I remember meeting my freshman-year roommate on the very first day of college. When our parents had departed and we stood alone in the room, her first full sentence to me was, “Do you have a boyfriend?” What a strange way to begin a conversation and a potential friendship, I thought. I had just finished painstakingly arranging my half of the room. Why didn’t she ask me about my books, my posters, my music collection? Why didn’t she ask me, better yet, about myself?

My initial reaction to Kate Walsh Boyfriend was similar. Boyfriend, whose tagline is “Wear Him,” is intended “to capture the scent of a guy on a girl: a man’s cologne mixed with perfume, the smell that lingers on the skin.” But why would I want a perfume that makes me smell like some imaginary male companion, particularly in a scenario written like a romance novel? (“She inhales his shirt, taking in the scent of the man she loves. It lingers on her clothes, her sheets, her hair—all over. Imprinted on her body and in her mind, it radiates within her, filling her with feelings of warmth and desire.”) And why would I want to own and display a perfume bottle marked with various masculine first names? Are they meant to signify past boyfriends? Or am I supposed to find my real-life companion’s name on the list? (My husband’s name is there, for the record. But what if it weren’t?)

Boyfriend’s notes are listed as dark plum, myrrh, night blooming jasmine, benzoin tears, skin musk, golden amber and vanilla woods. That list didn’t really raise my expectations — those “ingredients” have all appeared many times before, even in combination — but the fragrance itself did make me sit up and take notice…

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