(Ivanhoe Newswire) – When it comes to body odor, it may be best to trust
a woman’s nose.
New research from the Monell Center finds it is difficult to block a woman’s
awareness of body odor but the same is pretty easy to do in men.
In the study, women and men were asked to rate the strength of underarm odors --
both alone as well as with various fragrances.
Researchers wanted to know how well the fragrances could block underarm odor
through a method known as cross-adaptation -- when the nose adapts to one odor
and then also becomes less sensitive to a second odor.
Results show when sniffed alone, the underarm odors smelled equally strong to
men and women. When fragrance was added in, only two of the 32 scents
successfully blocked underarm odor when women smelled them. But 19 fragrances
significantly reduced the strength of underarm odor for men.
“Men and women differ in how they perceive body odors from both their own and
the opposite sex,” co-author George Preti, Ph.D., the Monell Center, was quoted
as saying. “Women are more aware of underarm odor and they appear to be
detecting differences in odor quality.”
The scientists think females may be more attuned to biologically relevant
information in sweat that may guide them when they are choosing a mate.
Not only were women better smellers than men, but male odors were harder to
block than female ones. While underarm odors from the two sexes weren’t
different as far as how strong they smelled, only 19 percent of the fragrances
successfully reduced the strength of male underarm odor while more than 50
percent decreased the intensity of female underarm odor.
SOURCE: Flavour and Fragrance Journal, published online April 7, 2009
