14 DAY TRIAL // A new paper authored by researchers with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in the United States and published in the journal PLOS ONE argues that pleasant odors influence the way people perceive one another. Specifically, they can make an individual appear more attractive.
In light of these findings, one can only assume that, had somebody ever bothered to hand Smeagol a bottle of perfume, the One Ring would have totally fallen for him and would have never left his side, thus cutting the movie to about 5 minutes flat.
Joking aside, it need be said that the Monell Chemical Senses Center specialists behind said paper focused on women alone when conducting their investigation. Simply put, what they found is that women's faces are the ones made more attractive by pleasant odors.
The researchers base this claim on data obtained while carrying out a series of experiments with the help of 18 volunteers, 12 of which were women. During the study, these volunteers were asked to look at 8 photos showing different female faces while being exposed to various smells.
When exposed to an unpleasant odor let out by a mixture of fish oils, the volunteers had trouble perceiving the faces they were being shown as attractive. However, when exposed to the smell of rose oil, which many label as pleasant and enjoy having around, they found the female faces in the photographs more appealing.
“Odor pleasantness and facial attractiveness integrate into one joint emotional evaluation. This may indicate a common site of neural processing in the brain,” cognitive neuroscientist and study lead author Janina Seubert, PhD, commented on these findings.
Pleasant and unpleasant smells were found to also influence age evaluation, but not quite like they influence attractiveness. Specifically, pleasant odors were found to make old faces look older and young ones look younger. Unpleasant smells, on the other hand, made old and young faces appear similar.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center researchers wish to continue with their work and plan to carry out another series of experiments and try to figure out whether or not pleasant smells also influence attractiveness when it comes to male faces.
“These findings have fascinating implications in terms of how pleasant smells may help enhance natural appearance within social settings,” explained study co-author Jean-Marc Dessirier. “The next step will be to see if the findings extend to evaluation of male facial attractiveness,” the specialist went on to say.