Deodorant Might Be the Key to Becoming More Masculine, Study Says

The results of the research are based on a study in which heterosexual women rated images of men in terms of their masculinity. These results were then compared to what happened when heterosexual women rated men's odor samples in terms of their masculinity. The guys who had been rated as less masculine were considered significantly more masculine when they put on scented deodorant. (Before you tell your boyfriend to double his deodorant budget, remember that there is a limit to this phenomenon: The masculinizing benefits of scented deodorant were only applicable to men whose faces had been rated as "less masculine" in the first place. Men whose faces were rated high on the researchers' masculinity scale saw no increased masculinity rating from wearing, or not wearing, deodorant.)

The researchers, led by PhD research student Caroline Allen, write that human beings have weaker smelling abilities than other animals, such as dogs—but our sweat glands become active at puberty, which could imply "a potential role in sexual selection."

They also pointed to loads of research on how people use scent to identify others. For instance, studies have found out which phase of a woman's menstrual cycle is hottest to men based on smell; someone's body odor can be used to determine their sex, health, diet, even personality; and perhaps most usefully, it is possible to smell whether someone is a member of your family, "which is important in sexual selection in order to avoid inbreeding," the researchers write.

But Allen's study found a correlation between masculinity and artificial scents. So much for the human body. The Stirling research appears to verify the "prediction" of what the study refers to as cultural-gene coevolution theory, which argues that human cultural practices influence evolution. "Body odors are very complex, containing hundreds of compounds," Allen told me over email. "It may be that male [artificial] fragrances contain compounds that are similar to those produced by men—but we don't know this. It is possibly a mixture of culture and biology."

According to the culture-gene coevolution theory as outlined by the study, the "beliefs, practices and perceptions of others" function similarly to genes, making cultural norms (like wearing scented deodorant) survive and die in a "process analogous to natural selection."

Tristan Bridges is a masculinity scholar and a professor of sociology at the College at Brockport State University of New York. In an interview with Broadly, he pointed out that even determining the masculinity or femininity of a fragrance may be a fallacious endeavor. "Take away the gendered bottles and boxes they come in, remove the gendered names these scents are given, and you're left with a pile of sweet-smelling stuff."

According to Allen's study, these behaviors don't simply affect evolution; the relationship goes both ways. She and her colleagues write that our cultural norms are also inspired by "biologically evolved preferences." For example, putting on foundation to make one's skin look healthier ties makeup to mating practices; the appearance of health may make you a superior potential mate, and makeup is also correlated to perceived femininity, "which [along with masculinity] may play a role in human mate choice." Allen explained that people may select fragrances that enhance their natural odor as well.

"We asked the men [participants] to use whichever deodorant they normally used," Allen says. "Perhaps less masculine men prefer different kinds of deodorants to more masculine men." But that was a choice they had to make; having the men wear identical scents could have produced another potential conflict in their research, she explained.

"Asking men to choose the scent that they feel best captures their personal preference is here asking them to consider just what kind of scent speaks to the man they either fancy themselves or would like themselves to be," Bridges says.

Indeed, Allen's findings line up with former research, which found that men's confidence increased when they wore scented deodorant. In that study women were shown two sets of videos. In one, men were applying scented spray; in the other set, the men were applying non-scented spray. The women rated the scented spray guys as hotter those who didn't apply deodorant, which researchers took to mean that the guys in the scented group were behaving differently than the guys in the unscented group.

In other words, whether because of culture, psychology, evolution, or some combination thereof, those Old Spice ads depicting men who morph into masculine archetypes with a drop of artificial scent are, apparently, onto something.