The natural smell of our body influences the perception of attractiveness. With the passage of time, humans have become accustomed to camouflaging our body odor with scented items. Now, according to research carried out by the University of Stirling (United Kingdom) there could be some truth in the “deodorant effect” to attract women, and the study suggests that men who use deodorant are perceived as more male, so this perception could be changed simply by using a deodorant.
How does deodorant affect the perception of femininity and masculinity?
The researchers had the participation of 130 volunteers to whom they showed photographs of 20 men and 20 women to whom they had to respectively evaluate their level of femininity and masculinity as perceived by each one. In addition, another group with 239 participants was asked to rate the masculinity or femininity of 40 scent samples -with and without deodorant- that corresponded to the people in the photographs of the first group.
The results of the experiment revealed that men who were rated by women as less masculine in the photos were also rated as such if they were not wearing deodorant. However, their masculinity level increased in the odor experiment when the samples contained deodorant body odor.
“ Only those men who were rated low masculinity at the start showed a significant increase after applying their deodorant; and men who were highly masculine initially showed no increase after deodorant application. This means that men are able to use deodorant to artificially raise their chances, so to speak, “explains Caroline Allen, leader of the work.
As for women, there was no change in the perceived level of femininity with or without deodorant, which shows that women are more sensitive to odor signals than men.
The study has been published in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior.
