The 11 Best Pheromone Perfumes That Command Attention, Tested & Reviewed
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InStyle / Joy Kim
Can a mere whiff of a pheromone perfume really cause men and women to fall at your feet? Hard to say. Simply put, pheromone perfume is a fragrance designed to amplify your sex appeal. “Pheromones are chemical signals that humans release that can relate to mating and fostering social bonds,” says Ashlee Posner, founder of transparent fragrance manufacturer Lucent Laboratories and State of Change. In some cases, they may contain synthetic human pheromones.
Some iterations of fragrances in this category won’t contain pheromones but perfumes that evoke the skin’s scent. Others contain fragrance notes that translate into a bottle of sex appeal. While scent is highly subjective, we tested 17 pheromone perfumes and recruited other InStyle editors to experiment with the fragrance on skin, hair, and fabric. Then, we judged the scents on wearability, longevity, strength, scent, and the bottle to narrow our list to the best 11 fragrances.
Best Overall: Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower Eau de Parfum
What We Love: This perfume makes you feel sexy, confident, and sophisticated from the moment you put it on.
What We Don't Love: Because this is a heady, potent fragrance, it’s best reserved for evening wear.
Carnal Flower is one of the sultriest scents on the market, and upon application, we noticed that we instantly felt mysterious and powerful. Not only did its sleek packaging add a touch of quiet luxury to our vanity, but it has a bold sillage meaning you can smell its lusty notes of tuberose, jasmine, and musk from a distance and it leaves a trail of scent wherever you go. This makes for a fabulous fragrance to wear when you want to stand out at a crowded party or on an intimate date. A little goes a long way and lasts for hours—we found the scent stayed strong on our skin, even with just one spritz.
You may also want to avoid wearing this one during the day so as not to affect the noses of coworkers. (That said, a friend of ours tried it and found that it wore down to a more mellow, flirty scent on her skin, which just goes to show how big of a role body chemistry plays when wearing perfume.)
Type: Eau de parfum｜Key Notes: Tuberose, jasmine, bergamot, musk｜Fragrance Family: White floral｜Size: 1.7 oz
Best Budget: Venom Scents Original Scent (Rollerball)
What We Love: The white floral scent is gorgeous, especially for the price.
What We Don't Love: The packaging can get very messy if you’re not careful.
Those that love a white floral will be hooked on this shockingly affordable fragrance—it boasts a heady blend of white florals, most notably jasmine, with a sultry, spicy quality from the pepper note. The scent had significant staying power, likely because of its jojoba oil base, which left a slight film on our skin and hair (though just left it feeling moisturized, not greasy). It did admittedly stain the fabrics we tested it on, so we’d recommend focusing your application on skin. Though the perfume is spicy, that quality fades away to let the white florals shine, which makes this a wearable scent for all seasons. The aroma is very strong—we were able to smell this one from over five feet away.
The only downside is its packaging. Though the bottle looks like it might have a rollerball or a mini atomizer, it actually only has a stopper, so once you unscrew the cap, you’ll have to carefully dab on the perfume. We wouldn’t trust the integrity of the packaging for traveling—the probability of dousing everything in our bag with perfume is way too high.
Type: Perfume oil｜Key Notes: Coffee, pepper, orange blossom, jasmine｜Fragrance Family: Fresh floral｜Size: 1 oz
Best for Women: Byredo Blanche
What We Love: This scent offers impressive longevity for such an airy and unobtrusive fragrance.
What We Don't Love: The fragrance smells dramatically different on hair, and not in an appealing way.
Perfect for daytime, the Byredo Blanche smells like fresh sheets washed with a subtly floral and feminine laundry detergent. It wears close to the skin and lasts for hours, making it very inoffensive and easy to wear, whether that’s at the office, to brunch, or running errands. It’s also one of the best luxury perfumes we tried, thanks to the heavy, sophisticated bottle, which is an aesthete’s dream (though may be harder to wield if you have smaller hands).
Beyond testing it on the skin, it misted out beautifully (in a star pattern!) without leaving any stains or residue on our fabrics, and we found it smelled especially delightful on sweaters. However, for some reason, Blanche smells very sharp and overpowering on hair, a total contrast to how it wears on the skin. Keep this in mind if you like to liberally spray on scent—concentrate your application on yourself and your clothing for the best result.
Type: Eau de parfum｜Key Notes: Aldehyde, peony, violet, sandalwood, musk｜Fragrance Family: Floral｜Size: 1.7 oz
Best for Men: Escentric Molecules Molecule 01 Eau de Toilette
What We Love: This single-note scent is very simple, yet wears differently on everyone.
What We Don't Love: Some people may be “nose blind” to it.
