Men in their late 40s and early 50s give off stronger body odor than men in their 70s and 80s. In a 2012 study at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, 44 volunteers in three age groups slept in T-shirts fitted with absorbent pads for five nights, and 41 young raters then smelled the samples while blindfolded. The middle-aged group, aged 45 to 55, produced the most intense and least pleasant odor, and the oldest group, aged 75 to 95, produced the mildest.
First Impressions in a Tenth of a Second
A date forms an opinion of a man’s face faster than he can say hello. In a 2006 study, psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov showed participants photographs of faces for 100 milliseconds, half a second or a full second, and asked them to rate attractiveness, likeability, competence, trustworthiness and aggressiveness. Judgments made after a tenth of a second were highly correlated with judgments made with no time limit.
Longer viewing made people more confident in their ratings and allowed more detailed impressions, and the correlation stayed about the same. Trustworthiness showed the strongest match between the snap judgment and the considered one. The study used faces alone, and in person a date takes in the face together with the haircut and the beard in that same fraction of a second.
Clothing Fit and Perceived Confidence
Fit changes how a man is judged within seconds. In a 2013 study led by Howlett, published in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, participants looked at photographs of a man in a made-to-measure suit and in a similar suit bought off the rack. His face was blanked out. After a few seconds of viewing, participants rated him as more confident, more successful, more flexible and a higher earner in the tailored suit.
The researchers described the differences between the two suits as minor, and the ratings still moved. An older man whose weight or build has changed since he last bought clothes can take his existing jackets and trousers to a tailor before buying more of them.
Facial Hair Research
Barnaby Dixson and Robert Brooks at the University of New South Wales tested how facial hair affects attractiveness ratings. They photographed men clean-shaven, with light stubble, with heavy stubble and with full beards. Women rated heavy stubble as the most attractive of the four, while men gave their highest ratings to full beards. The researchers described heavy stubble as the threshold of masculinity, the point at which facial hair becomes dense enough to affect how a face is judged.
Because men and women rated the four versions differently, a full beard grown with other men’s approval in mind may be judged less favorably by a woman across the table. A man who wants to come across as a high value man on a first date can settle on a length, keep the neckline and cheeks trimmed, and cut it back the day before.
Skin Chemistry After 40
The chemistry of body odor changes after 40. A 2001 study by researchers at the Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido analyzed the body odor of people between 26 and 75. It found a compound called 2-nonenal only in participants 40 and older, and the amount rose with age. Levels of 2-nonenal tracked the amount of certain unsaturated fatty acids and lipid peroxides on the skin surface.
The same compound appears in cucumbers and aged beer, and Scientific American’s coverage of the Monell work suggested that the negative view of old person smell may come from social stigma. The Monell raters found the oldest group’s odor the mildest of the three. Men between 45 and 55, whose age group had the strongest odor in the Monell study, have the more pressing grooming problem.
Teeth and Gum Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 2 in 3 adults 65 and older have gum disease and that 1 in 6 have lost all of their teeth. The share with no natural teeth is about 11% between 65 and 74 and about 20% at 75 and older. Cavities and periodontitis, a form of gum disease with loss of the bone that holds teeth in place, are the two leading causes.
A smile is part of the face a date judges in that first tenth of a second. A man returning to dating after years away can have his gums checked and his teeth cleaned in one appointment.
Sun Protection and Skin Aging
Daily sunscreen use slowed skin aging in a randomized trial in Nambour, Australia, led by Adele Green at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. About 900 adults younger than 55 were followed for 4.5 years. Half applied SPF 15 or higher sunscreen to the face, arms and hands every day, and the rest used it at their own discretion. The daily group showed no detectable skin aging over the period and 24% less aging than the group that used sunscreen only some of the time. Beta-carotene supplements tested in the same trial had no meaningful effect.
The trial enrolled adults under 55 and did not test men already in their 60s. A man in his 40s or early 50s who plans to date for the next decade has a daily habit, tested over 4.5 years, that slowed visible aging.
Hearing and Conversation
Hearing loss is common after 65. According to hearing loss statistics compiled by the Hearing Health Foundation, one third of Americans between 65 and 74 and more than half of those over 75 have a hearing loss. About 80% of cases can be treated with hearing aids, yet only 1 in 4 people who could benefit use them. The foundation also reports that untreated hearing loss is linked to a dementia risk up to five times greater and a risk of falling three times greater, and that older adults who use hearing aids show fewer symptoms of depression.
Consumer Reports found that people may wait as long as a decade before getting hearing aids, and that about 30% of adults 70 and older use them. An expert quoted in that article said hearing loss takes away the small shared moments that relationships depend on, such as an inside joke or a quiet comment. On a date in a crowded restaurant, missed words can look like inattention.
An Evening Before a First Date
In a restaurant doorway, a woman looks up from her table and sees her date for the first time. Within a tenth of a second she has formed a view of how trustworthy his face looks, the trait where snap judgments and considered ones agreed most closely. Longer looks, in the same research, made people more confident in that view without changing it much.
