Newbie question here (I apologize in advance if it has been answered before, but I couldn’t find anything similar):
Are there any studies where the actual pheromone content of male sweat has been measured? E.g. do we know the content of various pheromones in the sweat of a charismatic 30y/o as compared to a shy 50y/o, etc?
If the answer is yes, could you please point me to the data?
If no, the question is obviously why not? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a chart of what to “aspire to” based on existing specimens with known characteristics?
Yes there is data on what putatives we secrete that may act as pheromones however its a bit more complicated then your assuming because we signal all the time. See pheromone signaling doesnt just speak of your physiology but of your moods and emotions as well. You will sweat out different mones when your happy then when your sad or when your aroused or feeling calm. We have hundreds chemosensory chemicals in our body some that have had extensive studying and some that are just emerging and being studied now.
Basically the main pheromones found in sweat urine saliva and semen are (in males) are the Androgens. They speak of your biology more. Here are just a few of the popular ones Androstadienone, Androstene, Androstenol, Androstenone, androsterone.
There are also secondary pheromones that speak of moods emotions personality. These usually have the Beta word in front like Beta androstenol beta-androsterone as well as some others being tested.
Then you have some made prodominately by women like estratetraenol, copulins.
There is a long list of known mones and suspected mones. We dont just sweat them out we breath them out they are found in all fluids of the body and they can change not only with your age but with your state of being.
Now here is a short list of the more popular mones and there characters.
Here are some studies but the abstract and studies section of the forum is filled with this info so look there to. I do believe the have some age related studies in there somewhere.
On the difference between a 30 year old and a 50 year old pheromonally we know that men tend to produce more testosterone when young and it declines with age. Anone and Anol speaks of young vertality and Arone speaks of maturity. There are many other differences as well these are just the obvious ones.
When I get home from work later I will look for a few more studies for you that I have somewhere in my data bank. I just cant dig them up right now.
Oh and if your looking for the character of the coded test putatives those are really not listed and can vary to user. These are all in testing still. This may help though Molecule Guide! although these are not the chemical names of these mones.
I know there is a lot of info to take in. If you have questions about a specific pheromone just ask and some of the old timers like myself will try to point you in the right direction.
I don’t recall where, but I read a report that said that homosexual men produce less androsterone than heterosexual men. From experimentation, I feel that older males produce more -rone than -none, and younger males produce more -none in general (thats a common belief.)
Androstadienone is the ‘most common’ phero on the male skin, and it’s interacting with bacteria supposedly create -none.
Even if we had a guide of ideal stereotypes and their production at any given time, because YOU produce various signatures at any given time, it’s difficult to keep an imposed signature calibrated- whatever you spray on will interact with what you are already making.
I guess I should start with a subtler question - given a sample of body fluid, let’s say sweat, can scientists measure the exact amounts of these molecules (e.g. androstenone -> 1mcg per ml, etc) in the fluid?
Even if we can’t extrapolate the exact total amount from all body excretions combined, it can at least tell us the ratios and general ballpark values. And of course we can take the samples at specific times, e.g.:
Ross Jeffries picking up girls in a bar;
Bill Clinton mingling at a donor party;
Donald Trump negotiating a deal;
Etc.
If we had a list of “standard” profiles we would at least know what is natural and what isn’t, and then experimentation would have some sort of a framework - make an assumption regarding your base profile in a certain situation, and then try to add the “delta” to whatever profile you want to reach for a given purpose.
P.S. Another cool thing is, if we could measure this, we could test the same person in his baseline state and after a testosterone injection and see the difference, to know exactly how higher testosterone levels are signaled to others…
I think you ask a good question, and I think the answer is we don’t really know rates of emission of pheromones. Identifying compounds in sweat is easier than quantifying them. Moreover, quantifying compounds in sweat doesn’t directly answer your question, either, because the “dose” a person may be giving off is determined by the amount of volatiles evaporating off of their body (and that is dependent on other factors besides just the concentration of the compound in their sweat).
What would answer your question, and what no one is doing (at least that I’ve read) is dynamic headspace analysis, which would allow measurement of rates of emission of pheromones.
Even if this research were going on, the variables would be many and complex (as others in this thread have mentioned). So the “normal” range of androstenone emission would be huge, as would the ranges for androstadienone and all the other compounds of interest.
I deal with these kinds of logistical difficulties in a related field of chemical ecology. The difficult-to-control variables are huge, and end up being a major impediment to research progress. I can only imagine things are even more complicated with humans.
One point though - if a substance has a tendency to remain on the surface longer and accumulate, the rate of emission would be low but the concentration could still be high.
Nevertheless, if you tried to mimic the “scent” of that person using a cologne, you would need to use a higher concentration.
So for the purpose of designing a cologne, a static measurement of content would help us more than emission rates, no?
If we were designing an implant that causes the body to increase natural production, then obviously the rate would be more relevant.
P.S. Of course the variable I’m ignoring here is that the rate of breakdown/evaporation might also differ from person to person due to auxiliary compounds. But this seems to be two steps ahead of where we are if we haven’t even measured static content of pheromones in a tube
I think that sort of testing is actually less productive than what we’re doing here. In cases were we take sweat and do all the tests- it will vary based on mood, the part of their body, diet- it would be easier to just test and test until we find something that results in something LIKE these figures in a reliable.
Super interesting question though. It’s too bad we couldn’t do it more easily. Would love to know what Che Guevara was pumpin’ out.
