Research suggests that perfume not only makes you feel more attractive, but it can also act as a carnal catalyst. The more you know about scents, the better you can harness their power...
Your perfume pick can make him feel special.
"If you wear a fragrance you know he likes, it demonstrates that you're paying attention to his tastes and making an effort to please him," says Christopher Brosius, perfumer and founder of CB Limited in New York City. The easiest way to find a perfume he likes: Take him shopping with you. If you can't get him to a perfume counter, rip out a whole bunch of scent strips from a magazine and make him smell them one after the other to see which one he likes best. Give him a cup full of coffee grounds to sniff between whiffs to cleanse his olfactory system. Showing you care about his opinion will stroke his ego, and wearing a perfume he loves ensures he'll always want to nuzzle your neck.
His scent can help you decode his personality.
The cologne a guy wears sends a signal about what he's like and how he wants to be perceived by others, so pay attention to it to gain insight into his passions and deepen your connection with him. Psychologist and sociologist Joachim Mensing, PhD, identifies six male personality types and their preferred fragrances. Men who are uncomplicated and enterprising tend to go for fresh citrus, zesty, and herbaceous scents. Reflective loner types prefer warm, spicy, mysterious, Oriental notes. The supersocial spontaneous male likes light, cool, and invigorating scents; while a more reserved and sophisticated man is into warm, natural, woody fragrances. The suave metrosexual types gravitate toward colognes with leather and tobacco in them. Likewise, rugged noncomformist guys like leathery scents too but with a cooler edge.
His fragrance can make you feel first-kiss butterflies even after months of dating.
"Fragrance memories are a wonderful way of building bonds," says psychologist Carol Christensen, PhD, director of sensory and consumer science at International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc., in New York City. "Smelling a scent or elements of one that your boyfriend sported when you first met can flood your mind with memories and make you feel the same delirious way you did back then." If your guy doesn't wear cologne, help him pick one out to start making those memories now. A sure-to- be-sexy suggestion is musk. According to Christensen, women all over the world universally find it to be especially sensual. Some musky colognes we like: Burberry Brit for Men, $62; Jovan Heat Man Fired Up, $8; Spirit by Antonio Banderas, $30, and Kenneth Cole Reaction, $49. But if you're not a fan of musk, try Lauder Beyond Paradise Men, $39, a musk-free scent that's still ultraseductive.
Your scent can stir up your inner sexpot.
Research shows that fragrance can actually make a woman feel more confident and feminine. In a survey of 113 women, psychologist Rachel S. Herz, PhD, found that 90 percent of respondents in their 20s reported that fragrance made them feel more confident. Eighty-three percent of all respondents claimed fragrance made them feel more appealing to others, and a whopping 92 percent said it made them feel more feminine. Perfumer Sarah Horowitz-Thran of Creative Scentualization, a fragrance house in Los Angeles that specializes in custom creations, recommends you carefully select a scent you like instead of choosing something that's currently trendy or a friend's favorite. "Your best fragrance is one that makes you feel good about yourself," she says.
Certain aromas can help him recognize how hot you are.
One whiff of a woman's perfume (any feminine scent) can grab a guy's attention and raise his interest in her. And floral odors — especially rose, lily of the valley, and gardenia — lead men to remember events in an especially positive light, according to a study by the Human Emotions Lab at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. So if you wear a scent with one or more of these flowery notes on a date, chances are good that the night will linger in your guy's mind, making him eager to see you again as soon as possible. For nights when you want to be seriously seductive, wear yummy-sweet notes like pumpkin and vanilla. They actually can increase the blood flow to his sexual organs and boost his libido.