Why You Shouldn’t Keep Your Nose Out Of Your Love Life

body scent
Written by Theresa Kirkby

“I could have licked his body like was it a huge piece of candy. His body scent so amazing. Every time I stepped into his room my nostrils naturally found their way to his linen, where the delicious scent of sweet and sour fogged my mind with ecstasy and opened my heart. And it made me want him so much. Yes.. perhaps it even made me fall in love with him. It’s definitely safe to say that I couldn’t get enough of his natural essence.”

The Sense of Smell and Attraction

body scent

Mhmm.. Yes. The sense of smell. Of our five senses, the sense of smell is the only sense that affects the memory and emotion part of the brain, which is why we get attracted and attached to certain scents that we like, especially body scents.

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Like animals, we humans subconsciously use our sense of smell to find the “right” mate, as we choose our partner based on pheromones. The “right” mate is normally someone who’s genetically dissimilar to oneself, as it normally creates a genetically stronger baby. The so-called pheromone attraction.

Aha.. Clever.

However.. these days it’s hard to get a good sniff of what someone really smells like, because most people cover their body scent with perfume, cologne, sprays, body lotions, oils, deodorants, hairsprays and god knows what. Heck. I used to do that too!

I loved my perfume from Mosquito so much that it became the only scent I used for 7 years. The scent from which my friends and family would recognize me. It became me and I became it. But.. sadly it wasn’t my body scent. It was a man-made product invented to cover up my own natural essence in order to feel confident in knowing that I smelled nice.

“Can you do me a favour and not put on perfume when I meet you tonight?” a gorgeous Italian man asked me several years ago. “Absolutely not!”, I remember thinking as I told him that I’d think about it. But I was too insecure in NOT putting on my perfume. Because what if he didn’t like body scent?

What if people didn’t find my natural body scent attractive?

smell and attraction

Sniffing out Your Mate’s Body Scent

Most of us like to smell nice. To be clean. To seem appealing. And so we put on all sorts of stuff, covering up our body scent to do just that. And if we feel better about ourselves in doing so, then great – because what matters is that we feel comfortable with ourselves.

However.. seeing that we most often don’t really know what people smell like, as the fake scent almost always overpowers the natural body scent, it can be hard to meet the “right” mate.

If we don’t like someone’s smell, there’s no way we’d fully enjoy being sexual with them, right?

But if everyone covers their real natural scent with cologne, perfume and lotions, then how do we actually know if we really like their smell?

Imagine: You Meet Someone in a Bar Who Smells Amazing

You’re well aware that he/she is wearing a man-made scent, but you don’t care, because it’s alluring and lustful. It’s sending signals to your brain that says, “Yes. Compatible match. I like.” (German accent robot voice).

And so you take him/her home with you. You kiss, touch, and make out. Things get hot. But when you get real close to his/her skin, you sense something changing in you. Never mind. You continue. Kinda enjoy it. Then you fall asleep.

When you wake up the next morning you get a sniff of his/her bed, pillow, skin, sweat and you twitch your nose. Morning kisses? Hmm… Just a little one. Cuddles? Yes OK, but you’re not enjoying them that much.. Because.. You don’t like his/her natural scent. And I’m not talking about sweat here. I’m talking about the way in which our bodies smell.

Now.. Imagine if we from the beginning got a real sniff of each other’s natural scents.Wouldn’t that make it much easier to meet the “right” kind of person?

Animals sniff each other out. Big time. And if they don’t like what they smell, they simply walk away. OK.. it might be a tiny bit strange if we walked around sniffing each other bodies like animals, but I do think we ought to be a bit more conscious about other’s body scent when it comes to romance. Smell and attraction are indeed closely related.

I’ve asked to sniff men before. I’ve asked them to not put on cologne. Weird? Not for me. How else would I know if I liked their true essence?

The Pill – dum dum dum daaaa

Science has shown that many different things can affect our sense of smell. One of them being: The hormonal birth control pill. Women who take hormonal birth control pills actually have a lowered sense of smell, which means that they often don’t smell themselves to the “right” partner.

Instead, they tend to pair up with someone who’s genetically similar to themselves, which often comes to mean that they have difficulties conceiving.

And once off the pill, they become less attracted to their partner, as their sense of smell (unaffected by hormones) tells them: “No.. He’s not a match for you.” Of course, this is a generalization and does not count for everyone that have met their partner while being on the pill. However, it does put into perspective, just how important our sense of smell is, when it comes to attraction and mating.

I’ve Stopped Wearing Perfume

I still wear a natural deodorant, as I don’t particularly like smelling my stinky armpits, but my essence is unique and natural – because it’s my very own. And when I meet someone who loves sniffing me, who loves my natural perfume, I feel honored and grateful – it makes me feel good – because I then know, that they really like me for the natural me.

If you want to turn more natural, without growing your armpits and stop using deodorant, there’s plenty of natural products that you can use. I used to think that natural deodorants didn’t do the job. How could they possibly? But they actually do and there’s plenty of good ones out there.

Also… What we eat can affect our scent in either a bad or a good way. Red meat, junk food, and alcohol can leave a negative effect on our scent, while yogurt, jasmine tea and citrus fruits affect our scent in positive ways. Keep that in mind when you, absolutely wasted, enter McDonald’s to eat some “at-the-time-amazing” junk food.

With this being said I have nothing against perfumes and such, but I do think it’s a pity that we cover our body scents too much with all sorts of fake things, as it hides who we naturally are.

So.. Next time you’re doubting whether or not you really like someone, trust in your nose and let it help you out.

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About the author

Theresa Kirkby

Theresa Johanne Kirkby is a certified holistic sexologist, who grew up in a small village in the south of Denmark. She is a free-spirited woman, whose vocation is to help with opening the minds of people by breaking societal limitations and taboos of sexuality and intimacy.

Over the past 6 years she has been dedicated in the path of self-love, which has taught her the beauty of connection and conscious sexuality - a beauty she now strives to share with others. She offers therapy sessions related to everything from a heartbreak to a dysfunctional sexuality.

Her passion for hula hooping is ongoing and she can often be found dancing barefoot to the rythms of a djembe-jam. Learn more about us and our editorial guidelines.