We know that a woman can tell whether a man is attracted to her from the scent of his sweat. But the finer details of sexual odor have escaped us, until now: Swiss scientists say they’ve discovered that men's sweat smells like cheese, while women smell like onions when they perspire.
Researchers from a Swiss company called Firmenich asked 24 men and 25 women to go in a sauna or pedal on an exercise bike for 15 minutes, to collect armpit sweat. The smells were then rated by “independent smell assessors.” (Wow, that must have been a fun job!) Of the two groups, the scientists agreed: Women had the more "unpleasant" smell.
The researchers also discovered why women’s sweat smelled like onions: The female sweat had ten times the level of an odorless sulfur-containing compound than men. It turns out that when this sulfur compound is mixed with bacteria under ...
