Perfumes that Attract Men and Smells which Turn Women On

Are there sure-fire ways to lure the opposite sex "by the nose", so to speak? Fragrances and colognes which produce that extraordinary feat of attracting a partner? No disclaimer should be necessary, but let's put it anyway: Sexual attraction is a complex process which relies on sublimilar as well as physical attributes and is -here's the catch- completely individualised. Even if one could argue that value or beauty have an objective facet to their basis, it's sexual attraction which escapes preconceptions, cultural lumpings together and the "golden rule", being the last individualistic frontier. Simply said, there is no golden rule in attraction. Everyone's different and not even the same person is attracted by the same thing constantly! If Tania Sanchez infamously quipped men are attracted to the smell of bacon (in order to make a point that there needs to be put an end to this "objectifying" perfume and regressing it to the status of voodoo talisman ), still it's enough to Google "perfume that..." in order to bumb into autocomplete options that heavily feature"perfume that attracts men, that men love on women, and that turns men on". But it isn't just the ladies who are doing the asking. There are also the popular autocomplete options to the phrase "what smells" which run the gamut from "what smells do guys like" and those that "turn guys on", to "what smells turn women on". Men are also searching for what women like to sniff on them. Like with words in languages, when there is a keen interest, there is a keen need for something. What is this need? A shortcut into a maze, most probably.



So let's take the suggestions by a popular webzine, YourTango.com and break them down one by one with our own comments and see if we can get out of that maze. They have nicely proposed lists for both the ladies and the gents. I suppose, if you're playing for the other team, you have to improvise a bit and expand your horizons on the perfume counter (Doesn't sound so bad!)

SMELLS WHICH TURN WOMEN ON

• Old Spice: From 1937 and with no signs of waning (witness the ingenious award-winning commercials), this is a dependable classic of lavender and citrus over spicy woodiness that even back in 1969 ads it was advertised with the tag line "Girls like it -Is there any better reason to wear Old Spice?" Careful though, lest it reminds her of her dad.

• Victoria's Secret Very Sexy for Him: I will have to take their word on it, as I haven't smelled this myself. Is it that sexy?

• Guy Laroche's Drakkar Noir: Named after a Viking ship, the definition of a chest-thumping masculine fougere, and still quit popular, decades after its release. Oddly enough it has characterised a generation of dykes who snatched it from the masculine cologne shelves in the late 1980s. Perfume and sex orientation can make for a fascinating thesis.

• Ralph Lauren Polo: There is something about this scent which smells both outdoorsy (that mossy background) and at the same time like one is doing their own laundry at home (that powdery fresh and coumarinic blast). Interestingly enough, the YourTango.com article mentions that "any Lauren scent fares well". I beg to differ.

• Aftershave: Nivea and Gillette. What do we see? The triumph of the familiar yet again. The classic aftershave "note" is one constructed on the deceptively simple axiom of the "aromatic fougere" fragrance family structure. Do I hear a stampede at the drugstore while doing the weekly shopping now?

• Laundry detergent/soap: Now you know why everything is being advertised as being "clean-smelling", like "just out of the shower" sexy etc. etc. I guess, if you're going to be doing any skin contact with any guy it's a relief to know he is at least hugienically approved. The rest of the problems are just waiting to raise their little head, but at least he's clean.

SCENTS WHICH ATTRACT & MAKE MEN DROOL

This list was inspired by the famous Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation and the findings of dr.Hirsch and yes, you can imagine I'm wielding my fist at them, spawning as they did a myriad incarnations of the same sweet swirl laced with vanilla and juvenile foodie smells on Sephora shelves, making us all smell like little bakery girls eternally putting glaze on ourselves! But I digress...Supposedly, some of these smells produce alpha-brain waves, which produce a relaxed state of mind. Or others rouse penile flow. I don't know which is worse, having someone fall asleep on your neck from nuzzling thus denying you the continuation into a promising ~fireworks!~ night, or being chased around by a rabit erection and a not-so-subtle glint in the eye? Again, I digress...So let's get down and see which smells make the cut. Ahem...anyway...

