Scent of a woman: Body odour more effective than perfume at attracting men

Women all over the world spend billions on perfumes and other scents in the hope of making themselves more attractive to potential mates.

But it seems this may be misguided, if the results of a recent study are to be believed.

Apparently, when asked to rate t-shirts worn for a night by women at various stages in their menstrual cycles, men preferred those from women who were ovulating over those that had not been worn at all.

The researchers carried out two studies in which the women wore the t-shirts for three nights. The women were selected to cover the various stages of the menstrual cycle.

After the three days, the t-shirts were then smelled by male volunteers. Some of the males were given 'control' t-shirts that had not been worn at all. Saliva samples for testosterone analysis were collected before and after the men smelled the shirts.

Results revealed that men who smelled t-shirts of ovulating women subsequently had higher levels of testosterone than men who smelled t-shirts worn by non-ovulating women or men who smelled the control shirts. In addition, after smelling the shirts, the men rated the odours on pleasantness and rated the shirts worn by ovulating women as the most pleasant smelling.

The leaders of the study, Saul L. Miller and Jon K. Maner, concluded: "The present research is the first to provide direct evidence that olfactory cues to female ovulation influence biological responses in men."

Unfortunately they did not suggest what men should buy women for Christmas now that perfume has been ruled out.

The research was published in Psychological Science and carried out at Florida State University.

This article was published on Tue 19 January 2010