Be Fragrant or Flounder

By Alex Allen

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I've always considered Boots to be the kind of shop you go in to when you need something rather than when you want something. Toothpaste, shampoo, Listerine, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, girls don't think that. To them, Boots is like Maplin is to some men. Women just see an endless sea of black leads that all do pretty much the same thing. Men see opportunities! They see a way of connecting their surround sound to their Playstation. In much the same way, men think that everything in Boots will basically make women smell 'nice', and that everything really smells like coconut, however much you have to smell everything your girlfriend buys and convey some sense that you can tell the difference. Women disagree, in fact, there is always something in Boots that they need to go in for. Even on Boxing Day they will need chap stick.

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Christmas is a bad in this way, there's a good chance you'll get pulled in to Boots a lot. Women like to buy presents for other women, even women they don't really know very well. They like to get involved in things like Secret Santa's, where they are all going to give each other one of two things; either a reasonably priced bath set from Boots, or some reasonably priced jewellery from Accessorize. What I noticed on my last enforced Boots visit, are the words that have now become commonplace in health and beauty products. Mango body butter, for instance. What are these women doing, basting themselves? That does not sound like something I would be prepared to pay £3.95 for, it doesn't exactly promote a pleasurable experience. You can also buy something called a 'lipcare plumping kit'. Again, is this something we really want to do to our lips? Does this seem wise? It sounds like a dreadful botox disaster you'd see on some sort of Tuesday evening Channel 4 documentary. Yet this present buying doesn't work both ways. Rarely does man receive that token HDMI cable from a male work colleague, or a scart lead from a well meaning flatmate, this is entirely a female phenomenon

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Of course, in writing this, I seem to be suggesting that men don't own bath or shower products. That's not true, we do. But we never actually buy any of them. Even though every man in the country receives the same Lynx show gel set every year, we never have any idea where it has come from. We always have shower gel, we're not animals, but it just, sort, of, appears. On Christmas Day, the man opens his presents, takes them back to his room and organises his pile of bathroom products that will last him until the next Christmas Day. Currently in my possession are one Lynx shower gel set (a present), various Hugo Boss shower bath products (free from work), Calvin Klein IN2U aftershave (another present), and various other items, all of which were gifts. Man would never go in to Boots voluntarily, peruse the bath and shower section, and then conclude that he would like to own products from the new David and Victoria Beckham range, it just wouldn't happen! These brands survive entirely on parents with good intentions thinking 'that David Beckham is very popular, isn't he?', and that, is how Boots went from a shop that sells soap, to one that sells the aspirational dream of complete and total coconut enhanced cleanliness.