I was browsing through Etsy yesterday (one of my favorite work-avoidance techniques), and I found a shop that sells some very unique candles. Not only does it have votives that smell like ocean mist, melting ice and clean laundry, but it also boasts a selection of what I can only think of as mandles – scents like beer, bacon, pizza, nachos and of all things, dirt.
This got me thinking. Perhaps I’m going about this whole ‘being single’ thing the wrong way. I mean, they say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so it would stand to reason that you could catch more men with bacon than with, let’s say, hibiscus.
I figured there had to be some sort of scientific evidence to help me out. So I did what I do best and hopped onto Google. And it turns out that there are smells that have been shown to increase arousal in men.
According to a study carried out in the late ’90s by Dr. Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, smelling a combination of pumpkin pie and lavender causes the greatest increase in arousal – more than any fancy perfume. Other stimulating smells were cinnamon buns, doughnuts, black licorice, buttered popcorn, cola and cheese pizza. Begging the question – are men really turned on by these scents or are they just hungry?
Experts contend that it’s not the smells themselves that titillate the senses but instead they are tapping in to the good feelings linked to specific memories. This isn’t surprising since our sense of smell is directly connected to the part of the brain responsible for emotions and memory. In fact, it’s often cited that smells affect 75% of our daily emotions!
All I can say is, I just hope I don’t meet someone who has an emotional attachment to lutefisk … or papayas for that matter.
Coffeeshop Cubicle 