Yazhini ManimudiWe’re being bombarded by pheromone perfumes wherever we go. They’re usually presented as some magical elixir that works magic on your dates. With dating being as difficult as it is, a bottled solution sounds very attractive. So, what do pheromone perfumes smell like? Like marketing tactics mapped out in a boardroom.
What are pheromones?
Pheromones are chemical substances secreted by the body that serve as a form of communication to others of the same species, often eliciting a certain involuntary behavior. Pheromones and correlating responses have been found in animals, but it’s still uncertain whether or not humans secrete or respond to pheromones.
What are pheromone perfumes?
That doesn’t stop the labeling of certain perfumes as ‘pheromone perfumes’ and marketing them as products that will make you irresistible to the opposite sex. They usually talk of the perfume blending with your body chemistry to produce a unique scent. The reality is that human sexuality, attraction, and mate selection behavior is much more complex than that.
The Power of Scent
Scent truly is powerful in triggering certain emotional responses. Many associate the scent of the perfume their mother wore with a feeling of love and safety. People wearing vanilla perfumes are perceived to be more warm and approachable.
Delicate florals like lilies and violets were the scent of the ideal woman only a 100 short years ago. While stronger scents like jasmine, tuberose, patchouli, and even musk were associated with women of ill repute. Nowadays, musk perfumes are advertised as pheromone perfumes. They aren’t. Musks were once derived from the sex glands of musk deers. Now they’re created synthetically for environmental protection reasons.
Once upon a time, all perfumes were unisex. Good smell just didn’t have a gender. Eventually, certain fragrances became associated with femininity and hence not masculine enough. Perfumes then became something that only women wore. Now, there’s the misconception that perfumes mean fragrances for women and cologne means fragrances for men. In reality, cologne simply refers to the concentration– 2-4% of perfume oil in alcohol.
It has been found that job applicants who wore traditionally masculine leaning perfumes to their interviews were more likely to be hired than those who wore feminine-leaning perfumes. This is because we as a society have the tendency to associate masculinity (and its scent) with traits like power, confidence, leadership, success, etc.
Perfumes and Desirability
Certain scents do elicit specific responses, but it isn’t the instantaneous, uncontrollable attraction that pheromone perfumes promise. Any success that you may have experienced wearing a pheromone perfume could be attributed to other factors. Specifically a placebo effect- your belief that your pheromone perfume is making you attractive simply makes you behave in a more confident, hence attractive manner.
Smelling good can certainly improve your chances on a date. Any good fragrance that makes you feel good about yourself. That can be your everyday fragrance or something you save for special occasions.
It’s best to avoid extremely niche perfumes with weird notes like goat hair and garlic. Well liked fragrance profiles are preferable. Freshies, woods, musks are a few safe options. But I wouldn’t completely take ambers and ouds out of the equation. It all depends on the season, where you’re going, and when you’re going.
It won’t do to wear a perfume that arrives in a room before you do. Go for something that doesn’t project too much and isn’t too strong. Something subtle that only someone in close proximity can detect. Scent is only a small part of the equation.
Yazhini Manimudi
