Can Fragrance Make You More Attractive?

The pursuit of smelling great for potential partners is something people have been after for a very long time. There's no evidence to prove it, but we could all imagine a caveman doing his best to scrub the stink away and replace it with a few flowers. 

That said, does it really work? Can adding a fragrance to your body make you more attractive to someone you're interested in? 

We're going to take a look at this idea today and, hopefully, send you off with a better understanding of how smell can make you more or less appealing to someone you're interested in.

How Fragrance Impacts How We're Perceived

To start, let's take get biological for a moment. 

The human sense of smell operates as a result of your olfactory nerve picking up on particles in the air you take in through your nose. We can't pick up close to as many parts-per-million as a bloodhound, but we can sure interpret them a little better. 

The area of our brains that's used to analyze and give meaning to smells is more prominent than most other mammals, which is why we can become so interested with smells. We can explore the rich notes exuding from a glass of wine or cup of coffee, for example, while those behaviours don't have obvious evolutionary benefits. 

Evolution, though, is the key factor in how smell operates in our brain. Smells strike us differently as indicators their source's safety, sexual fitness, and more. Odours that are putrid tend to indicate some kind of danger. 

If not danger, then a sign that whatever the source of that smell is is not for you. This goes for sexual partners as well. 

Bodily Smell and Attraction

You might have noticed that the smell of your partner's sweat was particularly appealing to you. On the other hand, there are bound to be people in your life who smell absolutely awful. 

A sweaty t-shirt from someone who matches up with your biology will appeal to your olfactory nerve and attract you to that person. This could have to do with that person's immune system, their diet, or other inherent factors in their biology. 

The fact, though, is that smell is and has been an effective way for one person to tell whether or not another person is a fit mate. It's tough to pinpoint just what makes a person's odour attractive to you.

Many of the indicators that impact our perception of a person's smell come on a micro-level and are reflective of processes in the other person that we know nothing about. Whether a person's immune system is functioning well, for example, might turn you on to someone.

A person's immune system is the last thing you're thinking about when you're talking to an attractive person. The best way to improve your natural body odour for mates is to be generally healthy. 

Exercise, a good diet, and a healthy state of mind can impact the processes of your body. With any luck, shifting things in a more positive direction will shift your body odour in a way that reflects your sexual fitness. 

Cologne, Perfume, and Their Impact

The underlying smell of a person does some of the heavy liftings of attraction. That fact takes a little bit of the pressure from your shoulders. 

At the same time, the natural odour isn't 100% of the equation. There are other factors that enter into your relationship with sexual partners. One is that you're taking care of yourself well enough to curate a lovely smell. 

Self-care is reflective of a person's health and therefore a factor that comes into a person's sexual fitness. Generally, anything that makes you healthier is a positive thing to the opposite sex. Not just consciously, but also unconsciously. 

A person who takes care to smell nice stands in stark opposition to a person who does not. That said, there are numerous cultural factors that impact a person's perception of perfume vs natural body odour. 

It might be that your culture values certain perfumes highly, where other cultures don't find that smell appealing in any way. This reflects the fact that all of our preferences aren't inherent in our biology, so it's important to curate your smell in a culturally-relative way. 

Confidence is Attractive

One factor of spraying on some sweet-smelling fragrance is that you'll feel more confident about yourself when you do so. 

If you feel like your scent is attractive and boosts your confidence, it doesn't necessarily matter if potential partners can smell you. Individuals who are more confident are visibly more attractive. 

Now, there's a difference between your immediate confidence and the type of self-worth that's expressed through behaviour over time. The second version is what will shine through to land deep in a person's heart, while the first is what will get you that first date. 

Whatever the indicator that reflects your confidence, whether it's a posture or your smile, that is picked up subconsciously by partners. But why do we feel more confident when we smell great?

Smell and Emotion

It makes sense that you would feel more attractive when you smell good as opposed to smelling like old socks, but why is it that way? 

It's a little more complicated than it seems at first. 

Science believes that emotional relationships to smells aren't inherent in our minds at birth. There may be repugnance toward smells that are dangerous, but the emotional connection to the smell of a pine tree or your grandmother's perfume comes from experience. 

We go through life and develop a palette of odour associations that colour our emotions when we come in contact with them. Naturally, some are pleasant and others are offensive. Many fall somewhere deep in between that divide. 

Your goal when choosing a perfume or cologne should be to select smells that tap into your positive memories and emotions. Peruse your memories for ideas of smells that give you the richest feelings. 

The sense of smell is closely tied to that of memory, so a connection to smells can readily bring up thoughts and emotions of any variety. 

When you're smelling of something that makes you feel deeply, you will be more confident. That confidence will be unique to you, and your partners will notice. 

A person can immediately feel more confident when they put on a smell that accesses their emotions in this way. It's not always the smell itself that does wonders for your romantic life, but the way you feel about smelling that way. 

Your next partner can get used to a smell, but the person behind it is what will carry through to their emotions. Smelling the way you want to will make you a more attractive version of yourself, which is to say that your great qualities will shine through. 

So, What's the Verdict on Smell and Attraction?

It turns out that smell has an incredible amount to do with a person's immediate attraction to you. 

The complicated part is that smell is tightly wrapped up in dozens of relationships between your bodily health, sense of self, biological fitness, and other people's perceptions of smell. 

To fully understand how all of those factors relate to people you're interested in dating would take either a genius mind or dozens of hours per date. Unless you're the former, it's to leave that rabbit hole where it lies. 

What you can do, though, is take a simple fact away from the equation: you smell better when you're healthy, and you feel better when you smell better. 

Healthy and happy people are more attractive on a biological level. Factors that are manageable, like diet and exercise, change the way we smell to potential partners. We can supplement those factors with additional scents that we feel good about. 

A healthy person wearing a scent that makes them feel better about themselves is going to exude attraction, olfactory or otherwise, and make their date weak in the knees. 

Steps to Improve Your Scent

The first thing to do is to take stock of your confidence and attitude toward dating. Are you confident? If not, what is it that's taking away your belief in yourself?

Next, do your best to become what you would consider a healthy person. As we mentioned, a better diet and more exercise are objectively effective steps toward that goal. 

Further, do your part to take care of yourself. Cleaning your clothes, bathing your body, and making time for self-care are all tied into attraction. These factors will all affect your visible confidence and invisible smell. 

Finally, find a perfume or cologne that you're excited about and put it on. Once you're feeling great, get out there and see how things change for you in the dating world.

Want to Improve Your Scent?

Finding a fragrance to work with is a tricky process sometimes, but we're here to get you smelling fantastic. We're home to a number of great smells that might just tap into your emotions and boost your confidence. 

Explore our site for fragrances that you and your partner will both love.