We’ve all heard of love at first sight, but what about love at first … whiff?

Scent can play a huge role in how attracted we are to someone. We’ve all walked by someone, smelled a fragrant cologne or perfume and immediately taken a second glance. Or what about when you’re flirting with that guy at the bar and he smells amazing? He just got more attractive. 

I even have a friend who has perfume specially made for her. She says that every time she wears it, she gets tons of compliments. Who doesn’t want someone telling them they smell good?

Many girls I’ve talked to point out that cologne increases their attraction to a guy.  But it’s not really about how much or what brand of perfume or cologne you’re wearing —our biology plays a huge role in attraction.

This research isn’t new. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a pheromone is a chemical substance excreted into the environment that elicits a psychological and behavioral response in others. Pheromones are undetectable scents that are attracting us to people.

A November 1986 issue of The Washington Post reported that Winnifred Cutler had discovered the human pheromone. From then on, there have been new experiments regarding how these scents draw you to a particular woman or man.  

According to research by Martie Haselton, a professor of communications and psychology at the University of California-Los Angeles, men find women more attractive when they are ovulating. In her experiment, she took underarm samples from women during days of high and low fertility during their cycles. After sniffing these samples, labeled A and B, men described the woman whose sample was from a high fertility day as sexier and more attractive. This was without seeing their faces.

A similar test was conducted on the scent of men. Men were asked to wear a new T-shirt two nights in a row.

Then, women were asked to smell the T-shirt samples and rated which scent they found most attractive.  The women chose the men who had a differing major histocompatibility complex, or MHC, a series of immune system genes that tells our bodies what kind of diseases another person is fit to fight off in the form of an undetectable smell.

Both of these results make sense from a biological standpoint. Men are more attracted to women during days of high fertility because they are looking for a mate who can bear children. Women are attracted to men with a different MHC because this means their offspring will have a stronger immune system.

Scent is something we all notice about the opposite sex.

‘For me, I usually notice when a girl smells bad as opposed to good,’ said Aaron Ortega, a senior broadcast journalism major. He added that if a girl smells particularly bad, whether it comes from too much perfume or body odor, he makes it a point to stay away from her.

As it turns out, putting a lot of effort into how you look when you go out at night won’t really seal the deal. When it comes to attraction, scents make sense.

Rita Kokshanian is a senior magazine journalism major. Her column appears every Thursday. She can be reached at rhkoksha@syr.edu.

Published on October 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm