It's not the latest French perfume or a new air freshener but the name coined by American researchers for the smells they collected from the armpits of elderly women to show that body odors can have an impact on mood. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Pennsylvania and Rutgers University in New Jersey believe hormonal changes in older people, particularly women, can trigger a happy, approachable mood that can be conveyed through body smells.
Animals routinely use scent to convey information.
Haviland and her colleagues reasoned that body odors could influence people's mood. To test their theory, they collected underarm odors on gauze pads from 30 volunteers ranging from toddlers to 70-somethings and asked more than 300 students to assess their mood before and after sniffing the samples. The students were not told what the scents were. Smells from older people and females in general produced a more positive mood. Baby odors did not improve moods and scents from young boys were associated with aggression.