‘Romancing The Armpit:’ Armpit-Sniffing Speed Dating Launches In London [Video]
As everyone knows, dating can be the pits sometimes, and a London venue is taking that literally, by introducing armpit-sniffing speed dating nights.
While this might sound a tad bizarre, Wednesday night saw the first “Romancing the Armpit” event in London in the U.K., believed to be the world’s first armpit-sniffing, speed dating event.
Most people have heard about pheromones and their attraction between lovers, but this event takes things just a little further by inviting participants to rate fellow attendees at the event solely by the smell emanating from their underarms.
Reportedly, a recent phenomenon has been “smell-dating,” where people wear the same T-shirt for three days and nights (without the aid of deodorant) and send it in for prospective partners to sniff. Not to be outdone, the organizers have taken away the whole, three-day T-shirt preparation thing and are heading straight for the armpit itself.
Fancy an armpit smelling event to find your perfect match?https://t.co/oC1OZnWfZA pic.twitter.com/pC3FJI6Moa
— The Quint (@TheQuint) April 28, 2016
According to the Irish Mirror, in what has been dubbed a “small scale revolt against a highly-deodorized world and online dating,” attendees at the event placed paper bags over their heads and a paper cup on their noses and got right down to a blind smell test, with each participant given a card on which to rank the, well, rankness of their fellow participants.
Hear more about the event in the video included here.
Believe it or not, there is, apparently, some actual science behind the whole idea, as the molecules that influence body odor reportedly also influence sexual preference, with people tending to be more attracted to a completely opposite composition of molecules. Opposites attract, right?
Bompas & Parr explained, “Our body odor is largely influenced by Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules, which are genetically determined and linked to the immune system.”
They also went on to say, “MHC is also linked to sexual preference, so differences in body odor are detected and responded to on the basis of an individual’s gender and sexual orientation.”
This is how Wednesday’s event went. First of all, participants were treated to a cocktail, specially prepared to not only relax them but also to make them sweat — getting the juices flowing in those possibly previously deodorized pits.
However, one female participant speaks in the video of Wednesday’s event included below and goes to prove that blind testing doesn’t really overcome how basically shallow in essence some single people can be.
She says of her experience, “There was a lot of smelly people. Only one person I liked the smell of and I’ve just seen him and I don’t think he’s attractive.”
The “Romancing the Armpit” event was run by Bompas & Parr. Their official website describes them as follows.
“Bompas & Parr leads in flavor-based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food design.”
One half of the pair, Sam Bompas, was one of the organizers of Wednesday’s armpit-sniffing extravaganza, which reportedly sold out in two hours due to the “huge demand for sniffing strangers’ pits.” He claims, “This is dating chaos in the best way.”
According to RT News, Bompas & Parr were also responsible for “Anatomical Whisky Tasting,” an event where the spirit was served in the contours of a participant’s body. There was also drinking from a whisky tornado available.
Among many other interesting experiments, they also, reportedly, sent coffee up into the stratosphere attached to a weather balloon, which they then brought down and brewed as “Earth’s First Space Coffee.” You get the drift, right?
Getting back to Wednesday’s “Romancing the Armpit” event, reportedly, varying tactics were used by the participants, with some choosing to groom their pits and others remaining unwashed to ensure their “true essence” was experienced on the night.
Bompas & Parr had put forward several ideas for the event, depending on people’s tastes, by suggesting the following.
“Choose highly perfumed pits, or go for minimal bathing and flourishing pheromones.”
Alongside scent, style should be considered. Plaited, permed, crimped or dyed, shaven, spiky, glittery and wild, please let your hairs express themselves openly.”
Tell us, readers, would you consider attending an armpit-sniffing speed dating event and do you believe you could find the person of your dreams, purely based on the smell of their unwashed pits? Let us know in the comments below.
[Photo via YouTube]
