Smells of Feminine & Masculine Sweats Analyzed: Discover the B.O. Wheel {Fragrant Reading}

The Body Odor Wheel

An article in Slate from last year takes a closer look at human sweat and the Body Odor Wheel to make better sense of it.

An early aromatic wheel was the Wine Aroma Wheel developed by the University of California-Davis's Ann Noble, a chemist, in 1984. The article is based on findings by researchers at Firmenich,

"In January, a Swiss fragrance firm concluded after years of study that female perspiration smells like grapefruit, passion fruit, and onion, while male sweat smells more cheesy, rancid, and animalic...

"Several years earlier, the same firm had analyzed male sweat and detected these flavor notes: chicken broth, butter, vinegar, onion, and grapefruit. The presence of grapefruit and onion--the scent of a woman--in male sweat gives the lie to the notion that men's B.O. is from Mars while women's is from Venus. For this reason, the B.O. wheel expresses gender differences on a gradient."

Read more in The B.O. Wheel...