If I’m understanding you, yes, I agree, but this is exactly why the absolute amount of phero that has been emitted and not concentration is ultimately important. The pheromone molecules are not available to have an affect on someone until they evaporate and get inhaled.
What exactly do you mean by content? Knowing that sweat is x% pheromones isn’t going to be very useful. Why? because
you still wouldn’t know the total amount of sweat on the person, so you wouldn’t know the amount of pheros volatilizing from that person.
sweat is water based and colognes are alcohol and/or oil based, and all these produce different volatilization rates for the pheros dissolved in them.
Delocc has a good point that empirical testing is probably a better avenue of exploration.
But if for whatever reason you did want to measure how much pheromones people produce, I’ll still contend you need to measure headspace.
We spent over a decade wrapping first animals, then people in tinfoil and sampling in order to gain reliable data on the particular pheros involved in insect attractance and repellence that interested us.
Who may I ask is remembering things falsely. We all gave him the same answer pretty much. Yes there are measurements. However as usual science leaves the “human element” out of the equation.
When it comes to determining what mones will work for you those numbers mean nothing because there are to many variables. Even when those variables are calculated they can be inaccurate.
For instance…
The numbers given in the mallet/gower study were not consistent when repeated and here is why >>
There are other variables so measuring the output of individuals may give us a round number of what a normal healthy male secretes in a controlled environment so we know what to test but it doesn’t give a clear picture of all of what we will secrete when they are moving around and interacting in a real life situation and how much. Emotion, physiology, environment (and food is part of your environment) all play a role in pheromone communication. We havent even touched on studies of diffusion rates and bacterias.
Any pheromone researcher worth their salt knows those numbers mean little in pheromone application unless testing is conducted in a real world environment and all of the variables are studied and that just has not been done. There is a real long way to go before they even get close to understanding pheromone communication and it cant be done by sweat measurements alone.
I agree, pheromone output will vary based on many different factors. But it seems like you don’t think it’s useful to have an average quantity and ratio on which to base experimental mixes? I sure do.
Do I think its important information for doctors or for researches looking for possible new secretions that act as mones. Yes I do.
Do I think its important information for pheromones users in choosing pheromones. No I dont.
It only means something if you know your actual pheromone output at any given time. You and I may have been tested but there are very few people serious enough about mones to find that out. Now its possible to get your output measured but that will most likely come out in the normal range for a man sitting in the doctors office comfortably being measured. It wont indicate all the mones you secrete during everyday life and experiences. For instance it wont give you a true indication of what your secreting in a bar full of hot girls when your nervous. What if your not an average healthy male ? People come to mones from all different stages in there life experiences. Measurements increase, new pheromones triggered by emotions, such as nervousness may have an effect on other mones and the message your sending. So unless you plan to wear your mones in an evironment and situation that you were tested in the numbers will be skewed.
Knowing what Brad Pitt or Donald Trump secretes (two very confident men) is not going to help in knowing what pheromone formula or combo will work for you. We are all similar but with unique signatures much like a finger print. No two are exactly the same. Sure it would be easy if sweat measurements told us the story. Research would be farther along then it is if it were. Its just not that simple. Looking at the whole person, there health, fitness, age, race and personality traits are how you advise which mones are likely to work for a person. We all know they are not one size fits all.
Even with the limited palette of molecules we have available now, there are way too many permutations to be able to test them all. Therefore, I think it’s helpful to use research findings like the ones I cited above which give an average output for a healthy adult male. From there, we can tweak the ratios based on our understandings of the individual molecules, and observe what effects elevated levels of certain mones have in the context of a profile that is elevated in quantity but average in ratio.
As I write this, I am mixing up a test sprayer with exactly the proportions listed above (I’m improvising for androsterone since it wasn’t quantified in the above study) so that I can find out how people respond to a pheromone profile that is near perfectly average in ratio but highly elevated in quantity. I believe the results of this experiment and the experiments which follow naturally from it will give me a better understanding of how natural ratios affect pheromone response.
Thats a great experiment and I am not saying its not useful or that the mix wont be useful to some individuals but it wont fit them all because there own personal mones are part of the picture. There is no one pheromone product that fits every user not even here at AD.
Plus his questions was …
We have base measurements of a healthy males ratio. Not measurements comparing shy men verses outgoing men or celebrity profiles.
All men are not of the same health or fitness levels. All men dont handle emotions the same way. Overweight men and women secrete different pheromones. etc etc… Because all these factors play a role its not as easy as producing a chart everyone can go by.
I think its more important to experiment with the mones to find what works for you instead of looking at what works for someone else when picking mones.
I think the info you learn from your experiment will be useful for understanding mones more for you and others. Again I think its a great and as I mentioned knowing the numbers are important for doctors and researchers. Both of which you are I believe. I really am not trying to belittle that.
Can this be done ? Yes Has it been done ? No.
Ross may go for it but the Donald and Bill or any other celebrity type is not going to go for it. Maybe Dbot and Steve can track down Donald and ask him for some sweat samples. LOL (come on picture it, it would be funny)
Even if they did it just speaks of Donald’s physiology and his state of mind and the moment you make him aware of it his state of mind changes as does his pheromone output. The scientist influences the experiment.
I agree, the results of my experiments definitely tell me more about what works for me than for anyone else. With multiple people testing single molecules, we can surmise the general characteristics associated with that molecule, but individual differences come into play for sure.
Me & Steve are working on a mix called ICM (Instant Clinton Molester), designed to attract Bill Clinton so we can throw him in a collection chamber for a few days…
