Wearing a mint-scented face mask reduces appetite

Previous studies have shown that mint scents reduce chocolate craving. However, two questions remain: whether the effect is an artifact of demand characteristics in which participants were aware that the study aimed to examine the effect of mint scent, and whether mint scent reduces appetite for foods generally other than chocolate. The present study took advantage of the fact that wearing face masks in public is becoming a standard norm because of the COVID-19 pandemic, to manipulate scent presentation to participants. We investigated the potential application of mint-scented masks for appetite control. Participants who were deceived that wearing masks were for consumer testing to eliminate demand characteristics rated their perceived wanting to eat for a variety of food images that had been preliminarily rated for perceived wanting while wearing a mint-scented mask (or an unscented control mask). The results showed that wearing a mint-scented compared to an unscented mask reduced perceived wanting for foods regardless of base wanting. The results demonstrate a novel potential application of mint-scented masks, namely appetite control, and replicates and extends the generalizability of past findings by excluding artifacts of demand characteristics.