By: Crystal Ge

Humans maintain the polite fiction that they do not smell

each other. But despite our efforts to the contrary, we all have

our own odors.

In a small study published

Wednesday in the journal, Science Advances, researchers

investigating pairs of friends whose friendship “clicked” from

the beginning found intriguing evidence that each person’s

body odor was closer to their friend’s than expected by

chance. When the researchers got pairs of strangers to

play a game together, their body odors predicted whether

they felt they had a good connection.

There are many factors that can shape people who can

become friends with. But perhaps one thing we pick up,

researchers suggest, is how they smell. Among scientists that

have studied friendship, similar scents between friends are a

more common thing than strangers.

Ms. Ravereby recruited 20 pairs of so-called click friends, who

both characterized their friendship this way. Next, she put

them through regimens that are common to human body

research. For example, they were not allowed to: eat onions

or garlic which will affect your body odor for a few days later.

Ms. Ravreby and her colleagues used an electronic nose to

assess the volatiles rising from each T-shirt, and they had 25

other volunteers assess the similarity of the smells as well.

They were interested to find that; the friends’ odors were

more like each other than those of strangers. That could mean

that odor was one of the things they picked up on as their

relationship began.

The Covid pandemic has so far curtailed further research using

this design by Ms. Ravreby and colleagues; experiments in

which strangers get close enough to smell each other have

been difficult to set up. Body odors provide many mysteries

for the other researchers to study.

“If you think of the bouquet that is body odor, it’s 6,000

molecules at least,” Dr. Sobel said. “There are 6,000 that we

know of already — it’s probably way more.”