New Spritzler-shave fragrances are guaranteed to turn your date into a libido-oozing maniac or your money back. Said T Spritz Esq, "If they identify as a woman you are going to get lucky. I'd be damn careful with this stuff...it's like lightning in a bazooka".
Young Daters Square Off With Scientists Over Whether Perfume Can Turn People On
Users of new class of ‘pheromone’ fragrances tout chemical effects; ‘like a lion on fresh meat’
By Kayla Yup, WSJ
Nov. 25, 2024 12:58 pm ET
Alannah Gayden was on a date when she decided to spice things up. While her suitor stepped away from their restaurant booth to take a call, the 26-year-old applied Pure Instinct’s Roll-On Pheromone Perfume to the inside of her wrists and her neck.
In her account, her date went wild after he returned to the table. He held her close, smelling her and telling her she was beautiful.
“Never seen a reaction like that in my life,” said Gayden, of Elizabethtown, Ky., who works in social-media marketing.
Young people, some disenchanted with dating apps and looking for new ways to connect, are giving pheromone perfumes a shot. Many of these products claim to contain synthetic versions of sex pheromones – chemicals some species naturally secrete to attract lovers – that the companies say have very real effects. The claims are debatable. Peoples’ willingness to test them is not.
Over the past two years, the number of people talking about pheromone perfume on social media surged nearly 300%, according to social media analytics company Sprout Social.
The idea is nothing new in the animal kingdom. Queen bees use pheromones to lure mates. Boars make a pheromone that seduces sows into a mating position.
But scientists say these pheromone perfumes aren’t the love potions they claim to be.
“You’re selling hope,” said Tristram Wyatt, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford who researches pheromones and animal behavior.
Pheromones are chemical signals between individuals of the same species that trigger a certain behavior. No credible study has identified chemicals that act as human sex pheromones, he said.
You might think otherwise if you search for pheromone perfumes on the internet.
A pheromone cologne from Cupid Fragrances, also known as Cupids, for example, claims it can seduce and arouse women using pheromones backed by 20 years of research. It says it includes three pheromones – androstenone, androstadienone and androstenol – found in male sweat. Pheromone perfumes marketed at women boast chemicals found in female urine and vaginal fluids.
Cupid Fragrances declined to comment.
A representative of Pure Instinct, maker of the product that Gayden used on her date, said scent can “trigger emotional and physical signals in the brain,” and those signals can impact mood, emotions and affection.
At Osswald NYC, a fragrance and skincare boutique in New York City’s Soho neighborhood, young people ask about pheromone perfumes around once a day, said Dustin Lujan, a partner at Osswald. Such inquiries have increased in the past six months.
At Osswald NYC, a fragrance and skincare boutique in New York City, young people ask about pheromone perfumes around once a day. Photo: Dustin Lujan
“Pheromones in perfumes are a myth,” he says he tells them. Osswald, who likens pheromone perfumes to a mood ring, said nothing on his shelves includes them.
The interest isn’t all that surprising—the placebo effect can make it seem like pheromone perfumes are working, said Valentina Parma of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
Much of mating and dating is based on projecting confidence, she said. If the pheromone perfumes make you feel confident, that can be attractive. But that’s not because of a chemical, she said.
Dr. Johannes Frasnelli, a professor in anatomy at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, said at higher concentrations, alleged pheromones such as androstenone can stink like a male locker room.
“Be polite to the ladies,” Frasnelli said. “That has a better effect than putting some obscure substance on your body.”
Nellie Hejdefalk, 21, a student from Malmö, Sweden, heard about pheromone perfumes on TikTok. Videos showed young men practically throwing themselves at young women who wore the perfumes. She bought one from a brand called Kakou. Kakou’s owners couldn’t be reached for comment.
She says men sat closer to her and got physical more quickly, and always complimented her smell. Sometimes it made her uncomfortable. “It was like a lion on fresh meat,” she said.
Nellie Hejdefalk says men sat closer to her and got physical more quickly when she started using a pheromone perfume. Photo: Elin Jönsson
Only one person, she said, seemed immune to its effects: her boyfriend.
The perfume’s ingredients, written in Chinese, are vague: the list includes water, ethanol and a phrase denoting fragrance oils. There’s no explicit reference to specific pheromones.
A study from Romania tested twelve perfumes that claimed to include human pheromones and found only seven actually contained synthetic human pheromones.
In 1994, a fragrance company called Erox patented fragrances containing “naturally occurring human pheromones”—specifically, two chemical classes, 16-Androstenes and Estrenes—thought to inspire sexual behavior and attraction.
This was based on a study that reported that two compounds in these classes could activate a person’s vomeronasal organ—a region in the nose other animals use to detect pheromones—Wyatt said.
Nellie Hejdefalk’s perfume from Kakou. Photo: Nellie Hejdefalk
There’s just one problem: the vomeronasal organ doesn’t work in humans.
“The thing about patents is the scientific evidence doesn’t actually have to be that strong,” Wyatt said. Erox doesn’t appear to be operating and couldn’t be reached for comment.
Frasnelli, the anatomy professor in Quebec, believes scientists are unlikely to find a sex pheromone in humans because our brains are big. It’s rare for a stimulus to elicit the same response across the board, he said. “There’s nothing stereotypical about humans,” he said.
Still, pheromone perfumes have a passionate customer base who believe they boost their chances of romance.
Gayden thinks people are nicer to her when she uses it, she said. The world treats her differently. Her perfume was a secret she never shared with the men she attracted. She did, however, get her friends and her mother, Yona Gayden, in on the hack.
Yona, 52, said the pheromone perfumes make her husband extra nice and flirty.
She bought her own mother, a single 71-year-old, a bottle of the company’s pheromone-infused perfume too.
“If you don’t try it, I think you’d be a fool,” she said.
Comments