Manly sweat smells like aroma of love to women

A chemical found in sweat acts as a primitive love potion that increases a man's attractiveness to women, a study has found.

The substance, derived from the male sex hormone testosterone, has a small but significant effect on judgments of a male stranger's attractiveness made by women in a speed-dating situation.

Tamsin Saxton, of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, studied the influence of androstadienone by dabbling a drop of it on the upper lip of 50 women who took part in an evening trial before they "dated" a series of men.

Women of all ages rated the men slightly higher on a scale of attractiveness when given the substance, compared to water or clove oil, but the effect was greatest in younger women aged between 18 and 22, Dr Saxton said.

"We got the women to mark how attractive they thought the men were on a one-to-seven scale after they interacted with each man," she said.

"We found that the women given androstadienone had given slightly higher ratings of attractiveness to the men."

One hypothesis is that androstadienone could be a pheromone, or chemical messenger, although Dr Saxton said the idea of human pheromones was highly controversial.

- INDEPENDENT