Product users may recognize the likelihood that if fragrance adds appeal to the natural body odor of men (their pheromones), enhancing a fragrance product with human pheromones would add even more appeal. Of course the success of the pheromone-enhanced product would depend on the selection of pheromones that are specific to human males and also that indicate reproductive fitness. Note that I have a publication history with one of the researchers involved in this work. See, for example:Human pheromones: integrating neuroendocrinology and ethology with Karl Grammer as the senior author. Research is progressing quite nicely.

Lenochova, P., Vohnoutova, P., Roberts, S. C., Oberzaucher, E., Grammer, K., & Havlicek, J. (2012). Psychology of Fragrance Use: Perception of Individual Odor and Perfume Blends Reveals a Mechanism for Idiosyncratic Effects on Fragrance Choice. PLoS ONE, 7(3), e33810.

Fragrance use does not merely mask their natural odor production, it adds to the appeal of men’s axillary odors. Could cultural practices associated with fragrance use contribute to the complex calibration, standardization, and control of genotype and phenotypic expression frequencies in different ancestral species and modern man? Can the biological basis of culture be found in the chemistry of social odors?

Wow! That is a fascinating theory that cultural differences in smells used could be that influential. Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

(04-02-2012 8:18 AM)halo0073 Wrote:  Wow! That is a fascinating theory that cultural differences in smells used could be that influential. Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. Their theory was not expected by me, although I knew of their approach from a presentation by Lenochova et al in either 2007 or 2008. Publication -- so many years later -- provides a good idea why researchers must stay current by attending conferences or risk being blind-sided by theories that self-propagate and become generally well-known -- like the theory that we are primarily visual creatures. I'm still not sure what to make of the theory that cultural differences in smells used could be influential to evolution, but there is no doubt that pheromones are as influential as food choice to speciation (as published on March 15, 2012.

Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors