Do Fragrances Make You More Attractive?

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Let me put this up front before we go any further and you get angry with me. This article isn’t going to tell you about a magical perfume or fragrance that will attract the opposite gender. No such thing exists.

Pheromone infused fragrances don’t work. Perfumes that costs hundreds of dollars that claim to seduce the man or woman of your dreams do not work. And no matter how much you slather yourself in the stuff, it won’t instantly turn you into a magnet for the opposite gender. Actually, slathering yourself in any perfume is a surefire way of annoying other people and make them want to put lots of distance between you and them. Sorry.

The truth of the matter is, perfume is not a magical love potion. There’s no special formula or secret agent that instantly attracts people. Well–almost none. Luca Turin said it best:

“The question that women casually shopping for perfume ask more than any other is this: “What scent drives men wild?” After years of intense research, we know the definitive answer. It is bacon.“

Well ladies and gents, here you go and good luck.

On a more serious note ,wearing a fragrance for the purpose of attracting people to you is a bad idea. In the first place, there is no guarantee that what you smell like will appeal to other people. Everyone’s taste in what they like to smell is different. Even the most benign of fragrances used in soaps and shampoos are offensive to some people. It bears repeating that you simply don’t have a catch-all answer.

Secondly, there’s no guarantee that the people who like how you smell are necessarily the kind of people you want to attract in the first place.

Finally, what if the stuff stinks to you but you keep hearing your friends rave about how girls/guys love smelling the stuff? Why wear something you hate?

Think of this way, people come in from all walks of life with all sorts of different and clashing opinions with all manner of preferences that trying to find something to appeal to a specific gender is a useless exercise. So instead of asking, “What scent drives women/men wild?” Ask, “What do I want to smell like and what do I like?”

The bottom line is this; wear what you want and forget about what anyone else thinks. If you don’t overdo it, then spray yourself in whatever makes you happy.

Dolce & Gabanna Light Blue

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Dolce & Gabanna are like the masters of the inoffensive scent. Light Blue is considered to be one of the most popular most inoffensive and easily wearable fragrances available. I used to smell this stuff everywhere when everyone had a bottle. Back then it seemed like one in every tenth person was rocking Light Blue, but that phase seems to have passed and people have moved onto fruitier things. Light Blue

In Bottle: Fresh, citrus scent with a note of cedar. I can smell the apple, tart and crisp. The in-bottle scent is a bit aqueous too. This is clean, fresh, like a very nice shower gel or shampoo. Or a well made alcoholic drink.

Applied: Mojitos. It smells like mojitos! The apple and lime just combine nicely into tricking my nose. So what I get is apple, lime, mint and rum. Very slightly tart and very slightly sweet. I don’t know why I’m so happy about that but Light Blue’s alcohol base is doing its work with the citrus and aqueous notes in this. It’s like I spilled a mojito on me and decided I was too busy to wash it off. But after that initial burst of mojito, Light Blue turns toward the woodsy side of its personality. Cedar comes up, and the citrus side of Light Blue gets together very well with it. Then disaster strikes as the lemon notes comes in and bulldozes everything. I’m starting to see a trend here as lemon tends to be the obliterator of perfumes on my skin. I cannot for the life of me, smell anything but this stupid lemon now.  Once in a while that green apple scent will flair up like it’s trying to make itself known. Upon dry down there is a soft woodsy and musky quality to Light Blue that fades in and out of the loud and obnoxious lemon that eventually dies but when it does, there’s nothing else left to appreciate.

Extra: At one point I owned a deodorant stick in Light Blue scent. It smelled much more like a mojito than the fragrance. It was also a highly pleasant wake up in the mornings thanks to the sheer freshness of this. Not to mention the looks I’d get as people would think I drank before I went to work.

Design: Light Blue is bottled in a big glass rectangle with frosted glass. The cap is is an equally rectangular blue plastic affair. The bottle is a little strange to hold but it is manageable. Nothing exiting going on with the design of this bottle. There are hundreds of different fragrances that employ the big rectangle bottle out there.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Granny smith apple, sicilian cedar, lemon, lime, bluebells, jasmine, rose, bamboo, cedarwood, amber, musk.

You shouldn’t wear Light Blue if you’re looking for something that smells unique or interesting. The time for Light Blue to be interesting ended the day everybody decided to wear it. But it is not at all a bad scent. It is highly versatile, very inoffensive and extremely appropriate for wear in an office.

Reviewed in This Post: Light Blue, 2009, Eau de Toilette.