The smell of attraction

by Dr Karen Carpenter

Our sense of smell is perhaps the most developed of the five senses. We get most of our information about the world around us through our skin - touch, and our nostrils - smell. So we feel and smell our environment from the moment we leave the womb.

Each person has a distinctly different set of hormones working together to create one's unique scent print, like a fingerprint or birth mark. Our pheromones (those invisible hormones that carry our signature in an indelible aroma) do change over time, and perfumes and colognes can alter the chemical blend that we communicate as we perspire and get excited.

Your 'smell' partner

Ever wonder why some partners excite you more than others, or why the smell of a particular person causes you to draw near? Those busy little pheromones are hard at work helping us to connect with each other. Recent studies reported in Psychology Today magazine indicate that not only do people attract their 'smell' partners through their pheromones, but some people actually attract their life partners based on the initial smell of the person.

Still other studies tell us that the more physically attractive a person is, the more his or her pheromones will attract others. A group of women were asked to rate the attractiveness of a pile of T-shirts worn by men during exercise, and the most physically attractive man got the most votes for attractive smell.

Cinnamon and nutmeg

So I decided to put the pheromone theory to the test and invited some people to tell me about pheromones.

The first was a young woman who said she had her entire apartment steam cleaned after her last boyfriend because she just couldn't get rid of his smell a month after they had broken up.

Another young man described his past loves in flavours, calling each name as he described the 'smell memory' and as the smile on his face grew into a wistful sigh - almonds with a hint of alcohol and honey, pomegranate, crushed by hand, lychees and passion fruit, and of course, the dark woody smells of cinnamon, nutmeg and ground pimento.

I once read a recipe for quails in rose petal sauce on a radio programme about pheromones, and at the end of the show, the host said she was rushing home to make a large pot of cornmeal porridge, which her husband couldn't resist. She was planning to cover herself in it. I guess his smell was vanilla and bay leaf.

No matter what your smell is, our pheromones are hard at work transmitting messages, making connections, and generally, getting us in trouble, while we douse ourselves in colognes to mask the very smell prints that make us uniquely attractive.

Dr Karen Carpenter is a Florida board-certified clinical sexologist and psychologist. She is also the host of a radio programme, 'Love & Sex with Dr Karen Carpenter'.