Perfume experts' perceptions of body odors: Toward a new lexicon for body odor description

Abstract Introduction Women’s olfactory perception varies across the menstrual cycle. The influence of oral contraceptives on this variability remains unclear. Methods To further estimate this, we assessed discrimination performance for both body odors and ordinary odorants in 36 women, 18 naturally ovulating, and 18 using oral contraceptives. Each participant was tested once a week over the course of a month, and data was then parsed into menstrual phases. Results In naturally ovulating women, at the transition from follicular to luteal phases, there was a decline of 19% (p = 0.003) in olfactory discrimination of body odors but not ordinary odorants. In turn, in women using oral contraceptives, only at a later time of the month, at a point corresponding to the late luteal phase and shift from post-ovulation to pre-menstruation, was there a decline of 20% (p = 0.002) in olfactory discrimination performance. Moreover, when we reorganized the data from women using oral contraceptives in order to separately assess the contraceptive withdrawal period (the few days off pills), we observed a 23% reduction (p = 0.01) in discrimination accuracy of body odors but not ordinary odorants during this time alone. Conclusions Women have reduced ability to discriminate body odors during the withdrawal period of oral contraception. Implications If women indeed consider men’s body odor in their mate selections, then the oral contraception withdrawal period may not be the best time to make such decisions.

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Human Chemosignals and Brain Activity: A Preliminary Meta-analysis of the Processing of Human Body Odors

Chemical Senses ◽

10.1093/chemse/bjaa067 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 45 (9) ◽

pp. 855-864

Author(s):

Elisa Dal Bò ◽

Claudio Gentili ◽

Cinzia Cecchetto

Keyword(s):

Brain Activity ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Specific Information ◽

Emotional States ◽

Body Odor ◽

The Right ◽

Body Odors

Abstract Across phyla, chemosignals are a widely used form of social communication and increasing evidence suggests that chemosensory communication is present also in humans. Chemosignals can transfer, via body odors, socially relevant information, such as specific information about identity or emotional states. However, findings on neural correlates of processing of body odors are divergent. The aims of this meta-analysis were to assess the brain areas involved in the perception of body odors (both neutral and emotional) and the specific activation patterns for the perception of neutral body odor (NBO) and emotional body odor (EBO). We conducted an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on 16 experiments (13 studies) examining brain activity during body odors processing. We found that the contrast EBO versus NBO resulted in significant convergence in the right middle frontal gyrus and the left cerebellum, whereas the pooled meta-analysis combining all the studies of human odors showed significant convergence in the right inferior frontal gyrus. No significant cluster was found for NBOs. However, our findings also highlight methodological heterogeneity across the existing literature. Further neuroimaging studies are needed to clarify and support the existing findings on neural correlates of processing of body odors.

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Male brain processing of the body odor of ovulating women compared to that of pregnant women

10.1101/2020.10.16.340463 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ute Habel ◽

Christina Regenbogen ◽

Catharina Kammann ◽

Susanne Stickel ◽

Natalia Chechko

Keyword(s):

Pregnant Women ◽

Female Body ◽

Brain Regions ◽

The Body ◽

Heterosexual Men ◽

Body Odor ◽

Double Blind ◽

Olfactory Stimuli ◽

Reward Motivation ◽

Body Odors

AbstractFemale chemical signals underlie the advertising of sexual receptivity and fertility. Whether the body odor of a pregnant woman also has a signaling function with respect to male behavior is yet to be conclusively established. This study examines how the body odors of ovulating and pregnant women differentially affect the behavior of heterosexual men.Body odor samples were collected from 5 pregnant women and 5 matched controls during ovulation. In a double-blind functional magnetic resonance imaging design, 18 heterosexual men were exposed to female body odors during ovulation (OV) and pregnancy (PRG) while being required to indicate the attractiveness of concurrently presented female portrait images. The participants were also required to indicate whether they assumed a depicted woman was pregnant.While neither OV nor PRG altered the perceived attractiveness of a presented face, the men tended to identify the women as pregnant while exposed to a PRG body odor. On the neural level, OV activated a network of the frontotemporal and limbic regions, while PRG activated the superior medial frontal gyrus.The results suggest that the detection of sexual availability activates the male brain regions associated with face processing and reward/motivation, whereas sensing pregnancy activates a region responsible for empathy and prosocial behavior. Thus, the female body odor during pregnancy likely helps foster circumstances conducive to the future care of offspring while the body odor advertising sexual availability promotes mating behavior. The brains of heterosexual men may be capable of unconsciously discriminating between these two types of olfactory stimuli.

