The power of scent

Hey world, So this is my first post. Here goes. Hope you enjoy.

These days, body odour is something most people shy away from. Just taking a walk around the cosmetics section of any supermarket and you’ll be overwhelmed by the abundance of deodorants that all claim to combat sweat and keep you smelling fresh for even up to 72 hours. If this actually truly works we’ll never know but when you look at the perfume industry, and the various products all offering to give you the smell of sophistication, fun, mystery or any other random buzz word they can come up with and you can understand why the way we smell is so important in society. To put it simply, there is a lot of money in scent.

However, it is thought that these perfume companies might be getting it wrong. Instead of masking our odour, enhancing our natural odour or elements of it in order to attract member of the opposite sex is something that is being researched. As well as the obvious body odour that we all associate with heavy exercise or stress, like mammals in the wild we all have a unique scent that we may not be aware of but those outside of house are. This distinctive scent has subconscious effects on not only the opposite sex but everyone we come into contact with in our day to day lives. Our sense of smell is extremely sensitive, more so the female sense of smell than males and it is thought that our noses can even decode messages in other people’s odours. Recent research suggests that the scents we make could relay information about our personalities. But why would perfume companies be interested in our body scents?

Research has found that women prefer the smell of dominant men, especially during the most fertile stage of their menstrual cycle. Dominance is seen as an attractive characteristic as it could be linked to higher levels of testosterone and the ability of the man to provide and protect offspring. Men however find women more attractive during ovulation and least attractive during menstruation. These are very subtle scents, yet they can be picked up by men. If perfume manufacturers are able to determine and isolate the natural compounds that make men more attractive to women and vice versa, these could be added to women’s perfumes or men’s aftershaves. To find more click on this link.

Nowadays, our natural inclination is to hide our natural scent. These artificial scents have a profound influence on our behaviour and how other people perceive us. It is thought that we feel more confident and more attractive with artificial fragrances as opposed to our own natural scent. Socially it is not acceptable to smell of body odour, but to those who are concerned with attracting the opposite sex with their grooming habits perhaps going au natural might be the way forward. But clean au natural, there is a difference. In the words of Jill Scott, your scent is exclusive

Please share the knowledge 🙂


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