Eau de Old Bag

Post-menopausal women smell delicious!

I knew there was something leftl to live for.

The wise old grandmother who can calm every fear and soothe every woe is a staple of folklore, but there may be some fact among the fiction. A Rutgers professor and her former graduate student have found that the odor of post-menopausal women can lift the spirits. The research is preliminary but fascinating, said psychology Professor Jeannette Haviland-Jones.

Working with former graduate student Denise Chen, now at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Haviland-Jones collected the underarm secretions of donors ranging in age from young children to senior citizens. Volunteers were unknowingly exposed to one of the scents and asked to complete a survey that included questions on their own mood. After just a few minutes of surreptitious “aroma therapy” the volunteers’ mood changed. The scent of an older woman improved their mood, a baby’s scent had little effect and the scent of a teenage boy had a negative effect. Haviland-Jones is quick to note that the mood change was slight but, since no change was expected, significant.

So, will parfum de granny be the next perk-me-up scent? It’s too soon to say. “It’s possible that the group of older women we chose is really happy and that being a young man is a difficult time of life,” Haviland-Jones said. More research is planned. In the meantime, it won’t do your mood any harm to hang around with some happy old ladies.

Since I live with teenage boys, I would vouch that their scent doesn’t lift my mood either.

My theory — the body goes, the mind goes, the looks go, and all you can do is smell good.

Found at Perfume of Life

  • Patty says:

    Exactly, Cait, we are under and unappreciated! Vintage Ladies Rule!

    Marina, it really does entirely depend on what the baby has or has not done. The brand new ones always smell good. The older ones tend to put off some not so entrancing odors or:crying: which will ruin any good smell.

  • Marina says:

    Baby’s scent had little effect?? What kind of unfeeling, cold people were in that test group? LOL

  • Cait says:

    This fully explains the appeal of the older woman, the most underappreciated passle of lovelies out there! Thanks for the giggle. I plan to forward this one to all my “women of a certain age.”

  • Patty says:

    It’s a natural. An hour on the treadmill at .5 miles an hour should produce enough perfume to keep me going for a week.

  • marbledog says:

    So, will we be able to extract and bottle it? Great way to earn a little pocket money – maybe enough to eat gourmet cat food instead of regular, seeing as my only retirement fund is social security which isn’t going to do jack. So, anyway, all I gotta do is sweat into a jar and mail it to some perfume maker? I like it.

  • marbledog says:

    So, will we be able to extract and bottle it? Great way to earn a little pocket money – maybe enough to eat gourmet cat food instead of regular, seeing as my only retirement fund is social security which isn’t going to do jack. So, anyway, all I gotta do is sweat into a jar and mail it to some perfume maker? I like it.