Four hours of sleep each night and endless diaper duty are enough to turn even the most rambunctious couples into lazy lovers. But if you're considering bustiers and Brazilian bikini waxes to refuel the fire, you should know there might be an easier (and less painful) route.
Scents spiked with pheromones (biological chemicals emitted by the body that are said to trigger attraction) are now flooding the shelves, promising passionate evenings. Once a pheromone has been inhaled, an organ near the nose detects the odorless chemical signals and sends a message to the brain that it's time to disrobe.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it never hurts to try. A handful of Cookie staffers agreed to test out a sampling of love potions on their unsuspecting better halves and share our results with you.
Cannabis Santal, $75, Fresh
"'You smell so good....You smell like a hippie,' he said while kissing my neck on my first night of testing. (I hope he was thinking about free love, and not unshaven pits.) I was skeptical this lucky streak would last, but according to him, the musky cannabis scent brought about 'positive associations' that kept things going throughout the week. Hmm ... I thought he gave that up in college."
Unscented Human Pheromone for Women, $14, Natural Attraction
"The unscented pheromones obviously didn't change the way I smelled, but they convinced me that I was sexier. I was puzzled as to why they didn't have the same effect on him—he wasn't ripping my clothes off at any available moment. I bit the bullet and flat-out asked if he'd been more attracted to me over the past few days. He said he always feels more attracted to me after I shower. Not exactly what I was looking for."
Basic Instinct, $26, Pure Romance
"When you first put it on, this has an overpowering teen-bubblegum scent, but I layered another perfume over it, and the apparent effects were pretty spectacular. On Sunday morning, Basic Instinct had its final hurrah. Since this is a time usually spent with the Sunday Styles section and the morning TV show, it came as a pleasant surprise."
Cannabis Rose, $75, Fresh
"Pheromones or not, my dingy gray sweatpants were as far from sexy as one can get, short of wearing a garbage bag. Still, the husband did do a little grab-assing while we put away groceries in the kitchen. Perhaps he was lured in by the pheromones but then came to his senses when he saw the sweats." Not available until February.
Pheromone 10:13 for Women, $99, Athena
"Something was doing the trick, but it could have just been adrenaline from a recent argument. He did randomly call me 'Cupid'—not my favorite nickname, but we found it funny once I revealed I was wearing spiked perfume. Now that I've tossed the test bottle, he's taken to 'accusing' me of wearing it: 'I can tell you're using that stuff!' Putting the thought in both your heads is probably the powerful part."
