years ago when Evian first came up with the idea of a facial mist. At least, back then, I thought they were the first to come up with it because so many celebrities were seen spraying their face with fancypants Evian water and all I could think of then was “gee, what a waste of good water!“. Little did I know that years later, I’d be spraying my face silly with that Evian water to stave off the summer heat!

To tell you the truth, it took me a long time to grasp the concept of a facial mist, especially the “thermal water” ones. It was hard to fathom paying that much money for a bottle of was essentially water in a can, regardless of where it came from. But as I slowly started to explore these thermal water facial mists, I realised that it wasn’t as useless as I thought. They didn’t only provide much-needed relief on warm skin on a stinking hot day, they helped keep the skin hydrated when travelling on planes too.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of facial mists and today, I thought I’d share with you the ones worth mentioning and worth checking out. They range from thermal sprays to hydrating mists.

Read More »

“I remembered the smell of ponds, the smell of jasmine, the smell of wet stones, of plum trees, kumquats and giant bamboos. It was all there, and in the ponds there were even carp steadily working towards their hundredth birthday.” — Jean-Claude Ellena

I do so love the Hermes Le Jardin perfume series. It’s such a fresh and summery collection of fragrances and if I could, I’d buy them all. This doesn’t stop me from spraying cards with the perfumes and popping them in my bag though. 😛

The Le Jardin de Monsieur Li (or in a less la-di-dah way of putting it, Mr Li’s Garden) is my latest perfume acquisition. LeGeeque was the one to who told me about the 5th fragrance in the Jardin series and she kindly gave me a sample vial to try out. It was love at first spray. She told me it reminded her of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures and I’m inclined to agree with her. It does smell similar, but with a more sophisticated air to the Pleasures. The top notes are similar, but the lingering fragrance it leaves behind after several hours is slightly richer and grassier than the sweeter, younger-smelling Pleasures.

The Le Jardin de Monsieur Li, along with the rest of the Jardin series and more, was created by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. This is his last perfume before he retires from Hermes.

Read More »