• Vanilla: Guerlain could tell some tales on that score, as they have long held it's an aphrodisiac and put it in many of their sophisticated creations. Apparently, the somewhat less sophisticated readership of Askmen.com seems to agree. Dear reader, please, if you must go the vanilla route, pick up something rich, full-bodied and reminiscent of real vanilla pods (a very complex, almost boozy smell). Yourtango.com recommends Shalimar. Excellent choice, I'd add, unless it was his grandma's scent of choice. (Success lies in the details)

• Doughnut & Black Licorice: This depended on the appex of penile flow charted. Don't be so swayed and exhaust yourself trying to find that combo in a ready-made perfume, other brave souls went there before you and returned empty handed. Demeter makes a Licorice though reminiscent of candies and as to the doughnut, get your lazy bum in the kitchen missie and make him one, already! He will be thankful.

• Pumpkin Pie: Purely a cultural breed apart. This is specifically a fond association for American born & raised men, as the dish isn't popular in other parts of the world. It is thought to be particularly effective when combined with lavender (the spices suit it). It is thought to be particularly silly to be hunting for that combination at the perfume store. Yet Bath and Body Works makes a Cinnamon Pumpkin, which might be second best choice for that thing. Also a Pumpkin Pie Paradise body lotion...

• Orange: Humble fruit, a happy smell. Euphoria is, ahem, uplifting. There are hundreds of fragrances on the market which feature a distinct orange note, from orientals like the body products line of the classic Opium to the fruity smell of Marc Jacobs Splash and Boss Orange.

• Lily of the Valley: If you are a non gourmand fragrance lover and have been exasperating reading this list, rejoice. Lily of the valley may have a demure and chaste image but as we have focused on in our previous article, it's anything but; on the contrary it attracts male sperm! Who would have thought? The classic Diorissimo coupled with something white might run the thought of your white sheets through his head. Only he will be too apprehensive of that thought and feel a little guilty, fooled by the virginal quality of the flower. Prey on it, ladies!

And you, what do you recommend? Which fragrances have been men-magnets or women-attractants in your experience?

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Romancing the Scent part 1 and part 2

Paintings by Stella Im Hultberg and Sexy by Tatinan Escobar.

The Perfume Wars: Old Lady vs Older Woman

Among perfume lovers' circles there are no other two words more despised than "old lady" perfume. Is it because often the people who love ~but also have the economic means to indulge in their passion~ are of more mature years? Is it because it connotates the worst ageism possible, an invisible one? Is it because in the en masse swiping out of "old lady" perfumes one is thus disregarding all the classics and the vintage treasures which evolving trends made obsolete? Possibly it's a combination of all of the above. And why are men left out, as usual? Are there no "old men" fragrances? And if they exist, why isn't the world paying any attention? Considering the subtextual content of language in reference to scents isn't an easy task, probably exactly because olfaction is a function that addresses the brain's limbic system rather than the rational centre of speech. Therefore a correlation between feeling produced by smell and language used to express it is hard to establish.

Some people defend the term "old lady" by saying it's vague, so it could be construed positively. And originally it was. For instance, a beloved grandmother who has a loyalty to a specific fragrance of her youth might be an old lady to emulate. I can think of at least two. After all fragrance vogues come and go: When My Sin by Lanvin launched in 1925 it was the bee's knees (it still is, if we need to be objective), a subversive scent for an emancipated woman. Miss Dior (1947) was aimed at the debutantes of the first years after WWII, hence the "miss" denomination. Now the young ones wear Miss Dior Cherie, a sweet fragrance that bears no olfactory relation to the predecessor and turn up their noses at the original. L'Eau d'Issey (1992) marked a whole generation now in their early forties; in the eyes of a modern teenager, it's terribly passé. The cyclical course of fashions accounts for the unavoidable reversion of norms and perceptions, in regards to scents as with everything else.
It could be a lack of vocabulary and imagination only: The derogatory term is easy to say and to blurb forth, without trying to come up with a phrase that describes our feelings in more precise terms that could convey nuanced meaning. Obviously the mystique of fragrance is terra incognita for many, but I am wondering whether this is an excuse for terminology laziness.