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The role of fragrance and self-esteem in perception of body odors and impressions of others

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0258773 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (11) ◽

pp. e0258773

Author(s):

Ilja Croijmans ◽

Daniel Beetsma ◽

Henk Aarts ◽

Ilse Gortemaker ◽

Monique Smeets

Keyword(s):

Social Communication ◽

Human Perception ◽

Self Esteem ◽

The Body ◽

Emotional States ◽

Body Odor ◽

Communication Signal ◽

Person Characteristics ◽

Body Odors

Human sweat odor serves as social communication signal for a person’s traits and emotional states. This study explored whether body odors can also communicate information about one’s self-esteem, and the role of applied fragrance in this relationship. Female participants were asked to rate self-esteem and attractiveness of different male contestants of a dating show, while being exposed to male participant’s body odors differing in self-esteem. High self-esteem sweat was rated more pleasant and less intense than low self-esteem sweat. However, there was no difference in perceived self-esteem and attractiveness of male contestants in videos, hence explicit differences in body odor did not transfer to judgments of related person characteristics. When the body odor was fragranced using a fragranced body spray, male contestants were rated as having higher self-esteem and being more attractive. The finding that body odors from male participants differing in self-esteem are rated differently and can be discriminated suggests self-esteem has distinct perceivable olfactory features, but the remaining findings imply that only fragrance affect the psychological impression someone makes. These findings are discussed in the context of the role of body odor and fragrance in human perception and social communication.

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Love Stinks: The Association between Body Odors and Romantic Relationship Commitment

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11111522 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 1522

Author(s):

Madeleine Keaveny ◽

Mehmet Kibris Mahmut

Keyword(s):

Romantic Relationship ◽

Positive Association ◽

Relationship Commitment ◽

Self Report ◽

Research Needs ◽

Body Odor ◽

Preliminary Results ◽

Relationship Breakdown ◽

First Time ◽

Body Odors

Anecdotal reports indicate that women dislike their partner’s body odor (BO) during the breakdown of a relationship; however, whether disliking a partner’s BO is associated with intentions to break up has not been empirically tested. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to investigate, for the first time, whether disliking one’s partner’s BOs is associated with experiencing lower commitment to a romantic relationship. Eighty participants (48 partnered, 32 single and previously partnered) completed self-report questionnaires about their current or previous romantic relationship and the amount of exposure to—and hedonic ratings of—their current or former partner’s BOs. Olfactory function was also tested, and participants smelled and rated various pieces of clothing imbued with a stranger’s BO. The results demonstrated that for participants who had experienced a breakup, historically higher levels of relationship commitment were associated with higher hedonic ratings of a previous partner’s BOs, regardless of the type of BOs. For participants currently in a relationship, lower relationship commitment was associated with higher breakup intentions in response to smelling their partner’s BOs. These preliminary results contribute evidence for the positive association between exposure to a partner’s BOs and favorable hedonic appraisals of BOs; however, further research needs to be conducted in this area to investigate nuances. Lower levels of exposure to one’s partner’s BOs may be more indicative of relationship commitment than exposure to hedonically unpleasant BOs of one’s partner. The findings are discussed with reference to their implications for interventions in relationship breakdown.

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Not All Emotions Are Equal: Fear Chemosignals Lower Awareness Thresholds Only for Fearful Faces

Chemical Senses ◽

10.1093/chemse/bjaa047 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 45 (7) ◽

pp. 601-608

Author(s):

Fábio Silva ◽

Nuno Gomes ◽

Sebastian Korb ◽

Gün R Semin

Keyword(s):

Facial Expressions ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Visual Awareness ◽

Emotional States ◽

Body Odor ◽

Emotional Facial Expressions ◽

Continuous Flash Suppression ◽

Fearful Faces ◽

Processing Stream ◽

Body Odors

Abstract Exposure to body odors (chemosignals) collected under different emotional states (i.e., emotional chemosignals) can modulate our visual system, biasing visual perception. Recent research has suggested that exposure to fear body odors, results in a generalized faster access to visual awareness of different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, happy, and neutral). In the present study, we aimed at replicating and extending these findings by exploring if these effects are limited to fear odor, by introducing a second negative body odor—that is, disgust. We compared the time that 3 different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, disgust, and neutral) took to reach visual awareness, during a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, across 3 body odor conditions (i.e., fear, disgust, and neutral). We found that fear body odors do not trigger an overall faster access to visual awareness, but instead sped-up access to awareness specifically for facial expressions of fear. Disgust odor, on the other hand, had no effects on awareness thresholds of facial expressions. These findings contrast with prior results, suggesting that the potential of fear body odors to induce visual processing adjustments is specific to fear cues. Furthermore, our results support a unique ability of fear body odors in inducing such visual processing changes, compared with other negative emotional chemosignals (i.e., disgust). These conclusions raise interesting questions as to how fear odor might interact with the visual processing stream, whilst simultaneously giving rise to future avenues of research.

