19 replies to this topic

[Skötkonung]

All of this hype around vampires (Twilight) has me wondering: do human pheromones function similarly to other animals in that they incite instant attraction? Or are we too cerebral? Vampires characteristically (at least in the movies) seem to be sources of un-naturally high levels of sexual attraction. Could a similar effect be acheived with pheromones applied to the skin like cologne?

If pheromones do work in this way, I may need to do some testing Unbeknownst to my girlfriend, she will be my test subject.

[tintinet]

Perhaps, but I don't think any effective pheromone is available.

[FunkOdyssey]

There are whole messageboards dedicated to the use of pheromone cologne products. That might be the place to look for more information.

[FNC]

Unbeknownst to my girlfriend, she will be my test subject.

Haha, this made me laugh, merci.

[rollo]

They do work but not as you would think. They will enhance your confidence and help you project it, nothing more.

I would pick up some RPN Pheromone skin balm from that bodybuilding store or from nutraplanet, it's dirt cheap, like $7-8...

[harris13.3]

I personally doubt pheromones would work on humans. I'm not 100% sure but I heard somewhere that while rats have a special pheromone-sensing organ inside their nose, in humans the gland is smaller and not functional; we seem to have lost the need somewhere during the course of our evolution. Pheromones seem to have a greater role in species where communication has a strong chemical basis. Bees, for example, use pheromone-like compounds to effectively communicate and keep the hive together.

So I agree with rollo. The effect will be most likely something along the lines of a placebo.

[wiserd]

I've tested pheromones. Humans chemosignal extensively, but it's not as simple as many people imagine. People signal status, agression, openness, etc. Androstadienone has been studied as a bonding pheromone (bonding men to women.) It causes mood elevation in women and depressive effects in men. Some molecules visibly increase primping behavior in nearby women. While a lot of people are attracted to the more status-signaling molecules those can actually cause a lot of negative effects. They can evoke agression or kill the conversation if used in excessive amounts. I've spent a huge amount of time reading through forums on this topic. Pherotruth.com is the best in my opinion. Someone else on this site mentioned HackingTheHive.com, which has a very good wiki (The site owner basically gave me the finger a while back because of some forum related drama, but the info in the wiki is still a good compiled primer and the site owner is generally knowledgable.) You get reports of women screaming at their husbands and accusing them of using them for sex and cheating on them because the husband took a 'more is better' philosphy and bathed in androstenone. Also, many mones stink and above a certain level they won't work and just cause headaches and avoidance.

Pheromones are more like a language and less like the chemical viagra that everyone is looking for. Agressive mixes can both arouse and intimidate or inspire hostility. Some chemicals inspire jealousy. People are far more complex than animals.Though considering that sick mice don't seem to produce pheromones and healthy mice do, it's unquestionably socially advantageous to have a pheromone signature of some type.

Androstenone, androstenol and androstadienone are the best studied in the literature. Though I've personally used a wide range of chemicals which the literature does not indicate are pheromones, but they still unquestionably have an effect on how people behave.

I suspect that most androstanes (steroids) have some kind of effect, for better or worse.

A few of these molecules are available commercially, and you have to dilute them down to microgram or sub-microgram quantities for them to have a positive effect. 7-Keto-DHEA makes a person a bit more approachable, for instance. Pregnenolone... seems to have an effect but I'm hard pressed to describe it. Biologically it's excitatory. Anti-GABAergic. Activates the NMDA receptors. It also diminishes some of the effects of androstenol. DHEA is infantalizing. A person using it is lower status but less of a threat.

I've come to see aromatherapy as having the potential to be much less of a quack science if ever done rigerously. People react psychologically to the stuff that they inhale.

Many of the heterocyclic ketone animal musks (civetone, muscone, etc.) used in perfume are capable of assuming a conformation similar to the human androstanes/steroids, though the animal musks are used in quantities 100 to 1000 times what are used in humans. They seem to be designed to be weaker yet active over much longer distances. I haven't played with them very much, admittedly.


Contact me for more info.

[victortsoi]

I have used pheromone colognes a lot, and I do feel that they "work" but not necessarily as advertised. People do "respond" to the chemical androsterone that is in most of these products. I would get kind of "chilled out" and sociable when I applied this cologne, and I definetely got more attention from women. I think my girlfriend was/is more turned on when I wear it than not. It won't substitute for the other aspects of courtship by any means though.
Comparing them to the nootropics we use provides a great analogy, pheromones might "help" your game in the same way piracetam will help you on your undergraduate thesis- you might do a better job, but you still have to work your ass off.

[smithx]

Pheromones definitely work, when they're real and in sufficient concentration. Many or most companies selling them either have fake products, products without anything in them, or products with fictional active ingredients.

Of the products I've tried the ones which were effective for me were:
- Pherone pheromones formulas V-5 and M-11
- Love-Scent WAGG and Alpha-7
- Athena10x (but that one is super expensive - $100 for 5ml)

I've tried a lot of others, except for ones which are obviously fake like Pherlure (their active ingredient doesn't actually exist), and the above were the only ones which really had a noticeable effect.

Edited by smithx, 16 August 2012 - 10:11 AM.

[wiserd]

Alpha Dream's Products work well, also. Glace is a very non-threatening pro-social mix. The effects are subtle, but real.

[JohnD60]

A thought about Pheromones.... If pheromones do work, and that bottle of liquid you bought off the interweb for $50 actually does have a significant amount of pheromones in it, could the pheromones not have a great unintended effect upon the wearer's hormonal system? If you are wearing a concentration high enough to, within a few minutes, influence another person who is a few feet away from you, the feedback to the frequent wearer's hormonal signaling could be potentially tramatic in nature. The wearer is probably being exposed to 100x the dose of the target. Maybe long term use could even induce primary or secondary hypogonadism. Just a thought.

