A Smelly Reader wrote:

This may sound silly, but you should play around with pheromones sometime. I did back in 2004, and just started experimenting with them again after my own girlfriend broke up with me back in September.

There’s two places to buy online, and both have forums with lots of good information. My current fave is Androtics, because the folks on the forums and the owners seem to be a bit more sophisticated. The older, original source which has fallen out of favor is Love Scent. (Although they sell one of the best all-natural colognes you’ll ever try, Pheros.)

Androtics sells “To Go” sizes which are small, portable and much cheaper than full bottles, in case you want to play around without spending a lot of money.

I asked him what the results of his experiments with pheromone colognes had been.

I’ve been trying out many different combinations for work, which means stuff that doesn’t heat up the girlies, but makes people respond better to you in a professional environment.

I must say I have been getting a LOT more cooperation from all the mega-egos at work, and my stress levels are down dramatically because of this.

I tried out an androstenone-heavy mix last Saturday for the first time. Androstenone is the alpha-male pheromone, and can be quite pungent, so it requires a cologne cover to both mask the scent and carry the pheromones. Never wear this shit at work, it will lead to trouble.

I ended up chatting up a gorgeous 20-something recent college grad at Pianos for quite a while (until I got kinda bored). Disclaimer: I suck at chatting up girls, especially at bars; I never ever ever did well with younger crowds, not even when I was young (I am 37); and I made absolutely no effort to talk to her or anybody else, she started talking to me.

This is what the pheromone crowd would call a “hit”.

Also, androstenone is kinda dangerous, as other men can react in an aggressive manner to it. I had two incidents that night in which friends wildly overreacted to a waiter making a minor error and a cabbie going off-duty just as we tried to enter his cab.

The government is researching the smell of fear; I don’t discount that pheromones could be replicated. I do wonder how well these online vendors can emulate the magic mixture of man funk, as well as how effective it is overall. Until I see some more science on it I’m going to keep rubbing my pit sweat around the rim of lonely ladies’ drink glasses and wait for them to dogpile me.