When most people picture someone readying for a date, the routine will most likely involve a rigorous hygiene regimen and picking a nice outfit before stepping out of the house.
But for a select few of men in the manosphere, a date-ready look is skipping a few steps, betting on natural body odor as a seductive device.
The bizarre trend shared on social media is dubbed “Pheromone-maxxing,” a sort of spinoff from the manosphere-adjacent looks-maxxing community. The trend instructs men to ditch showering before dates as a seduction tactic.
“Stopped washing my hair at all and now unironically get more compliments on how it smells and looks (from women),” a user said on TikTok. “Pheromone-maxxing is key.”
Some will even take it a step further, skipping deodorant as well or, in some cases, drinking a glass of their own urine to intensify the odor, all in the hopes of attracting more women.
The trend has links to scientific research around an individual’s unique natural smell and the role olfactory senses may play in attraction. Pheromones—which are chemical signals that trigger responses between individuals in the same species—have long been believed to influence sexual attraction between individuals through smell.
The theory has some basis in research like the popular “sweaty t-shirt study,” in which women were found to be more attracted to smelly t-shirts from men they were more genetically different to.
In fact, the popularity around pheromones is not exclusive to the manosphere. Pheromone perfumes have become increasingly popular among women. The trend has even made its way to reality TV. Back in 2024, a contestant on Netflix’s Love is Blind made it down the aisle after using a pheromone perfume during the show, leading many to link the perfume to her success.
Despite the popularity of pheromones, the research on its effectiveness is not entirely clear and is far from settled.
“So far, scientists have had some success in demonstrating that exposure to body odor can elicit responses in other humans,” the Scientific American reported. “But there is no evidence of a consistent and strong behavioral response to any human-produced chemical cue.”
Still, the lack of evidence is not seeming to stop men online from jumping on the trend—to the dismay of women and social media users everywhere.
“I can tell you something right now,” a user said on TikTok about the pheromone maxxing trend. “We weren’t attracted to you before, and we’re definitely not attracted to you now.”