Women detect masked body odour better than men

It is more difficult to hide underarm odour when women are doing the smelling, according to new research. A study carried out by Philadelphia’s Monell Chemical Senses Center discovered that while men and women found underarm odour to smell equally strong when sniffed alone, women were better at detecting underarm odour when cross-adaptation using a selection of fragrances was introduced. Only two out of 32 scents successfully blocked underarm odour when women were doing the smelling. In contrast, 19 fragrances significantly reduced the strength of underarm odour for men.

Earlier studies noted that men and women did not differ in their ability to cross-adapt to non-bodily scents and taking this into account researchers speculate that females may be more attuned to biologically relevant information in sweat, which may help in choosing a mate. “Taken together, our studies indicate that human sweat conveys information that is of particular importance to females. This may explain why it is so difficult to block women’s perception of sweat odours,” said the study’s lead author, Charles J Wysocki, a behavioural neuroscientist at Monell.

In addition, the research found that male odours were harder to block than female odours; only 19% of the fragrances reduced the strength of male underarm odour, while over 50% decreased the intensity of female underarm odour.

The full study appears in Flavour and Fragrance Journal online.