When a Woman Smells Best
 

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.
---------------------------------

The scent of a woman is more attractive at certain times of the month, suggests a new study that had men sniffing women's armpit odor.

"We were interested whether armpit odor changes across menstrual cycle, " said study author Jan Havlieek of the Department of Anthropology at Charles University, Prague. "To test this, we asked a group of women to wear cotton pads in their armpits for 24 hours."

The women didn't wear perfumes, use deodorants, eat spicy or smelly foods, smoke, drink alcohol or use hormonal contraceptives such as the pill. Body odor was collected during three phases: menstrual (at the beginning); follicular (between the first day of menstruation and the onset of ovulation); and luteal (the fertile stage).

"The fresh pads were subsequently rated for their attractiveness and intensity by a group of 42 men, " Havlieek told LiveScience.

The most attractive smells, men said, were from the time between the first day of menstruation and ovulation.

The cycle

The typically 28-day menstrual cycle involves the physiological changes that occur in a woman to prepare for a possibility of pregnancy. It is controlled by the reproductive hormone system.

A cycle is divided into four parts and starts on the first day of menstruation, which is the shedding of tissue and blood from the womb. In the follicular phase, a dominant ovarian follicle—which is a sack that contains the ova, or egg grows, becoming ready to ovulate. The mature egg is then released in the phase known as ovulation around day 12. The cycle ends with the fertile phase.

Although many men would tell you they're always in the mood, Havlieek and colleagues discovered that men find odors during the follicular phase the most attractive and least intense. On the other hand, the highest intensity smells, corresponding to the lowest attractiveness for men, were found during the time of menstrual bleeding.

"Traditionally it's believed that ovulation in human female is concealed and there are no changes in attractiveness across the cycle, " Havlieek said.

The study is detailed in the January issue of the journal Ethology.

Further sniffing

Two other studies by different research teams came to similar conclusions. But those investigationsused T-shirts for odor sampling, "making it difficult to pinpoint the source of the smell, " said Havlieek, whose team restricted sampling to armpits only.

Finally, the attractiveness of women's faces also changes during the month.

Havlieek's team found that facial images of women in the follicular phase—when the dominant ovarian follicle is getting ready to ovulate—are considered more attractive as compared to images taken in the luteal or fertile phase of the cycle.

The researchers hope to find out which chemical compounds are responsible for the odor changes across a woman's menstrual cycle.

very interesting..I love this stuff

:lol: :lol: :lol:

please don't smell my armpits.
no matter what time of the month,
when i don't wear deodorant here in florida
i stink.


edit: spelling

umm wow. arm pit odor never smells good to me. did I miss something?

Ummm.... yeah..

I'm not big into B.O. I'd prefer girls to smell nice and clean, not sweaty and gross.

I'm sure this has to do with phermones (sp?) and such. I know I wouldn't want to be a test subject. My wife doesn't smell too bad, but I wouldn't want to smell her without deoderant, and perfume!

... who knew?

who are these men that agreed to smell cotton pads laden with arm pit sweat.. bums probably, looking for a quick buck. I, for one, do not normally take the advice of bums on what smells I find attractive.
I mean come on, they are freaking BUMS! They eat trash! They like the smell of trash and garbage! If they didn't, they wouldn't be bums anymore!
Right?

I've heard these same kind of facts before. The source was my cosmopolitan magazine. I've also taken my own little survey and measured how many more times I get 'excited' and most of them were closer to my period, which stands correct.

Slightly off-topic, with the right man, I love the smell of their armpits. One of my ex-bfs works out frequently, and very often when he came back from a jog, I loved to just stick my face under his arm. He found it really weird though and was never really thrilled with the concept (although he put up with it, probably partly because I would frequently jump him on the spot).

I love the smell of my wife just about anytime... it's all in the variety.

I'm not sure where I stand on the whole armpit thing, but on the subject of pheromones: I'm horniest when my partner has her period.