Does perfume make you more attractive?

If you're like many women, you've spritzed on perfume before going out. But have you ever wondered what that sweet scent is really doing for you? Sniff out the science and stereotypes behind perfume in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom Never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hey there, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. And Kristen. Um, I

(00:21):
think it's my turn to share a slightly embarrassing anecdote
with you. Yeah. So this um takes us back to
sixth grade awkward time. Awkward time and uh, sixth grade
camping trip and a bunch of girls kind of hanging
out not talking to the boys, of course because that
would be too awkward. And uh, I lent one of
my friends a sweatshirt. She didn't have one and it

(00:41):
was cold, and so I gave her the sweatshirt and
she put it on. She's like, oh, it smells like you.
And I sort of like like soap, like, you know,
like a clean person, and she was like, no, like
fake strawberries. Um, because at the time, I wore a
a split sir that was strawberry flavored. Given to some
body splash, it might have been I wore a lot

(01:01):
of those in sixth grade. Two, Um, it was not.
The higher scale body splash has put out by such
um brands as Victoria's Secret or you know, Body Shop
is more like a you know, like a kid's body
spray that smelt like strawberries. And at that point I
stopped wearing it because I didn't want to smell like
fake strawberries. You just smell like melted lollipop. So I

(01:23):
think she meant it smelled like sugar. And uh, that
was far of my first um introduction to the fact
that perfume is a distinctive thing that can mark your
scent in the world, and I did not want to
smell like fake fruit. Yeah. I think everyone has had
some kind of experience where they put on a scent
that just turns somebody off, whether that Sky Girl whoever.

(01:48):
Because yeah, I mean with perfume, you either like it
or you hate it. Yeah, but it did make me
question if that's why I wasn't talking to the boys
on that sixth grade field trip that they weren't into
strawberry lollipop, went into strawberry Lolli pops. And you know,
it's good to learn that lesson early because as we
learned in researching this question, and does perfume make you
more attractive? It basically does, right, um. But I think

(02:13):
before we go any further, we have to point out
that there is no scientific evidence that perfume can have
some kind of aphrodisiac effect. I love those perfumes that
are advertised to have some kind of creepy animal hormone
in them that's supposed to make someone of the opposite
sex or whoever you want, um flock to you. Yes,

(02:36):
as a portrayed in the movie Anchorman, Yes we'll. Even
though there's no such thing as an aphrodisiac perfume, there
is a definite connection between scent and attraction, especially for women,
because women actually have slightly more fine tuned senses of
smell than men, and some researchers think that this is

(02:58):
all part of are animalistic mating rituals. Tell me more
in need, there was a study conducted at the University
of Lusine testing whether or not women could be attracted
solely by scent and sort of how how all of
that works. And what they did was they gave men
a single T shirt to wear, and they asked them,

(03:20):
while they were wearing it for an extended period of time,
to not use any sort of scented soaps or deodorants
or cologne so that they could just get fully absorbed
with their natural body odors. Delicious, right, So then they
gave the women just the shirts, no pictures of the
men or anything like that. They just gave the women

(03:42):
the shirts to smell. And they found that the sense
that the women were most attracted to correlated with the
men who were the most genetically dissimilar from them. And
they think that it's because women are biologically attuned toiffing
out men who are more genetically different so that they
can have more successful offspring. Interesting because that is completely

(04:07):
counter to how perfume is marketed to women. Basically, what
Kristen saying is that women just need the natural scent
of about, you know, if there's gonna be reproductive success.
But women are told and have been told throughout history,
which we'll go over that, um, they need perfume to
be attractive to men at all, I guess because men

(04:28):
don't have those supersensors and can't tell for themselves who
they need to mate with. I guess. So well, all right,
so Molly, why don't we talk about what perfume is exactly?
We know that it's usually a liquid. You spray it
on you. But what is inside of it that makes
it smell so delicious or revolting to some people. It's
got alcohol, water and molecules would evaporate a room temperature,

(04:51):
and that's it. Yeah. The molecules are what provide the
smell um and as you may know, they're sort of
different levels of how much smell you're going to get
in a bottle. Right. Uh, the most concentrated amount of
perfume oil is going to be referred to as perfume, okay,
and then it goes down to oda, cologne and body

(05:13):
sprays like your strawberry body sprays that have the least
amount of perfume oil. So that's why you have the
different designations of um like perfume. Ode to part from
I am, I do not speak French, Milly. I feel
kind of silly trying. I'm really enjoying try and do this,
but um, the point is, just because you're wearing a
perfume doesn't mean you're wearing like the cheap stuff, the

(05:34):
stuff with less concentration in it. That's actually what you
have to do to kind of get the actual good
smell out of all these molecules. Yeah, because perfume is
designed to release in different stages. First, you have the uh,
you've got the top notes that will evaporate in the
first fifteen minutes, like when you first spray some perfume

(05:54):
and you immediately smell yourself that those are the top
notes being released. And then after three to four hours,
the heart notes, those those deeper, deeper molecules are then released.
And then finally you've got the bass notes that will
stick around after five to eight hours of application, that
are really the essence of the perfume. That's the stuff.

