Why is it that humans are not attracted to smells that the human body produces like urine or sweat? Every perfume/ cologne is manufactured specifically to mask natural scents and replace them with something completely different. What is it about a cologne or perfume that makes it “smell good” to us?
In: Biology
The smells of perfumes may be made synthetically, but they resemble the smells of things which people are drawn to. Many of them are made to smell like pleasant-smelling fruit or oils.
People are not attracted to urine and other bodily excrement because since they often contain noxious substances and pathogens, we evolved to develop a feeling of disgust around them. Sweat is interesting because many people are attracted to the sweat of people they are attracted to.
The scents people find appealing is actually a really interesting and changeable subject.
Probably the oldest “perfumes” were just pleasant, relatively strong smelling things that masked unpleasant odors from people not bathing a ton, bad sewage management, etc.
The modern scents you’re talking about are a pretty recent turn in tastes – clean, fresh scents. The point is almost to not smell like anything – like you’re freshly washed. Which, admittedly, is a good trick if you can manage it after being at work all day. And they’re rarely going to be offensive to anyone.
But in other places, and in the US not that long ago, musty scents were more popular, at least in certain “flirty” circumstances. And those scents definitely are reminiscent of human body odors. They are “sexy and sensual” because they kinda smell like you’ve already had sex.
Love the answers here!
The short answer is.. we aren’t.
This question touches on two things, what makes something smell nice to someone, and what is perfume/cologne.
Many things make something “smell nice” or “smell unpleasant”. You’ll notice you don’t enjoy every perfume or cologne, and yet they all exist, because SOMEONE does.
The largest parts of it are biology and lifestyle. We are set up to generally think of some scents, like sulfur and poop, GENERALLY smells bad, and things like lavender and cinnamon smell “good”.
(bonus fact: lavender is one of few scents that prevents nose-blindness, that is, your brain cannot ignore it no matter how long you are exposed).
From there, genetics and mutations come into play, for example, women tend to dislike the scent of cinnamon, while men tend to like it, and some people cannot smell asparagus in pee and some find it highly offensive.
And from there it comes to your experiences and mental state. Did you have a nearly lethal orange accident? Your memories of orange will be linked to fear and pain and you’ll find it offensive. A quick search of the seedier porn sites will show you some people don’t mind the smell of poop so much, because they’ve related it to sex. And a personal example, I don’t find the smell of skunk offensive because i was exposed to weed long before I knew to find it gross.
As stated by another poster, love and lust also affects your sense of smell, as you will almost always find the scent of someone you love, that is the mix of their sweat, pheromones and flora, attractive, and some studies even indicate that your body can detect genetic compatibility through scent.
Now, as for perfumes, while they have many… odd.. chemicals sometimes.. like beaver urine and whale vomit, the fact of the matter is that most of the chemicals are natural, based on nature or extracted from nature. Essential flower oils are a common ingredient, as are the esthers and oils from things like ambergris (which sometimes exists in the stomachs of sperm whales), castoreum oils, from the but.. anu.. um.. castor sacs of beavers, and musk from the di.. um.. peni..oh jeez, musk sacs near the genitals of male musk deer…
(good god who goes around smelling all these animal parts?!)
in small amounts or after processing, many strange scents are actually pleasant and perfumes can be simple blends of an essential oil or complex chemistries of various substances..
Now the point..?
It’s makeup for your nose to see.
The “right blend” will catch your attention far more effectively than your eyes, and might even make a deeper impact (tell me you never dated someone because they smelled so good you couldn’t stop thinking about them.)..
.. especially when you consider this.. it is a quirk of humans that we are more likely to connect positive memories to scents, ESPECIALLY women. Perfumes exploit this quality to attempt to manufacture an “attraction”.
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