On the other hand, so very often the term "old lady smell" is used in reference not simply to obsolete or old-fashioned aromata, but rather displeasing or even repelling ones: Smells of incontinence, of "dead" hormones (very seldom detractors consider "old lady" perfumes as sexy or attractive), of lacking hygiene due to physical disabilities, smells of medicine and disease...The feeling is almost one of foreboding, a bad omen that has the evil ability to stick around and influence everyone around. "Chela Gonzalez and her friend Nora are looking forward to sixth grade in their El Paso school. They have finally been placed in the A-class, the “smart class,” which is for students who only speak English. Then Chela’s father has a stroke on the first day of school, her grandmother comes to help out, and “the air became thick with the smell of old lady perfume, of dying flowers and alcohol…. It was the smell of bad things.” Thus is constructed the central plot in Claudia Guadalupe Martinez’s debut novel for young adults "The Smell of Old Lady Perfume". No baking cookies, cuddling and fragrant kisses goodnight for this grandma and grandaughter.
A blogger further writes remarking the scent of a woman he passes by: "Perhaps this isn't a smell that old people spray themselves with. Maybe when you get past the menopause, you instantly start emitting it. Old women try to mask it with stronger fragrances, but the old lady smell keeps coming out. As they get older, the smell fades, and is replaced by the smell of old mothballs." There is even a Banning Old Lady Perfume on Facebook! And the pursuit of youth at all costs knows no (commercial) boundaries: there's a magic smell for everything!
Surely it must be a hard-wired mechanism in humans that averts us from anything that reminds us of our own mortality seeing a woman of advanced years as discarded material, an old hag. Before you pppfft it as sheer rubbish though read this: "A researcher at Shiseido Laboratories has traced the problem to a fatty acid known as palmitoleic acid. He has also learned that the body of a person up to about the age of 30 does not secrete a noticeable amount of this substance, but that once a person--whether male or female--hits 40, the volume rises sharply. The volume of palmitoleic acid released by the human body is 10 times as great among people in their seventies as in their forties."
Still, aging is a privilege; the alternative isn't as good. We might as well be a little more accepting and lenient and grow up already!

Spirited discussions ensue whenever the subject is brought up nevertheless: One perplexed 25-year old says she was told by her boyfriend "his favourite perfume is White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor" and asks for opinions on whether it's too mature for her. Before anyone playfully suggests she ditches the boyfriend, she is told instead to "try it on skin first", "its old lady, try smelling Paris hilton, Gwen Stefani, Baby phat, J-Lo, these are just a few in my collection that smell oh so good", that "it’s a little mature but it smells alright. I wouldn’t wear it until I’m like 45+", "I didn’t know they had perfume for young folks and old folks" and yes, finally that "it is marketed to an older more mature woman". Ah...the magic word: "marketed"!

But let's see the world of difference a small substitution does to the term: What if instead of "old lady" we had "older woman"? The image of a prim, conservative little commuter, grey hair in a bun and structured purse in her lap, sensible shoes and no thoughts of enjoying anything naughty is looming whenever the derogatory term is used. Is it the "little" lady in there that is so distasteful to the detractors? One of them even mentions it out of the blue as smelling like "Eau de little old lady" when talking about retro perfumes , so there must be some truth in my theory! In contrast, consider being youngish and being told you smell "like an older woman", especially if this comes from a man. Instantly the characterisation is not negative; far from it. It's "older", not old. It's "woman", a more sensuously rich term than "lady". It's all French (or Italian) films and summers spent as an exchange student someplace where a knowing woman had taught you the secrets and exasperations of adult life Mrs. Robinson-style. Who wouldn't want to be as alluring as Jacqueline Bisset? Still, the ringing-of-some-humiliation term of "cougar" has been concocted against older women going after younger men, so I'm seriously considering whether "old lady" isn't a feminist issue to begin with. It probably is.

A suitable alternative term for "old lady" perfume nevertheless hasn't been universally accepted yet. Would "retro fragrances" be a positive term to replace the "old lady" one when referring to classics & old-fashioned scents? Would "old-fashioned" do when we're talking about something that is not necessarily within our comprehension or taste? Would "displeasing" be an umbrella subjective term for the scents we don't like, forgetting the ageist tentacles which are spreading and engulfing us whenever we use the term "old lady" in a negative light?
We're taking submissions for vocabulary expansion right here as we speak: Offer your own!

pics via shadyoldlady.com and cinematicpassions.com

Does Lily of the Valley Act as a Sex Attractant?

The first molecule to challenge the notion that women smell more efficiently than men is revealed, having the dubious ~but fascinating too~ privilige of being the one which also activates OR1D2; that's the human olfactory receptor which, besides being found in the human nose, is also expressed in human sperm cells! Yes, sperm cells actually "smell" all right! The molecule is the aldehyde Bourgeonal and it smells of lily of the valley, also known and referenced as muguet. (Makes you rethink that green Ajax Fête des fleurs you've been using to mop your floor, doesn't it?)
So, do the little swimmers go straight for the dip into your lily of the valley lathered and scented, ahem, private parts? (Lily of the valley substitutes have been for long used in soap making). But before you go out of your way to also clear the shelves of your closest perfumery hall off their stock of Diorissimo and Envy, take a moment to think and appreciate the facts:

It's Bourgeonal alone which activates testicular odor receptors [Science, 2003] and not another lily of the valley aromachemical and it was one among 100 ingredients screened for receptor activation abilities. Bourgeonal just happened to be one of them, which doesn't exclude that there may be others, even more capable of the job. German scientist Hanns Hatt is nevertheless so convinced that he wrote a book (in German) touching upon it with the title: "The lily of the valley phenomenon: All about smell and how it affects our lives". (There could be hundreds of applications in either fertility or contraception products in the future, I guess, not to mention a distinct stirring of the market off the pheromones and into muguet territory! Think about that for a moment...).
The beginning of the research on sperm odour receptors predates this: "Dr. Parmentier, working with researchers in Holland and France, accidentally discovered the sperm receptors while looking for genes that help control thyroid hormones. Using a technique called polymerase chain reaction to scare out even shadows of gene activity from tissue samples, they stumbled on a family of receptor genes active in male germ cells, the precursor tissue that matures into sperm". [source]

To revert to bourgeonal, according to the snippet which I found at First Nerve, where the news was posted, "Peter Olsson and Matthias Laska at Linkőping University in Sweden have finally found a molecule that men detect at reliably lower concentrations than women. It’s an aromatic aldehyde called bourgeonal and as we shall see it’s an interesting molecule for other reasons. [...] Bourgeonal is a potent molecular signal that is critical to sperm chemotaxis, In other words, it’s what sperm use to find their way to the egg. So it makes more than a little evolutionary sense that bourgeonal detection is ramped up in men and their gametic representatives". Of course, Dr.Avery Gilbert has the right humorous tone of telling the facts, so go over and take a read.
But where does the attracting ingredient come from, biologically speaking? "Is it the egg itself, or some other part of the female reproductive tract? 'It could be that the egg is releasing an attractant that helps guide the sperm to the egg, but the problem is that we don't yet know whether, in fact, the egg is the source of that attractant,' Donner Babcock says". [source]

Searching around the Internez I found a post from Jenny van Veenen in Perfume Making back from August 2007, in which she tackles exactly bourgeonal for it sperm kinetics capabilities. The VERY interesting fact and with an especially related connection to perfumes is that "the aroma chemical 'Undecanal' (Aldehyde C-11 undecylenic, waxy/fatty/rose/citrus odor) appears to block the effect of Bourgeonal and inhibits the chemo sensory response in sperm cells. " So watch out those aldehydes if you're trying to get pregnant, you might check out the products you use or if you're trying to avoid getting pregnant you might embrace undecanal etc. A brave new world indeed.

More reading: NY Times , Health 24 and 3Sat (in German)

pic from Perfume Making

Who are we Wearing Perfume for, really?

The above question often crops on perfume discussion fora, on which lovers of fragrances often give the resounding answer "for myself". While I can very well understand and embrace this achillean confidence which aficionados display, I have come to think of it in depth and postulate that there is a grain of self-persuasion in this. How much does perception -both quantitative and qualitative- of a fragrance by our entourage affects our decisions really?