The star of this scent is just one note: The woodsy iso e super, a lab-made aroma that is somewhat reminiscent of sandalwood, giving this scent a subtly masculine quality without being heady or overpowering. To our surprise, it’s pretty delicate, and we needed to spray on multiple spritzes to detect its faint, clean smell. (We should note that this will deliver a blast of alcohol, which can be off-putting at first, but it quickly dissipates.) Its smell was strongest on heavy fabrics, like tweed, where it smelled a bit musty, like a coat you recently pulled out of storage for the season.
On the skin, it was fresh, clean, and sophisticated, and we felt like it would layer nicely with other perfumes in our scent wardrobe. We also think with regular wear, we’ll find the fragrance to be a quite cozy fall perfume. However, while the scent seemed to last on our skin, it was often hard to detect during testing. This isn’t uncommon in skin scents—in fact, other people can often smell them on us when we can’t.
Type: Eau de toilette｜Key Notes: Iso e super (synthetic sandalwood)｜Fragrance Family: Woody｜Size: 3.4 oz
Best Unisex: Juliette Has a Gun Not A Perfume
What We Love: This perfume completely evolves on the skin throughout the day, making it almost like multiple fragrances in one bottle.
What We Don't Love: This scent wears very, very differently depending on your unique body chemistry, so it’s best to test before buying.
Two of us tried this scent and had totally different experiences. One of us found that it initially smelled a bit pungent, with a sour smell that almost reminded us of sweat before becoming more powdery and somewhat cardboard-like as well as masculine. Another found that it smelled plasticky and synthetic at first, then wore down into a floral, feminine, and musky aroma that sat close to the skin—earning us loads of compliments.
These differing experiences during the testing process were due to the single note in this scent, cetalox, which is a synthetic form of ambergris (aka whale vomit, which used to be used in perfume because of its unusual musky, sweet, earthy, and animalic qualities). It’s imperative to try a fragrance like this firsthand to determine if it's a fit for you. Beyond that, we found it lingered well on skin, hair, and fabric (though it left an oily residue behind) and we enjoyed the wide-spraying mister and luxe, weighty packaging.
Type: Eau de parfum｜Key Notes: Cetalox (synthetic ambergris)｜Fragrance Family: Warm and spicy｜Size: 3.3 oz
Best to Bring Out Your Own Natural Scent: D.S. & Durga I Don't Know What
What We Love: This is an effortlessly wearable scent that just enhances your own body chemistry.
What We Don't Love: The bottle can be a little challenging to use.
This D.S. & Durga perfume features some of the notes you’ll find in a lot of skin scents, like iso e super and ambrox, but there’s also bergamot and vetiver, which made us decide during the testing process that it can be worn by both men and women alike. It was fresh, clean, and musky, with a touch of greenery. It was one of the best lightweight scents we tried; we admit that it wasn’t always easy to detect on our skin (though others could!) but it was easy to smell on fabric, paper, and hair. While we only tested it solo, we’re confident it would work well layered with other fragrances.
We will say that we didn’t love the bottle. Though it’s very attractive and has a nice, luxurious heft, it had a short nozzle that wasn’t easy to mist and the bottle’s shape and size made it a challenge to hold and spray on—we actually needed two hands to do so. However, if you like the aroma, enjoy a minimalist design, and have slightly larger hands, you’ll probably be satisfied with this investment.
Type: Eau de parfum｜Key Notes: Bergamot, iso e super (synthetic sandalwood), vetiver, civettone (a synthetic musk), ambroxan (synthetic ambergris: a woody amber)｜Fragrance Family: Amber｜Size: 1.7 oz
Best Sensual : Diptyque L’eau Papier Eau de Toilette
What We Love: What you smell out of the bottle is what you get—it smelled like this on two InStyle editors who tested it on their skin, and the scent remained completely intact all day.
What We Don't Love: It did leave a stain behind when we tested it on fabric.
Sensual without being sexy, impactful without being overpowering, and totally soothing, this was the best musk we tested. It was soft and light, woody with a delicate sweetness courtesy of the steamed rice note that smelled good on all of us. It’s also noteworthy that while our body chemistry enhanced the scent, it didn’t change it—every tester smelled the same, as did our fabric testing swatches, paper, and hair.
We’re fans of this long-lasting fragrance and can envision ourselves wearing it to bed, to the office, and other intimate settings in which you’d want to wear a low-projection scent. Just be careful of which types of fabrics you mist it on: There are some oils in the formula, which left stains behind when we tested it on lighter materials, including linen and cotton.