[Adamzski]

Smithx and Wiserd , I really doubt that these work unless you believe they are working but you guys seem to have tried various brands, what are the effects that you notice?
If these did work, wouldn't they be standard issue for sales people? like IBM would be giving making them a part of there standard sales kit.

[smithx]

Smithx and Wiserd , I really doubt that these work unless you believe they are working but you guys seem to have tried various brands, what are the effects that you notice?
If these did work, wouldn't they be standard issue for sales people? like IBM would be giving making them a part of there standard sales kit.

Just read the research studies on Pherone's site: Pheromone Facts there's ample evidence that human pheromones not only exist, but that they have noticeable effects.

What I've noticed is that when I use Pherone's V-5 I basically never get a negative reaction from women. Their reactions are from neutral to positive, with more emphasis on the positive side. It doesn't make them swoon and suddenly want to run off with me (as far as I can tell), but it does seem to move things in the positive direction.

I think when people claim that there are no human pheromones, they're imagining that for something to be a pheromone it should cause a very strong immediate reaction. But in humans, what has been discovered so far are compounds which move things in one direction or another by some percentage. If you get, say, a 5% boost in positivity and you're already doing pretty well, that can make a big difference. If you get a 5% boost in positivity but you weren't doing well at all, that increase may not change your outcome at all.

Edited by smithx, 03 October 2012 - 09:21 PM.

[treonsverdery]

Here are some images of actual data from the Athena Pheremone study http://athenainstitu...ks/sfsuabs.html

The line item data is informative as if you are optimistic, figuring "well I will be at the upper fifth of responders" then you can calculate how much more of the various effects you experience

Unless you are Gigi, if you are code named Gigi your love life is multiplied 5 to 8 times. (opportunity to be amused)

 athena pheremone data.png   695.24KB   12 downloads


with this actual line item data each woman using pheremones or placebo was given a code name
 athena pheremones actual data.png   505.33KB   11 downloads



If we just look at the people where athena pheremones increased romantic or sexual behavior noticeably

2/3 to 1.0 more romantic approaches per 7 days (other than Gigi)
making out 1 ish, more times per 7 days (other than Gigi)
more days per week sleeping next to a romantic partner 1 to 1.5 (other than Gigi)
actual sex .5 (other than Gigi)


so among those it works with, 4 new potential partners will approach you each month.
(also changing ones name to Gigi looks pretty impressive)

however, I did not run the numbers on the study without Gigi. Its quite possible that she just found someone she liked then spent a lot of her time visiting with them. If we remove her very strong numbers from the data There is still an upwards trend of pleasant occurences anyway.



I wonder if halogenating pheremones, that is putting a Cl, F, or Br atom on the active ingredient might improve them strongly.
Also the Gigi occurence is plausibly a pheremone effect, or a chance effect. With 19 college women, at 52 weeks per year, what are the odds that 1 per 19 will have a whirlwind romance during any particular week?

Edited by treonsverdery, 04 October 2012 - 01:12 AM.

[Adamzski]

um its a vendor study, just the same as all those cosmetic studies. Based on 20 people that the cosmescietifical company has chosen...

The actual scientific studies, well there the same as the HGH studies that are great when looking at real HGH but wont help that HGH molecule slip through your skin and wont help some supplement stimulate HGH.

I have heard of buildings pumping slight pine smells and other smells through there offices to boost productivity. I think that pheromones could work but why would these scam companies bother making an effective pheromone spray when they can get enough sales through banner ads and PUA forums?

Im not sure how to produce this stuff or if it is synthesized but there would be a Chinese source where you could get the raw ingredients and make a 100X version for about $2

[treonsverdery]

I put up the images from the peer reviewed paper from university researchers to emphasize more than pheremones. Many people that think about human pheremones might also be thinking about dating or romance.

"very funly" The line item data actually describes what kind of sociosexual activities a group of college women actually participate at, as well as how often. so even the placebo data describes actual 20th century california university dating or behavior. viewing the data, people that date, also make out. While this is fairly obvious it suggests to people that would like to make out or have sex that asking people on dates has an effect 2 or 3 times as large as pheremones. also the way each participant has a code name lets a person think, wow some people get asked out a whole bunch regardless of pheremones. what is the cause of that, or permits other people to recognize the actual magnitude of typical love lives is what it is.

so the actual data is there to enthuse, encourage, bring forth empathy, as well as create additional thoughts.


what would be wonderful would be a happiness (SWB) measure as well as a much larger sample size to see if pheremones or certain detectable from the actual data dating or romance patterns caused greater happiness, some of which might be amplified with pheremones.

Edited by treonsverdery, 04 October 2012 - 06:27 PM.

[JohnD60]

I fail to see the point of a 'women using pheromone' test, particularly if they are college age women. As Whitney Cummings would say, they don't need game, they have a vagina.

[Adamzski]

I fail to see the point of a 'women using pheromone' test, particularly if they are college age women. As Whitney Cummings would say, they don't need game, they have a vagina.

^like , haha

[sagecucumber]

Fascinating stuf.... if we exist in fantasy land.

Humans respond (are attracted) to visual cues and social and interpersonal dynamics. Unlike many other animals, we don't respond to chemicals. Sorry to ruin the fun.

[treonsverdery]

read the line item data its really peculiar

women that already had lots of affection, got slightly less affection (column 1 makimg out)
women without affection, got some affection

pretty different than the concept. hmmmmmm.