Burger King's Flame: meat-scented body spray ignites passion

The burger-maker moves into the cologne biz. What's next? French-Fry Fragrance from McDonald's? (Photo courtesy Serious Eats.)

We've all heard how olfactory research has shown men are aroused by kitchen smells like pumpkin pie and doughnuts. Now Burger King is hoping women will be equally attracted to the scent of flame-kissed burgers, with its new body spray, Flame. (I'd always thought women were supposed to get all hot and bothered by eau de underarm sweat...or maybe guys were just using that as an excuse not to shower).

In any case, the spray comes in a slim white tube with a corny "burning love" icon and looks like it's being marketed to girls who still dot their i's with hearts (it's just the right size to pop into a Caboodle). Flame is sold at Ricky's, the NYC cosmetics emporium, and according to the schnozes at Serious Eats, it smells like "a truckstop bathroom air freshener," "Lincoln logs," and "a hetero man trying to be even more hetero."

Flame is also sold online, but hold on to your stomach before you click here. The website is basically a montage of generic personal ad imagery--long walks on the beach at sunset, candles by the bath, glasses of champagne and beds of roses--set to some sort of Yanni-Kenny G. reunion tour soundtrack. Everything was so, well, "sexy." Was it just me or was the room getting warmer?

I clicked through a few photos (the bottle "sprays" and then the next scene appears), chuckling at their cheesiness, until I came upon one so creepy it stopped me cold. Let's just say it involved a mask, whipped cream, and a bearskin rug and that nothing kills the libido faster than feeling like you've clicked on a pedophile's myspace page.

Guys, if you want to get your gal hot and bothered, take my advice: skip the Flame, fire up the grill and make her dinner.


CNN fires up the New York streets with Flame.