Men are skipping showers in a bizarre new dating trend. Here’s why

When most people picture someone readying for a date, the routine will most likely involve a rigorous hygiene regimen and picking a nice outfit before stepping out of the house. But for a select few of men in the manosphere, a date-ready look is skipping a few steps, betting on natural body odor as a seductive device. The bizarre trend shared on social media is dubbed “Pheromone-maxxing,” a sort of spinoff from the manosphere-adjacent looks-maxxing community. The trend instructs men to ditch showering before dates as a seduction tactic. “Stopped washing my hair at all and now unironically get more compliments on how it smells and looks (from women),” a user said on TikTok. “Pheromone-maxxing is key.” Some will even take it a step further, skipping deodorant as well or, in some cases, drinking a glass of their own urine to intensify the odor, all in the hopes of attracting more women. The trend has links to scientific research around an individual’s unique natural smell and the role olfactory senses may play in attraction. Pheromones—which are chemical signals that trigger responses between individuals in the same species—have long been believed to influence sexual attraction betwe…