First of all there is the easier factor of the two: quantity. No one wants to go overboard and overapply fragrance. The effect is generally considered repulsive instead of attractive and lately in cubicle-space environments it has started taking a very tangible turn for a perfume anti-mania. Reading on Bella Sugar, I came across this post in which the writer contemplates how her own habit of wearing Angel might be perceived after a smelly incident of another passenger on the commute.
What was most interesting was reading the comments of readers. One of them states:

"I wear what I like, the only person I may sometimes try to please is my boyfriend".

In a way this is almost the nullification of the usual statement that we only wear something for ourselves! Because only too often our other half might not agree with our perfume choices. There is also the desire to please that significant other, thus opting to wear something for their sake or shunning something due to their dislike towards it.
Another declares:

"I wear what I like...I don't think I ever overdo it either".

This is also loaded of the consiousness that applying a little more liberally might offend, which is to be avoided. How far that is from shunning an odour as well as the amount of odour we choose to emit?
This statement is also quite revealing:

"Everyone seems to get offended or in an uproar about something these days. So I just wear what I like and do not care. I would rather smell a nice perfume on a person than their own scent after a day's work."

The persecution mania after perfume wearers has piqued the interest of Perfume Shrine before, when a real incident in Canada gave us food for thought. In a streak of rebellion against too much political correctness one might be tempted to purposely do their own thing regardless.
Additionally:

"When I wear scents its purely for the thought of making me feel good and clean and feminine. If it depended on anybody else I wouldn't wear it. I could care less about luring someone in with womanly wiles, scents, whatever."

Please note the semiotics of "good", "clean", "feminine": perfume has a very demanding task to perform! Besides, although "clean" is a more or less objective term and "feel good" is perceived by the wearer -somewhat dependent on the other attributes, one feels- the term "feminine" is filled with nuance. By its nature it is defined through comparison and juxtaposition. It's not "female", but "feminine" ~who defines what is and what is not feminine?


On Beaut.ie blog, I came across another question: whether one influences one's partner in beauty and scent choice decisions. It is another very valid consideration! One does shape the preferences of one's significant other to some degree at least. Or the old adage if one didn't click with another, the two wouldn't be together applies.

Last but not least on the list of references, on Makeupalley member Winterwheat posted a fascinating quote about whether or not to wear perfume on a job interview:

"Female applicants fared best when wearing no perfume, next best when wearing typically masculine perfume. Both male and female applicants who wore typically feminine perfume did the worst. There's a second study in the same article that looks at the moderating role of sex of interviewer, and it turns out that female interviewers will be more forgiving of female applicants with typically feminine perfume, but male interviewers will not".

~Cczesny, S., & Stahlberg, D. (2002). The influence of gender-stereotyped perfumes on leadership attribution. (European Journal of Social Psychology, 32, 815-828).

Perception and stereotypes are everything, it seems!

The matter of perfume acting as a powerful attraction amulet is rampant in folklore as well as modern pop culture. It is the most common question in discussion fora and emails. Whether there is any truth to it or not is matter for another article and it merits a lengthy discussion at that. The fact that it is accepted and thought upon by so many, however, indicates that there is a prevalent desire to subtly manipulate one’s milieu or sexual prey through the power of olfaction.
Every time we reach for something that has a perceived vibe of “old money” or being artsy we are responding to a need to assert our pedigree and good taste. When we reach for something warm, soft and cuddly we are transmitting our deeper need to be treated with tenderness and care. On those occassions when we pick the dynamo that will get us noticed across a room, we are not only secretly admitting a weakness to ourselves but tough it out through a means that is known only to us but perceptible to all. When we choose to wear something “hip”, we are secretly reverting to our high school uniform becoming a “me too” entity that is accepted for its integration capability. And last but not least, at those instants when we go for the weird and the antisocial we are marking our individual territory much like a feline who is segregating his area of dominance.

On another plane, we are also influenced by choices made for us through osmosis. There is something about peer pressue as well as its complete antithesis: differentiation among peers. They are both sides of the same coin, really: the axis is that in both cases the point of departure is the Other ~compliance or rebellion in relation to someone else.