(06:15):
It's just it's going to stick around on your on
your sweatshirt. Yeah. And so the next time you get
a boll perfume, treat it like a wine and impress
all your friends by talking about bass notes and heart notes. Yeah.
So I love the hard notes in your your new cologne. Um.
But one thing that I thought was interesting, Mollie, was
that after the top notes evaporate, perfume smells the same

(06:35):
on everybody. Yeah. That's kind of interesting, Yeah, because I
thought that we picked different perfumes because you know, they
they'll smell different. My perfume will smell differently on you.
But maybe it's just because our sense of smell is different,
not necessarily the way the perfume is released. Yeah, people
have been looking at the psychology of why women even
wear perfume, So there is this question of whether the

(06:56):
perfume like is kind of genetically ingrained with odor receptors
or if it's more you know, you start to learn
what smells good to you. Because their scent is so individualized,
there's no one scent that researchers have been able to
find that every culture enjoys. So let's just talk about
maybe the differences between why men and women might wear perfume.

(07:20):
According to the book The Scent of Desire, Discovering Our
Enigmatic Sense of Smell. Um, men wear cologne to attract women.
If anyone has ever seen a commercial for ax body spray,
I think that marketers have definitely tapped into a to
that to that reason behind it. And then older men
supposedly do it out of gratitude to the women who

(07:41):
gave them their cologne, which okay, I guess as long
as they like it beforehand. But women, on the other hand,
UM where it for a little bit different reasons. Supposedly,
women in their twenties like me and Molly are inspired
by the media to where we see Jessica Simpson or
Britney Spears or insert your favorite pop icon advertising different

(08:04):
types of perfumes and we're like, oh, well, pretty Spears,
where's that kind of her? Female do it too? Yeah,
And I think that's why the last time people want
to emulate all of Britney's behavior. But it's an idea,
but maybe some people like it. But by our forties,
supposedly women are wearing fragrances just because we like it.
We found something for me. It is Chanelle Chance that

(08:24):
we like. Even though I'm not forty, I guess I'm
ahead of my time. Um. And then by sixty women
where the things that they think other people like, usually
like their daughters or other family members really enjoy. But
you know, it wasn't always that way. Kristen, I was
reading a really interesting article in the journal pop Culture
that kind of evaluated perfume over time and how it's

(08:47):
been marketed to women at different times. And um, it
was talking about how in the nineteenth century, when women
were very much living, um, in a domestic sphere, serving husbands,
raising children. Um, you had to be very modest and
you couldn't wear much of a sent at all. It
was sort of associated with prostitutes to be wearing a

(09:08):
cent And it wasn't until the nineteen forties when um,
you know, the men went off to Warren had pin
ups of girls that um, it was kind of a
good thing in society to be uh an alluring female,
and so that was why it started to become more
and more acceptable that you could wear perfume to allure
a man. Well, that makes sense because almost any perfume

(09:30):
that you'll see has some element of sex in it.
Either the woman just has a come hither look in
her eyes, or she's rubbing up on another man or something.
There's a very sensual aspect to perfume and marketing, probably
because it can become sort of a part of your identity.
But you know, in the nineteen fifties things haven't progressed

(09:50):
for women that much. Your identity is still you know,
as a good housewife. So all the ads of that
time we're just about like this perfume will please your
man where it and men had none of those responsibilities.
And then it's not until the nineteen seventies when we've
got a lot of um, women's live feminist stuff going on,
that perfume became kind of a lifestyle choice. You can

(10:10):
wear this because you know you're making a choice for
you how you want to smell interesting. Um. Well, it's
kind of funny that this marketing is really just linked
to attraction and sexuality and all of that, because some
psychologists think that deodorant and perfume and all of these
things that were supposedly need to have to make ourselves

(10:32):
look and feel more attractive, has diminished women's capabilities of
sniffing out a good mate. Oh dear, Yeah, so maybe
we're actually shooting ourselves on in the foot by dausing you,
by shooting ourselves with perfume exactly, Molly, So you know,
think twice before you're putting on the perfume. Don't a
scare away potential mates. Yeah, but I will give a

(10:55):
slight tip to all our mothers out there. I was
reading that, Um, if your favorite perfume is one that's
very similar to one your mom used to wear, that
is because you know, sense do bring back emotions, and
women often choose to smell like their mothers to bring back,
you know, the presence of their mother, even when they're
not there, right, Molly. And just like your friend who

(11:15):
knew you in sixth grade as her friend who smelled
like frosted strawberries, um, it really does stick around with you. Yeah,
I'm always going to be known as the strawberry Girl.
Too bad, Molly Ben. But if you want to learn
more about smells and how perfume works, then head on
over to how stuff works dot com. And if you
have any questions or comments for me or Molly, you

(11:36):
can email us at mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
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