# A phero pouch?

**URL:** <https://pheromonetalk.com/t/a-phero-pouch/63131>\
**Category:** Lounge\
**Created:** [October 31, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/a-phero-pouch/63131 "2014-10-31T14:06:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 20

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**Author:** ![vanadium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@vanadium](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/vanadium)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/a-phero-pouch/63131/20 "2015-03-14T15:52:59Z")

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I had an idea for a test involving the effects of pheros in handshaking, but then we hit winter glove season here, so I never got around to doing the test. Then I stumbled across the following paper this week:

“[A social chemosignaling function for human handshaking](http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e05154)” Idan Frumin, Ofer Perl, Yaara Endevelt-Shapira, Ami Eisen, Neetai Eshel, Iris Heller, Maya Shemesh, Aharon Ravia, Lee Sela, Anat Arzi, Noam Sobel. eLife 2015;4:e05154

I don’t know this e-journal well, so I can’t vouch for it, but the paper has a bibliography to explore. I’ll start a separate thread in the Studies and Abstracts forum, for those who want to follow up.

Hands can be a problematic application point. As a physician, I have a long habit of washing my hands often, so I wondered if I could create an unobtrusive, convincing hand-wipe “towelette” pouch, suitable for low/dilute doses of pheros.

For my first packet, I placed a 1" (25mm) gauze square toward one end of a rectangle of thick aluminum foil, folded the foil over the gauze, then folded the three open edges toward the same side. I applied an inkjet printer-label (available at any office supply store) over the folded edges.

I tried both square labels (applied over the side I folded the edges toward) and rectangular address labels (folded to cover both sides), both printed with captions/logos to resemble generic disposable towelettes. They both looked quite convincing on casual inspection.

I don’t necessarily trust the seal very much, so I keep them in tiny ziplock bags that I keep on hand to store tiny electronics components. I still don’t trust them fully, but they may be good enough to hold a dilute phero and lotion mix for an evening or maybe a weekend.

One could use weather-proof/plasticized mailing labels, or apply clear mailing tape over a completed pouch and then trim. Both of these looked fine, but they were hard to casually tear open for use. I didn’t do any testing to see if either one improved the overall sealing vs paper labels.

I also made a pouch using wax paper instead of foil (ironing the edges to melt the wax into a seal). The mailing label didn’t stick well to the wax paper, but it made a convincing ‘commercial packet’ if the mailing label was large enough to overlap the edges of the wax paper and stick to itself.

I thought I’d share these ideas for your own experiments. There are obvious potential pitfalls in actual use, so please develop the idea further for your own needs. I only looked at the appearance of the completed packets. I didn’t use actual pheros and sniff-test them for leaks.

Even within plastic ziplock, the seal will never equal a proper commercially made packet, but it may be good enough for your own experiments.

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