Perfume is Pleasure

Just Axe! Women will tell you that men who smell good look better too. Axe is the American name for a popular deodorant called Lynx in Europe.

The Economist reported that women find men who alter their natural scent with fragrance more attractive than those who do not. Interestingly, it is not the direct effect of scent on women, but rather, the body language of scented men’s increased self-confidence that drives women wild. The December 18, 2008 issue detailed findings of Unilever’s collaboration with University of Liverpool researcher Craig Roberts and his team.

Here’s how the study went. Two groups of men were given identical-looking spray containers, one with a scented deodorant, while the other was devoid of scent and deodorant properties, a dummy. Researchers did not know which containers were which, double-blinding the study to eliminate potential bias. No research subjects knew the purpose of the experiment, so participants with the deodorant dummy did not question its impotence.

Psychological tests conducted over several days showed that self-confidence of the men with real deodorant had increased by their own report. And here comes the “Lynx effect” – this occurred to the point that women watching short videos of deodorized and scented men, without smell-o-vision, found them more attractive. The operating explanation is that these men carried themselves in a visibly more appealing way and female observers caught the vibe. Still photographs of men in the scented and unscented groups did not provoke differing reactions in the women.

The Economist concludes: “To attract a woman by wearing scent, a man must first attract himself.” Cool cats are onto the Lynx effect.