Media release

From: The Royal Society

Femme fertile – Despite popular belief, men are not more attracted to the smell of a woman at peak ovulatory fertility. Ninety-one men (aged 19-40) rated the scents of 29 women, at different stages of their menstrual cycle, on attractiveness, pleasantness and intensity. No correlation was found between attractiveness ratings and fertility, and chemical analysis suggested there was no difference in the chemical makeup of the odour of fertile women. Proceedings B

Combined perceptual and chemical analyses show no compelling evidence for ovulatory cycle shifts in women's axillary odour

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

We investigated whether women’s axillary body odour changes across the ovulatory cycle by combining perceptual and chemical analyses in a scenario where men encounter these women for the first time. While previous studies suggested that men prefer the scent of fertile women, our findings showed no significant effect of the menstrual cycle on men's attraction to women's odour. Additionally, the chemical composition of women's axillary odour did not vary across the cycle. Together, our results showed no convincing support for a chemical fertility cue in women´s axillary odour that is functional during first encounters in modern humans.