PHEROMONES

I was in first in high school when a friend came to find me to tell me that his relationship with the fairer sex was going to change completely and that I had to prepare myself to take full view. When I asked him where he got his sudden confidence from, he admitted to me that his secret weapon was proudly enthroned in his bathroom and that he would show it to me after class. What was my surprise, arriving home, to understand that he was actually talking about a vulgar shampoo. But he was convinced that he held the Grail and that his product, which smelled, moreover, had special properties. When he explained to me that his soap contained androstenol, a molecule that exacerbates desire in women, I couldn't believe my ears. I then begged him to lend me his mixture, repeating to him that he could count on me to make a reasoned and reasonable use of it! After all, with great power comes great responsibility. But he categorically refused, claiming that at 50 euros for 20 ml, I could go brush my hair. His pheromone shampoo was horribly expensive, especially when you're in high school. I then went on with my life, convinced that there were cosmetics whose smell was capable of manipulating people's sexual desires.

It wasn't until many years later that I discovered the reality of pheromones. This article is here to share, with all the gullible people like me, the truth: COMMERCIAL PHEROMONES PRODUCTS DON'T WORK! There, it is said! If you have to remember only one information from this post, it is this one. This will prevent you from succumbing to the chants of fallacious marketing. Now, let's take the time to explain such a claim. Let's start at the beginning and define pheromones. These are chemical compounds produced by animals and detected by other individuals of the same species. Pheromones cause behavioral changes or physiological changes. They have been identified in ALL forms of life and are particularly important in mammals, where they play a role in sexual behavior. Humans would therefore be the only living being, mammals moreover, not having a pheromone. You then understand that it is difficult to defend this argument and that is why at VIOLET, we are absolutely not against the idea that there may be human pheromones.

Attention, it is important to specify that all scientists are still looking for irrefutable proof of their existence. Some recent studies seem on the verge of corroborating their existence in humans. According to British expert Tristram Wyatt, the first real human pheromone could be identified in a mother breastfeeding her newborn. In 2009, French researchers found that secretions from the areolar glands located on the nipples of breastfeeding women trigger sucking behavior in newborns, regardless of which woman the secretions come from. These secretions could therefore contain one or more pheromones responsible for this behavior. But then if this molecule is on the way to becoming the first “real” pheromone found in humans, what is this andostrenol that my friend used to put in his hair and which was to cause riots on his way? Isn't she a pheromone? Today, there is no scientific consensus on the matter. For what ? Because we are no longer really able to understand pheromones. The organ of the brain capable of capturing pheromones called the vomeronasal organ has been damaged in the process of evolution of the human species. He is now able to capture them, but quite incapable of transcribing the information to send it back to the brain effectively. Therefore, to say that andostrenol, a molecule present in men's sweat, is a pheromone is not totally false in itself, but to say that it functions as a woman's magnet, one should not exaggerate all the same.

Some clever people to contradict me will bring out the study carried out in 1978 by Professor Kirk Smith. The latter showed that out of 840 women who passed through a waiting room, 80% chose to sit on the chair where a little andostrenol had been spilled. From this experience, we hastily concluded that the women in the test had made this choice under the influence of pheromones. This study is today very controversial, both on the protocol and on the interpretation of the results.

Ultimately, the problem is not so much the existence or not of pheromones, but all the marketing touting their use in this or that product. Even if pheromones existed and andostrenol did have an effect on the opposite sex, it would be so tenuous and so insignificant that a product could never put it forward as a selling point. Oh yes, and we'll go back to the ethical side of the thing (use olfactory and biological manipulation to be sexually advantaged). In the perfume industry, we look at pheromone perfumes a bit like the not really smart cousin who comes to try to persuade you at family gatherings to join the pyramid system in which he fell. So unless, like my friend, you have 50 euros to spare or are a chair in a waiting room, one piece of advice; wear real perfumes that you like. They may not promise to olfactorily manipulate the opposite sex, but they at least smell good. That's always winning over perfumes with “false romones”.