Imagine a scent so overwhelmingly pleasant that it literally makes you irresistible to the opposite sex.
A bit far-fetched? Yes, but a recent discovery about the nature of fragrance brings perfume chemists one step closer to creating the ultimate scent.
People are genetically hard-wired to like certain smells
According to neurobiologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, the perception of a “pleasant” scent is universal to all people regardless of their culture. This doesn’t mean that the same scent smells equally good to everyone, but it does mean there are specific types of chemicals that are universally perceived as pleasant. Furthermore, degree of pleasantness or unpleasantness of a chemical can be predicted just by looking at it’s molecular structure. (If you want to learn more about perfume chemistry read The Beauty Brains’ Fragrance Science Series.)
Which is more important: Nature or Nuture?
This discovery is counter to the popular notion that odor preference is a totally subjective, learned behavior. It’s the old “Nature vs Nurture” argument. Well, in this case science says the influence is mostly Nature. According to the researchers:
“Our findings show that the way we perceive smells is at least partially hard-wired in the brain,” Sobel said. “Although there is a certain amount of flexibility, and our life experience certainly influences our perception of smell, a large part of our sense of whether an odor is pleasant or unpleasant is due to a real order in the physical world. Thus, we can now use chemistry to predict the perception of the smells of new substances.”
Will future fragrances make zombie love slaves?
Wow! This story made my imagination run wild: could this pave the way for perfume companies to create “doomsday” perfumes that no man can resist? One spritz and any guy you want could be yours forever. Would you wear such a perfume? And how much would you pay for it? A month’s rent? A year’s salary? More? But what if you couldn’t control who was attracted to you? Would you still wear it then? This research certainly raises more questions than it answers. (I just want to know how much the antidote will cost!)
Does the idea of a Doomsday Fragrance stink or not? Leave a comment and tell the Beauty Brains community what you think!
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I tend to lean on the nurture aspect of things (I’m a sociologist, what can I say?) but I am willing to accept that there are things that are universally appealing. Since scent is tied so strongly to memory, smells that remind me of Christmas or my boyfriend (who smells like irish spring which, interestingly, I associate with childhood bath-time –hah!) or my parents or the house I grew up are all very distinct in my mind (whenever I smell them when I don’t expect to I’m startled) and I have a serious preference to them.
Maybe there’s a spectrum of things that are universally pleasing that through our personal experiences we come to prefer.
No thanks on this product! For some reason, this whole thing really creeps me out. It’s almost like black magic or something.
P.S.
I LOVE the little zombie “love slave”! Way too cute!
haha, this reminds me of that very old movie with sandra bullock called “love potion #9.” with the monkeys and such!
it’s like that book, Perfume (now a film, Perfume), where a man kills lots of people to get the “ultimate scent.”
it’s very interesting.