The same perfume can seem different when you wear it yourself and when someone else wears it. Individual differences in perfume preferences may not be explained entirely by liking for the scent inside the bottle.
In 2012, Pavlína Lenochová and colleagues at Charles University published three experiments in which women evaluated men’s body odors with fragrance applied. They asked whether perfume uniformly masks body odor or combines with each person’s odor to produce different impressions. They also examined whether a self-selected perfume suits its wearer’s body odor.
First, comparing a scented armpit with an unscented one
The first two experiments took place in Vienna and Prague. In Study 1, 29 women evaluated odors from seven men; in Study 2, 20 women evaluated odors from 10 men. Fragrance was applied to one armpit and not the other, and cotton pads were worn on both sides to collect odors for 24 hours.
Different products were used in the two experiments. Study 1 used two sprays of Thierry Mugler’s B Men, while Study 2 used three strokes of a fragranced wet tissue with Yves Rocher’s Hoggar scent. The studies did not both use the same spray perfume.
Female raters smelled the pads in containers and rated pleasantness, attractiveness, and intensity. They judged odors alone, not attractiveness after seeing or talking to the men.
More favorable on average, but the change varied by person
In both experiments, samples with fragrance were rated as more pleasant and attractive on average than those without. However, the study’s central concern goes beyond the average improvement after adding fragrance.
The extent to which ratings changed with fragrance differed among male odor donors. The researchers examined this dependence of fragrance effects on whose body odor was involved as a statistical interaction. Adding fragrance did not significantly reduce variability in pleasantness or attractiveness ratings; it did not give everyone the same odor impression.
The intensity findings were different. Fragranced samples smelled stronger in Study 2, but no clear difference was found in Study 1. Changes in intensity may vary with the product and participants.
Self-selected perfume versus one assigned perfume for everyone
Study 3 involved 12 men who regularly wore a perfume they had chosen themselves. Men who merely used perfume received as a gift were not included.
Each man applied two sprays of his own perfume to one armpit and two sprays of the same assigned product, Balea Men Electric Blue, to the other. The side receiving his own perfume was randomly selected, and odor was collected on pads for 12 hours. None of the men normally used the assigned product as his own perfume.
Twenty-one women evaluated these blended odors. Blends of body odor with self-selected perfume were rated as more pleasant and attractive on average than blends with the assigned perfume. Intensity did not differ significantly, and the effects of perfume again varied between individuals.
Distinguishing this from liking for the perfume alone
Could the men’s own perfumes simply have been fragrances that everyone would prefer? The researchers also asked another 15 women to rate the perfumes without body odor.
Pleasantness of the perfumes alone did not differ significantly between self-selected and assigned products. The assigned perfume smelled stronger on its own, but no significant intensity difference was detected in the samples mixed with body odor. Taken together, the authors argue that general liking for the perfume alone is unlikely to fully explain the higher ratings of self-selected blends.
However, there was only one assigned comparison product. This was not an experiment showing that self-selection always finds the best perfume from any set of candidates. Nor did the researchers manipulate and compare how people made their choices, so the study does not reveal how they learned or which cues they used to select a suitable perfume.
What does “compatibility” with body odor mean?
The authors suggest that blends of perfume and body odor develop properties specific to their combination. Viewing them as combinations that differ between individuals fits these results better than an explanation in which perfume uniformly conceals everyone’s body odor.
However, the study did not distinguish whether favorable aspects of body odor were enhanced or unpleasant aspects were masked to different degrees in different people. Differences in the evaporation of components on skin are also discussed, but those mechanisms were not measured in the experiment.
The samples were armpit odors from small groups of men, evaluated by women. The study did not examine combinations of genes or romantic outcomes, and the results need not transfer directly to everyday wear on the wrist or clothing.
Conclusion
If perfume did nothing more than uniformly mask body odor, people wearing the same perfume should become more similar in ratings of odor pleasantness and attractiveness. Yet in the first two experiments, adding fragrance did not significantly reduce variation in ratings, and the degree of change differed between men. This individual variation is what the authors emphasize. Understanding perfume’s effects appears to require considering not only the fragrance itself but also its combination with each person’s body odor.
In Study 3, blends of body odor and self-selected perfume were also rated as more pleasant and attractive than blends with the assigned perfume. Meanwhile, pleasantness of the perfumes alone did not differ significantly, nor did the intensity of blended samples. The authors consider these findings difficult to explain through the pleasantness of perfume alone and interpret them as evidence that its combination with the wearer’s body odor matters.
In the Discussion, the authors write that people choose fragrances to complement their own odor
. In other words, they interpret people as choosing scents that complement how their own bodies smell. The findings support the possibility that self-selected perfumes create favorable impressions when combined with the wearer’s body odor. However, this study does not reveal which cues guided selection, which aspects of body odor were enhanced, or which were masked.
This perspective also offers a way to think about why perfume preferences vary so widely within the same culture. Cultural values and available fragrance materials influence choices. Even so, preferences may remain diverse partly because different body odors suit different perfumes. The authors point toward understanding individual differences in perfume selection through its relationship with the wearer’s odor.
At the end of the paper, the authors also consider the broader possibility that cultural perfume use can coexist with body odor’s communication of information about individual bodily differences. If added scent does not uniformly erase individual odor characteristics, wearing perfume may itself form part of how someone’s odor is communicated to others. However, discussion of implications for mate choice or evolution across generations is the authors’ outlook, not a result established by these experiments. The immediate message is that, when considering a perfume’s appeal, “who wears it” matters alongside “what it smells like.”
References
Authors: Pavlína Lenochová, Pavla Vohnoutová, S. Craig Roberts, Elisabeth Oberzaucher, Karl Grammer, Jan Havlíček
Article: Psychology of Fragrance Use: Perception of Individual Odor and Perfume Blends Reveals a Mechanism for Idiosyncratic Effects on Fragrance Choice
Journal: PLOS ONE 7(3), e33810 (2012)
Published: March 28, 2012
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033810
Full text: Publisher’s article page
Original article license: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
