London: Men who wear deodorant are perceived to be more masculine by women, but that this is not the case for those who already have high levels of masculinity, a new study has found.
The study by researchers at University of Stirling in the UK has found that men who are perceived low in masculinity can significantly increase this by applying deodorant. The study investigated what effect wearing deodorant has on assessing masculinity and femininity. As many as 130 female and male participants rated facial masculinity and femininity using photographs and a further 239 men and women rated odour samples of 40 opposite sex individuals.
The research confirmed that females appear to be, in some way, more sensitive or attentive to odour cues than males. All women who were wearing deodorant were rated as more feminine-smelling by men compared to when they had no
deodorant on. However, without deodorant men rated by women with high and low facial masculinity received significantly different ratings of odour masculinity - once a deodorant was applied these two groups of men became indistinguishable in terms of their rated levels of masculinity.
Men who were low in face masculinity significantly increased their odour masculinity by applying a deodorant, but the highly masculine men showed no increase after deodorant application. "We're all aware that fragrances are often marketed as being feminine or masculine," said Caroline Allen, from University of Stirling, who led the study.
"Our study found that when women apply a deodorant it does increase their rated body odour femininity, as would be expected," Allen said. "Though it seems as though something else is at play when it comes to male body odour and male deodorants," she said. "Only those men who were rated low in masculinity to
start with showed a significant increase after applying their deodorants, and the men who were highly masculine initially showed no increase after deodorant application," she added.
"This means that men are able to use deodorant to artificially raise their game so to speak, levelling the playing field by making themselves comparable, at least as far as odour is concerned, to more masculine men," said Allen. "Our evolutionary preferences have likely shaped this difference in fragrance design: research findings show that we actually don't like high levels of masculinity which are often associated with aggressiveness and hostility, but we show no upper limit on our femininity preferences," she said.
