Reuters | folding chair | pheromones | chemical scent

All I have to say is, EEEEEUW. Four weeks without deodorant? What? These guys don't work? And the women - sweat extract was applied to their UPPER LIPS? Reuters continues: "The women rated their moods on a fixed scale for a period of six hours. The findings suggested that something in the perspiration brightened their moods and helped them feel less tense. Blood analyses also showed a rise in levels of the reproductive luteinizing hormone that typically surges before ovulation.

"[T]he women never suspected they had men's sweat under their noses and believed they were helping to test alcohol, perfume, or lemon floor wax."

Lemon floor wax? How much were they paying these women, anyway? "Put lemon floor wax on my upper lip? How much money you got? Oh, that much? OK, sure. Beats smearing men's sweat on my upper lip, ha ha ha."

When I told a woman friend about the study, she was buoyed by its potential for improving her own life. "I don't have to work out at the gym anymore to feel better," she said. "I can just take a folding chair and set up near a guy who is working out really hard. All of the benefit, none of the work."

She went on to say that a male companion of hers back in the early '80s actually had the same idea based on research then being conducted into pheromones. A pheromone is a chemical scent released through the body that acts a bit like an aromatic mating call. They are dispersed in the air like perfume. A lot like perfume. Nowadays, they even put the stuff in perfume. My friend remembered her boyfriend taking the research to heart.

"He would get sweaty and wipe it on a hankie, then put the hankie in the front pocket of his sport jacket," she recalled.
"You're joking," I said. "Did it work?"