Without a doubt, the common assumption is that people generally love perfumes and fragrances because they smell good, and it attracts people. But is this the full story? This post proposes one very simple thing, and you can quote us on this if needs be – A good fragrance promotes confidence, causing individuals of both the same and opposite sex to find you to be a more attractive person.
See, there are underlying psychological processes at work whenever an individual puts on some perfume; these are similar processes that cause women to wear suits to important business meetings as opposed to the more comfortable jogging bottoms, similar processes that cause women to have their hair and nails done when going on a first date… The look good, feel good psychology. Whenever I wear a suit, I personally radiate and ooze confidence, it just allows for such authority when speaking, and this is triggered from the confidence associated with looking good. This same look good, feel good psychology corresponds to pleasant fragrances.
In a recent UK study, men were rated by women as as notably more attractive when wearing the deodorant Lynx, as opposed to when not wearing any fragrance at all. You’re probably thinking, of course they’re rated more attractive, Lynx smells good? But the amazing thing is that, the men were rated using headshots and 15 second video clips. By headshots, the men were rated as equally attractive, but when it came to the video clips, within a mere 15 seconds, the confidence affiliated with fragrances had been emitted and the difference between them and their non-fragrance wearing counterparts had become significant. A survey study went in a similar direction, this time with women from their teenage years to their senior years, and in turn found that 90% women felt more confident when wearing fragrances than without.
So what then can we conclude from all of this? As said in the introduction, it is something very simple… Positive fragrance promotes positive feelings, which in turn increases confidence, and thus causes the attractiveness of an individual to increase.