Can Pleasant Odors Make Faces Look More Attractive, but Not Younger?

The same face can receive different attractiveness ratings depending on the pleasantness of an accompanying odor. In a 2014 study, more pleasant odors were associated with higher attractiveness ratings for a face seen just beforehand. Yet judgments of the same face’s age followed a different pattern.

The study was not simply about whether a pleasant smell makes someone look better. It examined whether olfaction contributes differently to judgments readily linked to emotional evaluation, such as attractiveness, and to estimates of age.

Varying odor pleasantness step by step, from fish-like to rose-like

Twenty-two people participated, and the analysis included 18 after four were excluded on the basis of their performance on the initial face-judgment task. The analyzed sample included 12 women and had a mean age of 25.

The odors were mixtures of a sample resembling cooked fish and a rose-like sample. The two endpoints were matched for intensity beforehand, and a separate pilot study selected five levels at approximately equal pleasantness intervals, ranging from slightly unpleasant to slightly pleasant. A distinctive feature of the design was its examination of intermediate levels rather than only two extremely pleasant and unpleasant odors.

The faces were selected from photographs of 55 women aged 35–50, yielding eight faces with neutral expressions. Each face was digitally altered at two levels in each direction, increasing or decreasing wrinkles and skin blemishes. The researchers manipulated facial changes and odor changes separately to examine how their effects combined in the ratings.

Answering after the photograph disappears, not while viewing it

Each trial began with a one-second presentation of the original face. Odor delivery started when it disappeared, and 0.4–0.6 seconds later the altered face appeared for up to two seconds. Participants quickly decided whether it looked older or younger than the original.

The face and odor presentations ended with the response. After a one-second blank interval, participants rated one of three things: the face’s attractiveness, the face’s age, or the odor’s pleasantness. The central attractiveness and age ratings thus relied on short-term memory after the image had disappeared. This differs from prolonged photographic comparisons or face-to-face conversation.

The original paper describes five selected odors but refers to six when calculating the number of trials, leaving an inconsistency in the condition count. The main results can be read from the reported analyses across pleasantness levels and comparisons between the pleasant and unpleasant sides.

More pleasant odors were associated with higher attractiveness ratings

Reducing facial wrinkles and blemishes increased attractiveness ratings. In addition, attractiveness ratings rose as odors became more pleasant. Analyses across the levels characterized both relationships as approximately linear.

There was no significant interaction between facial manipulation and odor. Within the tested range, odor pleasantness appeared to add to changes produced by visual facial cues, rather than showing a pattern in which fragrance had a particularly strong effect only on certain faces.

Age did not follow a simple pattern of younger-looking with nicer smells

Age ratings changed in line with visual information: faces manipulated to have more wrinkles and blemishes looked older. However, there was no confirmed linear effect in which more pleasant odors consistently made faces look younger or older.

Instead, an interaction showed that the effect of odor depended on the direction of facial manipulation. With the more pleasant odors, age ratings clearly distinguished faces with increased wrinkles and blemishes from those with reduced wrinkles and blemishes. With the less pleasant odors, this distinction was not clear. That differs from an overall increase in attractiveness scores.

In the initial rapid older-or-younger task, larger image manipulations improved judgment efficiency, but odor did not affect efficiency. There was also no significant effect of facial manipulation on the pleasantness of the odor itself.

Emotional evaluation versus judgments that discriminate detail

The authors interpreted attractiveness and odor pleasantness as sharing an emotional evaluative dimension, making their effects readily additive. Age judgments, by contrast, require reading facial details, a process they suggested might be disrupted when an unpleasant odor captures attention.

The study measured responses and reaction times, not brain activity or the allocation of attention directly. In addition, participants always made an older-or-younger judgment before rating attractiveness or age. The authors identified as an important limitation the possibility that this preceding task directed attention to age and selectively influenced the later age ratings.

The faces were limited to eight middle-aged women and the raters to young adults. The findings offer an example of how odor can contribute to impressions of people, but they remain far from a practical prescription that wearing perfume will make everyone look equally more attractive.

Summary

As odors became more pleasant, participants rated the previously seen women’s faces as more attractive. Age ratings, however, did not simply shift toward a younger appearance. Rather, pleasant odors were associated with a clearer distinction between faces whose wrinkles and blemishes had been increased or reduced.

Even for the same face, attractiveness and age judgments combine with odor differently. The study considered how odor affects impressions of people by examining both what is being judged and when the response is made.

Unilever provided part of the funding, and the paper lists two authors as affiliated with its research and development division at the time. It also lists support from the Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the German Research Foundation. The disclosures state that funders had no role in study design, analysis, the decision to publish, or related activities, and that there were no related patents or products in development or on the market.

Reference

Seubert J, et al. (2014). Odor Valence Linearly Modulates Attractiveness, but Not Age Assessment, of Invariant Facial Features in a Memory-Based Rating Task. PLOS ONE, 9(5), e98347. Original research article and open full text