So what is my point? That true, completely self-taken, insular decision on anything that has to do with taste is a rare thing. Almost like snow in August; even rarer, like a miracle by the Madonna of Lourdes.
The opinions we have heard, the compliments we received or the detractors we have endured, the memories we have of certain smells (and most importantly the sensory/sentimental value we have put upon them depending on the latter being pleasant or unpleasant), our eco-awareness or lack thereof, even our political decisions having to do with who we would like to give our money to, they all shape us. They all contribute in what we choose in the end.

So my theory goes than even if we love the smell of something as non-perfume-related as woodfire, this is not a pre-shaped gene that was passed on to us, nor a spontaneous decision that arose out of the blue, but a formative experience that has resulted in the manifestation of a specific sensibility.
In the words of John Donne: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main" (Meditation XVII). And no woman either, says Perfume Shrine.

Pic Ball Park Jebusite/Flickr. Pic of Clive Christian perfume courtesy of Living Scotsman.

Romancing the Scent

Love is in the air and the perennial question on what constitutes a romantically attractive fragrance and just how scents are perceived by the opposite sex.
The February 08 issue of Allure comes to the rescue, centering on fragrance and romance, as is usual in publications when St.Valentine's is around the corner. An article by Judy Bachrach, titled "Romance in a bottle", draws interesting opinions on the subject from famous people; two of which happen to be perfumers themselves: Sophia Grojsman and Chris Sheldrake. Their replies were so...what is the word I am searching for...that they merited their own commentary. Today we focus on the former.

I have never put great faith in the method via which Sophia Grojsman approaches femininity in perfume. I admit it in all honesty. Her creations from the bombastically pervading Tresor and the equally potent Eternity, to the luminous Paris, on to the oriental jam of Jaipur are so intense and extroverted sides of femininity that they register as caricatures in my mind: accentuating the characteristic traits that differentiate male from female in our perceived consious: The lush rose, the velvety peach, the intense floral sweetness...

Therefore when she suggests using baby-powder-smelling fragrances before jumping into bed (assuming it is with someone other than just your humble self!)as a nod to our subconsious limbic memory of getting our bottoms puffed with the stuff as babies and presumably associating the feeling of being loved and cared for with the aroma of baby powder, I am going a little "huh?"
First of all, because although this exact association is indeed tender but potentially anti-climatic in an amorous occassion (unless...let's not go there!). And secondly, because it has me wondering about how powder, and specifically baby powder registers in the mind of people in general and whether Grojsman is aware of this.

One of the most common complaints in the perfume arena of online discussion and reviewing boards, such as the hugely popular one in MakeupAlley, is that something smells of baby powder ~or baby wipes and similar products in general; clean ones it is assumed, mind you. The perceived image is uniformely unsexy. Still, there is a sinister trail of thought that goes into work here.

There is concern among some women who do have babies that it connotates tasks that remind them of burdening responsibilities and a period in their life when they felt unattractive. Therefore they would not associate those moments with a sexy afterthought. Understandable.

There is also the more sinister syllogism that babies and infants are off limits sexually (not that I disagree, of course), therefore finding an aroma associated with babies sexy is reminiscent of perverted pedophiles. Now being seen as a perverted pedophile -even in the context of merely favourite smells- is a stigma. You want to avoid that by all means.
This train of thought however takes one thing as a foregone conclusion: that perfume is first and foremost supposed to be sexually attractive and thus seen only in a sexually mature context (which is why lots of people object to kids donning fragrance). Ergo, if perfume is to be taken seriously, it must not smell of babies, or it is "sick".

To that opinion one might radically disagree, especially if one has a keen interest in olfaction in general.
And this is also one of the great divides between American and European sensibilities, as European advertisements do not hesitate to present talcum-scented products in appealing ways that suggest some tinge of sensuous allure. Whether that has to do with widespread pedophile circuits and infantilism, well...let's not go there. A can of worms that can't be opened with impunity.
Suffice to say that for Americans the baby powder connotation is smelling of Johnson & Johnson's citrusy, lightly floral vanilla, while for Europeans it is the orage blossom-and-light-musk of Mustela and Nenuco, as evidenced by the experience of Jean Claude Ellena.

