Smells Sexy



This is the The Nose Knows version of Mr. Fanservice / Hello, Nurse! / Ms. Fanservice. It is the reason why humans invented perfume and cologne. A character with Super Senses will probably be attracted to a person by their smell, especially if they've got some doggish attributes. Both vampires and werewolves are likely to note that their victim/lover smells good.

In Real Life, countless species use pheromones for communication, especially for identifying when its members are able to reproduce. In fiction, this is a little more explicit... a character will 'smell sexy', and often there will be a list of exactly what that character smells like. Expect a man to lovingly bury his face in the girl's hair, or nuzzling her neck as he tells her how wonderful she smells. Often, this calls back to baser, more bestial desires and needs, although it can be 'pure and romantic'.

May be related to Love Is in The Air, if the 'love flu' is coming off of one person. See Audio Erotica for when a character sounds sexy. May involve Perverted Sniffing.


 * Trope Codifier is arguably Perfume, the 1985 novel by Patrick Suskind. The book's main character is Jean-Baptise Grenouille, an unwanted orphan with a powerful sense of smell. Over the course of the story, he becomes obsessed with capturing and bottling the scent of a woman, turning into a creepy serial killer of virgins. Just before he is executed, he pours the perfume that he has made on himself, throwing the crowd gathered to watch his execution into a lusty orgy. The book was adapted into a film by Tom Tykwer, starring Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Hurd-Wood.
 * Actually, he only used a single drop of his perfect perfume at the execution. Later, using the whole bottle at once causes him to be torn limb from limb and devoured by beggars.
 * Candi from the webcomic of the same name explicitly listed this as the main reason she stayed with her boyfriend, even when he acted like a jerk.
 * Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame showed his lust for Esmeralda by smelling her hair in a very creepy fashion.
 * Twilight. Bella must smell so delicious.
 * It's worth noting that Bella feels the same way back at Edward, and, to a lesser extent, all the other vampires. It is implied that this holds true for all vampires. Except with werewolves, in which case there's a mutual inversion.
 * in the Wheel of Time series, due to the fact that.
 * Anita Blake: Prior to the turbo-slut phase, werewolves and vampires were always telling Anita they could "smell her lust."
 * On Gossip Girl, Dan says he couldn't possibly have feelings for, and then sheepishly adds "But, you know, she does smell nice..."
 * In The Sentinel, Blair tells Jim that this is the basis behind two people having "Chemistry" together. Jim, of course, was head-over-heels for a woman specifically because she smelled so good.
 * In The Princess Diaries, Mia likes the smell of Michael's neck.
 * On Frasier, Niles fetishises the smell of Daphne's hair.
 * Truth in Television, apparently. Scientific investigation has revealed that women actually DO pick their 'mates' based on smell - indeed, they can subconsciously 'smell' good genes. Or something. Nobody's exactly sure how it works, but it apparently does.
 * The attraction by smell is actually from having dissimilar types of antibodies, with nature preferrering dissimilar ones for healthier offspring. Guys can do this too. Scent can also indicate arousal and illnesses.
 * Used as a Hand Wave in Kanokon to explain why Chizuru and Nozomu are all over Kouta - due to having recently moved to the city from the countryside, he 'smells like forests', which apparently attracts Kitsune and wolf-spirits in equal measure.
 * One FoxTrot strip had Paige trying out a new perfume specially formulated to attract teenage males. The scents were based on pizza toppings.
 * One of the odder examples: in one episode of Blood Ties, Henry is apparently attracted to the smell of death and can't stop smelling Vicki after she returns from a funeral home.
 * Played with on The Big Bang Theory, when Sheldon moans somewhat amorously after inhaling the scent of new comic books.
 * Also towards Sheldon: Amy Farrah Fowler says he "smells like a sexy toddler" while she is very tipsy. Apparently he smells like talc.
 * In Pitch Black, Riddick appears to be preparing to shank the new female captain from the shadows, he simply cuts off a piece of her hair to give it a sniff when she isn't looking.
 * And in The Chronicles of Riddick, he tells Lady Vaako "It's been a long time since I've smelled beautiful."
 * Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood has 51st century pheromones.
 * In Ocean's Thirteen, Linus uses a powerful pheromone that makes Abigail Sponder go crazy for him, successfully distracting her and buying time for the other team members.
 * Batted around lightly in the Star Trek the Next Generation novel Metamorphosis. Data, fully transformed into a human by an alien quest-ritual, finds himself romantically involved with a female OC. Smelling her hair during an embrace, the narrative describes the android!Data part of his mind cataloguing pheromones, while the human!Data part angrily demands the right to simply enjoy the scent.
 * Amortentia, the love potion from the Harry Potter novels smells like whatever the individual likes to smell most.
 * Also, in said love potion, Harry whiffed the sweet-smelling hair of his soul-mate Ginny Weasley.
 * In El Goonish Shive, which currently provides the page picture, the Female Variant 5 form setting on the Transformation Ray Gun causes the person zapped with it to Smell Sexy.
 * A weird version is present in the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie: Mari Makinami likes Shinji's scent... because he smells like LCL. She also mentions that she doesn't mind the scent of, perhaps indicating there's something special about Shinji.
 * PvP. Reggie rebukes Jade's flirty sister Miranda, claiming that her feminine charms won't work on him because he's blind. Miranda walks off-panel, and Reggie says, "Damn, she smells good."
 * In The Tenth Kingdom, Wolf gets really enthusiastic about Virginia's smell, which is part this trope, part to do with a different appetite.
 * In Digger, Boneclaw Mother makes a crude comment about one of the tribe's younger males. When reminded by Grim Eyes that she's blind, Boneclaw Mother simply replies, "Well, he smells adorable..."
 * In Oz Keller once notes in "A Cock and Balls Story" that his boyfriend Beecher "Smells Sexy". (the smell being Beecher's fathers aftershave)
 * In Kyo Kara Maoh episode 96 Yuuri mentions again how beautiful he thinks Sara is and thinks that he smells nice.
 * Keychain of Creation has Marena, who has 'smelling good' as one of her potential powers.
 * Gackt has gone on many a Japanese TV show hosted by men, only to have them remark how beautiful they find him and how good he smells.
 * In Girl Genius, Gil is asked whether Agatha smells nice (because Jägers smell her as the Heterodyne heir). Failure Is the Only Option when he has to answer.
 * In Half Full, Billy harvests human pheromones in one storyline. When a test subject falls into a vat of collected sweat, the pheromone overdose transforms him in a monster with the power to allure women.