A woman's nose knows body odor

Mousehound · 04-07-2009, 10:13 AM

It may be wise to trust the female nose when it comes to body odor. According to new research from the Monell Center, it is more difficult to mask underarm odor when women are doing the smelling.

"It is quite difficult to block a woman's awareness of body odor. In contrast, it seems rather easy to do so in men," said study lead author Charles J. Wysocki, PhD, a behavioral neuroscientist at Monell.

The researchers speculate that females are more attuned to biologically relevant information in sweat that may guide women when choosing a mate.

In the study, women and men rated the strength of underarm odors, both alone and in conjunction with various fragrances.

When fragrance was introduced, only two of 32 scents successfully blocked underarm odor when women were doing the smelling; in contrast, 19 fragrances significantly reduced the strength of underarm odor for men.

Wysocki noted that in earlier studies, men and women did not differ in their ability to cross-adapt to odors not from the body.

"Taken together, our studies indicate that human sweat conveys information that is of particular importance to females. This may explain why it is so difficult to block women's perception of sweat odors," he said.

Not only were women better smellers the men, but male odors were harder to block than female odors. Even though underarm odors from the two sexes didn't differ in how strong they smelled, only 19 percent of the fragrances successfully reduced the strength of male underarm odor; in contrast, over 50 percent decreased intensity of female underarm odor.

Full article here:
http://www.physorg.com/news158303679.html

grannyclampett · 04-20-2009, 09:41 PM

Heh....I have a 14 year old son....the smells that live in my house since he hit puberty defy description...

blue gecko · 04-20-2009, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grannyclampett

Heh....I have a 14 year old son....the smells that live in my house since he hit puberty defy description...

I know this feeling.........he's married now and I don't have to deal with it.............

Mokuyi · 04-20-2009, 11:59 PM

Try being the sister of DB. At a show, and the Stage Manager comes up, and politely informs me that he needs to take a shower.. and use deodorant. With a viciousness.

I live with three boys... they shower regularly, because they don't like smelling of coffee.

blue gecko · 04-21-2009, 01:31 AM

Hmmmmm as the mother of Mokuyi's DB I have to wonder about that kid...........

snake_bites · 04-21-2009, 02:35 AM

I don't really mind the smell of coffee, in fact i usually don't mind smelling like coffee, its cheaper than cologne.

As for the rest of the smells that come from living with guys... ladies i apologize... we just haven't developed the sophisticated sense of smell that you have. There is a good chance that when you think we stink, we think we have another day or two before we NEED to shower. feel free to tell us we stink.