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TikTok's 'Pheromone Maxxing' Trend Skips Showers, Science Says No
TikTok's 'pheromone maxxing' trend skips showers, deodorant, and hygiene before dates. Scientists say there is no evidence humans secrete or detect pheromones.
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A new TikTok trend called "pheromone maxxing" has users skipping showers, ditching deodorant, wearing sweaty shirts, and even drinking their own urine before dates. The idea is to boost natural "sex pheromones" to make oneself biologically irresistible. But the scientific community is pushing back hard: there is no clear evidence that humans secrete or can detect pheromones the way animals do.
The trend is the latest in a series of "maxxing" fads on social media, following ballmaxxing, climaxxing, and fibermaxxing. While some of those, like fibermaxxing, have a basis in real science, pheromone maxxing rests on a shaky belief that humans work like ants, moths, or mice.
Pheromones are chemicals that trigger social responses in certain animals. Alarm pheromones warn of danger; food trail pheromones lead to meals. Sex pheromones attract mates and trigger mating behaviors. The logic behind pheromone maxxing is that staying dirty maximizes one's "natural musk," making the wearer irresistible.
The biological problem is fundamental. Scientists have not isolated human sex pheromones from any part of the body. The same issue surfaced last year with the "vabbing" trend–dabbing vaginal secretions on pulse points–which also lacked scientific backing, as I covered in Forbes.