Can a Perfume Really Influence Your Mood?
The short answer here is yes. Although as ever it is not as straightforward as Hollywood would have you believe in the plethora of romantic films out there. Incidentally Hollywood also shows the darker side to this story in the form of serial killers picking their victims by scent. In one sense the message they convey is correct in that it can influence our behaviour. However “the perfume made me do it” line will never stand up in a court of law!
On the most primal level, what we come to regard as pleasant smells and scents have been concentrated, bottled and sold for the simple aim of smelling attractive to those we desire. This practice has been in existence since the ancient Egyptians began the process thousands of years ago. It was also a mark of status. Perfumes have featured in advanced societies all over the world since as valuable commodities. These days, no longer exclusive to the royal classes or the Pharaohs, perfumes can be easily and readily purchased through dozens of online market places such as ebay.co.uk so take your pick.
Scientists have long believed that there is a direct relationship between smells and both physical and mental health. Outside of the manufactured chemical realm of perfumes such as Chanel No. 5 and other designer brands there is also a proven link between the scents we give off without knowing it and sexual attraction. Hormones and pheromones permeate from the skin and create scents we subconsciously detect in one another. Although on a night out this will normally be clouded by the eternal battle of the sexes between the soft, sweeter women’s perfumes and the often painfully over-applied aftershave of young men on the pull.
How does it work?
In early man, like with most other animals today, our sense of smell would have been a lot more powerful. We would have used it to locate food, predators, mates or enemies. These days we only carry around five million receptors in our noses compared to the 200 million in a dog’s nose. Walking around Waitrose sniffing packets would be ineffective and look a bit odd – although it’s not unusual to see people sniffing the fruit and veg now and again.
Floral smells have been proven to bring on more pleasant dreams despite the fact that we rarely dream of specific smells or tastes. The smell cells that remain in modern humans are strongly linked to the oldest part of the human brain called the limbic system, which governs memory, emotional responses and general behaviour. So some of your oldest childhood memories may have been tied, at that moment in time, to the scent present when that memory was formed. So in the same way, where a perfume was present and detected it can evoke very strong memories of a person, time or place. In turn this memory may have been positive, neutral or negative and so your reaction to that memory will change your present behaviour.
In a more physical sense, lavender has been clinically proven to reduce insomnia, anxiety and stress. So the next time you feel tempted to make jokes about aromatherapy, show some restraint. Despite the fact that perfumes have been enshrined in popular culture as an aphrodisiac, as discussed on yourtango.com, and crucial to our chances of finding a mate, there is little scientific evidence to support this. More likely is your memory associating previous sexual partners or people you were attracted to with different perfumes and so stirring memories of previous encounters.