Type: Eau de toilette｜Key Notes: White musks, mimosa, blonde woods, rice steam｜Fragrance Family: Floral-musk hybrid｜Size: 1.7 oz
Best Mood Booster: Moodeaux Intenscenual Collection: Worthy Eau de Parfum
What We Love: This perfume is sweet and cozy—the best vanilla we tried.
What We Don't Love: Though it’s marketed as unisex, it reads more feminine to us.
If you’re looking for a perfume that will create comforting and cozy vibes, look to this one from Black-owned brand Moodeaux. With a blend of traditional gourmand notes, this vanilla perfume reminded us of stopping by a delicious bakery, thanks to sweet notes of cinnamon, and a subtle bourbon scent, all enhanced by delicate florals. Its warmth makes it well suited for winter wear, ideally if you can spritz it on before unwinding in front of a roaring fire. The fragrance sat nicely on our skin—we only needed one spritz to get a full day of wear out of it—and lasted especially well on hair, though we did notice some slight staining when we spritzed it on fabric.
We’ll admit that we were surprised to see that this clean perfume was marketed as unisex. While the packaging is very modern and gender neutral, the scent inside was quite feminine and more youthful than the bottle would imply. That’s not to say that we didn’t enjoy the scent—we can definitely envision people making this their daily fragrance so long as they know what they’re getting!
Type: Eau de parfum｜Key Notes: White tea, orange blossom, red rose, lavender, dry musk, amber, vanilla｜Fragrance Family: Warm floral woods｜Size: 1.7 oz
Best Perfume Oil: Pure Instinct Pheromone Unisex Perfume Oil
What We Love: This product is easy to toss in your bag and apply on the go.
What We Don't Love: We wish the packaging was more elevated.
You can’t beat the convenience of buying a product on Amazon! This one arrives quickly and once you try it out, you’ll likely be impressed with your purchase—the oil-based formula lasted all day and night once we applied it (on both skin and hair) and was quite easy to apply due to its rollerball format. The essential oil-infused perfume is quite strong, especially at first, with a scent trail that’s possible to smell from two feet away. It features an unusual blend of fruity, floral, and spicy notes that ultimately wore down to a vanilla-y floral aroma over time.
Though we enjoy the convenience of the rollerball bottle and its travel-friendly size, the packaging is not high-end by any means, with a simple printed label that we found to be a little cheesy.
Type: Roll-on oil｜Key Notes: Mango, mandarin, honey, cinnamon, white musk｜Fragrance Family: Fruity floral｜Size: .34 oz
Best Sweet: Pure Romance Basic Instinct Pheromone Perfume (Roller Ball)
What We Love: It’s a very straightforward and playful fragrance that’s easy to wear.
What We Don't Love: You might be a little embarrassed by the packaging—it’s not discreet.
If you were the person with a collection of Victoria’s Secret body splashes in your locker, you’ll likely love this perfume. We found it to be sweet, juicy, and fruity with something of a candy-like quality to it, making it a nice pick for daytime wear. It was quite strong at first (a little goes a long way; we only needed one or two passes of the rollerball), but it mellowed out nicely throughout the day. Even though it’s oil based, it didn’t stain any fabrics or leave behind greasy strands when we applied it to our hair, though it did leave a bit of residue on our skin after application.
Though we appreciate this formula, the packaging looks pretty lowbrow, like it could have come out of a child’s makeup playset, with a cheap label that has an overly youthful colorway. What bugged us the most during testing is that it says “sex attractant” directly on the bottle.
Type: Roll-on oil｜Key Notes: Not listed｜Fragrance Family: Sweet fruity floral｜Size: 0.34 oz
Best Long-Lasting: RawChemistry Delight Pheromone Perfume
What We Love: This is a nicely balanced scent with an interesting and appealing blend of notes.
What We Don't Love: It leaves an oily residue behind.
We didn’t know what to expect from this purple-packaged fragrance, but we were very pleasantly surprised. The scent features floral, fresh, fruity, and spicy notes that makes for a very unique perfume. While you might think such a broad-ranging blend of notes wouldn’t work, it’s very easy and enjoyable to wear: It evolves from a sweet floral you can wear during spring or summer to a warm apple-cinnamon-like fragrance that would be great for fall or winter. You only need one spritz to get plenty of coverage, and that initial spray will last the entire day.
We will say that we didn’t expect this eau de toilette to have any oil in it, which became apparent both when we tested it on fabric and on our skin. That said, it didn’t leave any residue behind when we wore it on our hair, which held the scent beautifully, smelling like we washed with high-quality shampoo.