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"They enjoyed the scent of his clothes blessed by his forefathers": The encounter of Rabbi Jacob Saphir with the Holy 'Sayeed' in Yemen

Arquivo Maaravi Revista Digital de Estudos Judaicos da UFMG ◽

10.17851/1982-3053.13.25.189-198 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (25) ◽

pp. 189-198

Author(s):

Abraham Ofir Shemesh

Keyword(s):

Moral Identity ◽

Body Odor ◽

Social Significance ◽

Unusual Event ◽

Spiritual World ◽

Natural Feature ◽

The Social ◽

Jewish Scriptures ◽

Holy Man ◽

Body Odors

Although body odor is a completely natural feature, smells emanating from the human body or clothes have been perceived throughout history as a manifestation of one's spiritual world and moral identity. The current study discusses the encounter of Rabbi Jacob Saphir (1822-1886), a famous Jewish traveler, with honorable Muslim. During the event the followers of the holy man do not touch him but smell the special scent of his clothes. The unusual event illustrating the social significance of the odor emitted by distinguished figure's body or clothes among Muslims. It also demonstrates a new insight of Saphir concerning the meaning of body odors in Jewish scriptures.

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The Effects of Emotional Visual Context on the Encoding and Retrieval of Body Odor Information

Perception ◽

10.1177/0301006618756811 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 451-465

Author(s):

Valentina Parma ◽

Stephanie Macedo ◽

Marta Rocha ◽

Laura Alho ◽

Jacqueline Ferreira ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Odor Intensity ◽

Chance Level ◽

Visual Context ◽

Body Odor ◽

Information Encoding ◽

Emotional Context ◽

Accuracy Performance ◽

Body Odors ◽

Retrieval Phase ◽

Encoding And Retrieval

Conditions during information encoding and retrieval are known to influence the sensory material stored and its recapitulation. However, little is known about such processes in olfaction. Here, we capitalized on the uniqueness of body odors (BOs) which, similar to fingerprints, allow for the identification of a specific person, by associating their presentation to a negative or a neutral emotional context. One hundred twenty-five receivers (68 F) were exposed to a male BO while watching either criminal or neutral videos (encoding phase) and were subsequently asked to recognize the target BO within either a congruent or an incongruent visual context (retrieval phase). The results showed that criminal videos were rated as more vivid, unpleasant, and arousing than neutral videos both at encoding and retrieval. Moreover, in terms of BO ratings, we found that odor intensity and arousal allow to distinguish the target from the foils when congruent criminal information is presented at encoding and retrieval. Finally, the accuracy performance was not significantly different from chance level for either condition. These findings provide insights on how olfactory memories are processed in emotional situations.

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Effect of a bioconverted product of Lotus corniculatus seed on the axillary microbiome and body odor

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-89606-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Min-Ji Kim ◽

Setu Bazie Tagele ◽

HyungWoo Jo ◽

Min-Chul Kim ◽

YeonGyun Jung ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Volatile Fatty Acids ◽

Profile Analysis ◽

16S Rrna Gene Sequencing ◽

Lotus Corniculatus ◽

Biologically Active ◽

Rrna Gene ◽

Skin Microbiome ◽

Body Odor ◽

Rrna Gene Sequencing ◽

Study Participants

AbstractThe skin microbiome, especially the axillary microbiome, consists of odor-causing bacteria that decompose odorless sweat into malodor compounds, which contributes to the formation of body odor. Plant-derived products are a cheap source of bioactive compounds that are common ingredients in cosmetics. Microbial bioconversion of natural products is an ecofriendly and economical method for production of new or improved biologically active compounds. Therefore, in this study, we tested the potential of a Lactobacillus acidophilus KNU-02-mediated bioconverted product (BLC) of Lotus corniculatus seed to reduce axillary malodor and its effect on the associated axillary microbiota. A chemical profile analysis revealed that benzoic acid was the most abundant chemical compound in BLC, which increased following bioconversion. Moreover, BLC treatment was found to reduce the intensity of axillary malodor. We tested the axillary microbiome of 18 study participants, divided equally into BLC and placebo groups, and revealed through 16S rRNA gene sequencing that Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium, and Anaerococcus were the dominant taxa, and some of these taxa were significantly associated with axillary malodor. After one week of BLC treatment, the abundance of Corynebacterium and Anaerococcus, which are associated with well-known odor-related genes that produce volatile fatty acids, had significantly reduced. Likewise, the identified odor-related genes decreased after the application of BLC. BLC treatment enhanced the richness and network density of the axillary microbial community. The placebo group, on the other hand, showed no difference in the microbial richness, odor associated taxa, and predicted functional genes after a week. The results demonstrated that BLC has the potential to reduce the axillary malodor and the associated odor-causing bacteria, which makes BLC a viable deodorant material in cosmetic products.

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