There is an article, more of a blurb really, in today's Press Democrat that supports about half of what I already believe about personal scent. According to a study done at UC Berkeley, "A chemical in male sweat can boost mood, brain activity and sexual arousal in heterosexual women…"
I realize that science has a compulsion to take perfectly logical ideas and prove them, but all they had to do was ask any woman who loves the way a man smells, and they possibly could have saved some money. And the scientists who conducted the study didn't even let the women really smell the "guys." Women were instead instructed to take 20 whiffs of a chemical with a hugely romantic name, androstadienone, from a bottle and then had their vitals checked. The chemical is a compound "found in male perspiration and other bodily secretions." Lovely.
I once had a crush on a guy who always showed up at the bar we were hanging out in after work smelling like he had been working all day. He had B.O. It was borderline unpleasant, but it still turned me on. There was something about him that really got me all hot and bothered sitting next to him, his androstadienone wafting off his torso and drifting toward me in my chair. I found myself leaning in toward him and inhaling deeply. It reminded me a bit of a food that on first taste isn't great, but once you chew on it awhile and let the inner flavors permeate your taste buds, it is really great and you forgot that the first taste wasn't so great. Come to think of it most alcohol is like that as well. The bitter or biting taste of the fermented grain or grapes that precedes the warmth spreading down your body as the first sip makes its way into your system eventually starts to taste good because you associate it with a pleasant feeling. That is how this guy smelled to me, I got used to the unpleasant outer shell of his end-of-the-day scent because embedded in each scent molecule was some chemical that made my heart race, dilated my capillaries and got my juices flowing.
Conversely, I have seen this phenomenon have the reverse affect on a heterosexual male. My fifteen-year-old daughter went to the movies with a new boyfriend. My hubby and I liked him fine, we had met him and spent a bit of time with him. We weren't eyeing him as potential son-in-law material, but basically he was okay. We offered to give him a ride the few blocks from the movie theater when we came to take the daughter home from the movies, to the restaurant where his parent was waiting and would take him home. As soon as the kids were inside and the car door closed, his scent filled the car. I looked over my shoulder at him in the backseat with my daughter, they weren't even touching, just smiling and chatting. But boy, did he smell great. Whatever he was wearing filled the car. Wow. As covertly as I could, I inhaled deeply and thought briefly about Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson. This kid was much cuter than Dustin Hoffman.
He was only in the car a few minutes, we let him out, the kids said a quick goodbye, he thanked us for the ride and sauntered off as we pulled away from the curb. The usual parent-child chit chat ensued.
I said "Boy, Joe sure smelled good, what was he wearing?" Whatever cologne that was, I imagined, was rivaling Ralph Lauren's Polo from my youth.
To which my daughter replied, "He wasn't wearing anything."
"He sure smelled good."
"Yeah he did."
To which my husband responded, "I thought he was just irritating."
What? Mother and daughter were stunned. What had this kid done to irritate Dad? He had said almost nothing, but not in a surly, dark teen kind of way. He's just kinda shy around adults and was making small talk with the daughter. He hadn't done anything overt to irritate Dad, just being in the car made Dad feel annoyed and irritated. Could you smell him? No. Didn't smell a thing. Ah. The androstadienone was a welcome addition to the car air for us girls, but for the man, it was all about irritation.
Those silly pheromones!
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