Gee, Your Hair Smells ... mmmm ...

There's an oxytocin spray out there that promises that if you spray it on yourself, others will trust you and like you more.

This fantasy has an earlier history in the pheromone product craze. Now, it's actually a bit more likely that spraying pheromones on yourself could work. The problem is, science hasn't identified any human pheromones. Probably because they're not looking.

Pretty much everyone else in the animal kingdom responds to pheromones of all kinds. In mammals, the primary site is the vomeronasal organ, a region of tissue in the nostril that can take in molecules. Until very recently, scientists believed that, while human fetuses had a vomeronasal organ, it was an evolutionary throwback that disappeared by birth. Ha ha. It definitely persists after birth.

Multiple experiments have found that humans are indeed able to detect molecules of testosterone, estrogen and other such in sweat and saliva.

Which is a long way around to a product I happened upon while trying to find my favorite hair conditioner.

Got2B Magnetik claims to be (and is, no doubt) the first hair product to contain pheromones. I really love the way they mince words in their claim:

Pheromones are clinically proven to positively influence the psychology of attraction.

Okay, whatever.

BTW, you have to say you're 18 to enter the site. Pretty smart marketing!

For more on the vomeronasal organ, see Smith, Timothy D. and Bhatnagar, Kunwar P., The human vomeronasal organ. Part II: prenatal development Journal of Anatomy (2000), 197: 421-436

Comments

[Neurofreak]

"Pheromones are clinically proven to positively influence the psychology of attraction."
Stuff like that literally *pains* me to read.