However in typical paranoia and irony some baby powdery scents have proven to be huge bestsellers, eclipsing other scents that launched tagged as sexy. Examples of talcum-laced scents are Flower by Kenzo or Cashmere Mist by Donna Karan. Others have proclaimed their baby pedigree unashamedly, like Petits et Mamans by Bvlgari. And still some have become cult classics with their vat-of-talc odour, like Teint de Neige and Keiko Mecheri's Loukhoum. The choice is yours...



What is your opinion on this subject? I would be interested in reading your comments on this.



To be continued.....


Pic via Flickr

The experiment that puts an itchy rash on the buttocks of science

Reading through other people's thoughts and experiences sometimes reverts you to your own. I was browsing though Andy Tauer's blog, reading about how he was subjected to a series of theater commercials prior to watching "The Manchurian Candidate" and how "Axe reduces women to helpless perfume victims".

With his usual candour and grace he commented:

In a sense, Axe (=Lynx) is very honest about things. Some of us dream this dream of fragrances as a pheromone bomb. Well,…forget it. I would rather recommend (if at all) looking at fragrances as aphrodisiac. But wait, maybe I am wrong and my skin is just too cheesy to lead to an Axe effect. hmmm…I never was a perfume victim so far.

Which brought me to my own thoughts on this. I was watching the completely bonkers and terrifically entertaining British TV show "Brainiac" the other day and ~lo and behold!~ there they were trying to examine just what power olfaction has in sexual attraction. For those unfamilliar with the show (self-consiously tagged "science abuse") I have to say that they take science (proper, good old-fashioned science if you can believe it) and mix it up really well in a blender of dry wit, British sarcasm and crazy ideas that involve blowing up sausages to make a quick breakfast with pyrotechnics, using rollers and wheel armchairs equipped with carbon dioxide propellants to examine which one is faster, pub experiments that would probably earn you banishment from all pubs in the future and other similar assorted brilliant ideas. Ah...the British wit!

To revert to this particular experiment, however, it entailed this concept: one pretty girl was blindfolded and told to pick between three unknown to her candidates (specimen was more likely, but more on that later) for a date, based only on their smell. Sounds "scientific" enough (enter sarcasm), even though we're just dealing with one girl, let's not forget...
As we, the passive audience, browsed through the candidates we witnessed an ugly chap with very bad teeth (is this still prevalent in Britain, I wonder? I though it was an Austin Powers 60s touch...) drenched in synthetic pheromone (androstenone to be exact). Places to be sprayed: armpits, neck, chest and...crotch.
The second one was an otherwise likable midget who had to be placed on a stool as to not betray his being vertically challenged. He was wearing a commonly used unspecified aftershave, per the commentator.
The third one was the complete antithesis of the other two physically, as he looked as if he had stepped out of a Men's Health editorial: all bulging biceps and pecs, clean cut and shaved torso, nice looking mug, if not great. This one was directed to indulge into assorted gymnastics so he could build a good sweat (clean sweat of a recently bathed body, we presume...but no guarantees).

After this short demonstration the pretty blonde entered the scene and proceeded to sniff (but not sratch!) all of them one by one.
I know most of you are waiting wondering whom she did pick in the end.
Well, it ain't what you think it was......
The first one she proclaimed to be smelling of stale beer and quite drunk! (save those bucks, guys, on getting that miraculous pheromone!) The second one she said smelled nice. About the third one (which for some perverse reason I thought stood the most chances) she turned her nose up and proclaimed he smelled dirty. (maybe that lack of recent bath, there???)
So, imagine her surprise when they took off the blindfold to see that the exquisitely scented specimen was the midget with the common aftershave.

Axe/Lynx (the latter is the british brand name under which this circulates) must be on to something...To witness watch their hilarious sexist clips of their brilliantly conceived campaigns.
Click the screen

or go here.



or go here.


Personally I think Axe/Lynx is the stuff of the devil, olfactory speaking, but who said the Dark Prince doesn't have his own cheesy appeal?



Pic courtesy of Sakopetra.com
Clips courtesy of Youtube.