Type: Eau de toilette｜Key Notes: Honey, jasmine, patchouli｜Fragrance Family: Fruity floral｜Size: 1 oz
What to Keep in Mind
Pheromones: Some pheromone perfumes will actually contain synthetic versions of the real thing. “You won’t be able to smell those ingredients, at least in a traditional way—they’re sensed,” says Posner. “Unlike other perfumes, pheromones are not perceived by the olfactory glands of the nose, but by what is called the Jacobson's organ,” says Ben Krigler, the fifth-generation perfumer at House of Krigler. This organ is located in the base of the nasal cavity. When it’s triggered by a pheromone, it sends a signal to your brain to stimulate your pleasure centers. However, you’ll be able to smell other notes used in perfumes designed to enhance your attraction.
Fragrance Notes: One of the most common types of perfumes in this category are “skin scents,” which are designed to make you smell like you, but better. In these formulas, “the notes that you can expect are warm and alluring, meant to be smelled close to the body,” says Meg Gray, Director of Merchandising at Bluemercury. Notes that fall into this category include iso e super and musk. “Skin scents can end up smelling woody, powdery, or like fresh linen,” she adds. There are also more noticeable scents known for smelling especially alluring. Krigler recommends warm, sensual aromas, like patchouli, caramel, rose, and fruity and sugary notes. You can also look to animalic notes like tuberose or cetalox (the latter of which is inspired by ambergris). “Animalic” is just a more discreet way of saying it smells like sex, sweat, or other “dirty” aromas.
Longevity: One way to boost your wear time is to start with a perfume rather than eau de toilette, as the former is made with a stronger concentration of scent and will last longer. If you can find an extrait de parfum, go for it: “It has the highest concentration of fragrance at 20 to 30 percent, which can last for 12+ hours,” says Gray. Application makes a difference, too. “Apply to moisturized skin and to pulse points or anywhere warm on your body,” says Posner, who also recommends storing your perfume out of direct sunlight and heat, which will limit degradation, preserving the lifespan and performance of your fragrance. Keep in mind, though, that if you hold on to the same bottle for years, you may not like it as you get older. “Your chemistry evolves with age,” explains Krigler. “You won’t react the same way to a perfume if you are 20, 30, 40, 50, 60—it's normal and part of life.”
Your Expectations: Don’t expect a bottle of perfume to transform you from a wallflower to a sexual dynamo with one spritz. “A European researcher told me that so-called human pheromones sold commercially have no scientific basis,” points out Krigler. But a good perfume can and will go a long way towards making you feel your best—which will inherently help boost your charm. “It makes you feel more confident, more interesting,” adds Krigler. “If you feel sexy, another person will be attracted to your confidence.”
Your Questions, Answered
Do pheromone perfumes work?
Maybe—the jury’s still out, at least on the fragrances designed with faux pheromones. “Pheromone perfumes are an attempt to synthetically recreate these signals, which at this point is not scientifically proven,” explains Posner. “With that being said, science is amazing, so who knows what the future and biotechnology hold.”
However, we do know that perfume overall can make you smell sexier to others; it’s just the matter of picking the right scent. “Certain people are attracted to specific scents, so if someone is already attracted to your skin scent, these fragrances will only enhance that attraction,” says Gray. And anecdotally, it’s worth a try: “I have a client who literally told me that when she smells a pheromone perfume, she has a small orgasm,” reveals Krigler. We’ll have what she’s having!
What does pheromone scent smell like?
No pheromone scent smells the same. Whether it has added synthetic pheromones or is a traditional perfume designed to enhance your allure, it’ll smell different, thanks to the blend of notes, whether they’re warm and woodsy, sweet and fruity, or lush and floral.
According to Krigler, these pheromones will differ between scents designed for men and women. “Pheromone perfumes for women generally contain the pheromones androstenol, androstadienone and other copulins, which stimulate desire and romantic passion,” he says. “Pheromone perfumes for men generally consist of androstenone and androsterone, which combine to evoke strength and sexual attraction.” However, not all pheromone perfumes are formulated with pheromones. In many cases, “a pheromone perfume is a scent that mixes with your naturally occurring pheromones and body chemistry,” says Gray. These might be referred to as “skin scents,” or they could just be especially sexy fragrances that will make you stand out.
The most important thing is that you like it—and you test it to see if others like it, too. “Honestly, it must tickle your senses,” says Krigler. “When you smell a perfume, it might have an effect on you but not on another person. The secret is to know what you are attracted to.”
Why Shop With Us
Emily Orofino is a beauty writer, editor, and consultant with more than a decade of experience in the industry. She is a perfume junkie and has collected dozens, if not hundreds, of bottles of perfume and can’t stop adding to her collection. For this piece, she interviewed Meg Gray, Director of Merchandising at Bluemercury; Ben Krigler, fifth-generation perfumer at House of Krigler; and Ashlee Posner, founder of transparent fragrance manufacturer Lucent Laboratories and State of Change.
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