Forget the self-help section and cash-swindling life coaches, when it comes to getting ahead in life, it’s a fragrance that’s your best friend.

From appearing more confident and successful, to improving your memory, to coming off as poll-toppingly attractive as the likes of Clooney, Pitt or Styles, all you need is a quick spritz. And if you don’t believe me, then believe hard-nosed science: here’s a selection of popular men’s fragrances containing life-enhancing notes that white-coated boffins are getting behind. Scrap ‘The Secret’; it’s all about The Scent.

Give Off The Sweet Smell Of Success With…

Penhaligon’s Bayolea

We’re all familiar with the strategy of faking it ’til you make it, but if you’re fresh out of chutzpah, then give yourself an olfactory pep talk with a scent containing the Holy Trinity of ‘success notes’: patchouli, black pepper and sandalwood.

A study by Creston’s Marketing Sciences Sensory Unit revealed that guys who wear these three notes – found in many men’s fragrances – come across as being more successful and accomplished than those wearing other fragrances, particularly those containing leather and cedarwood, which – contrary to lore – actually run the risk of calling you out as a bit of a loser.

Other Recommendations:

Paco Rabanne 1 Million (funnily enough); Acca Kappa; Roja Parfums Enigma Pour Homme

Bag The Woman Of Your Dreams With…

Dior Eau Sauvage

Fragrance marketers have long made out that scent is the ultimate weapon of mass seduction. And, for once in their lives, they might not actually be lying.

Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany finally proved last year what perfumers had been claiming to be the case since the dawn of scent-peddling – that wearing a fragrance really can make you irresistible to women.

It’s all down to hedione (or methyl dihydrojasmonate to give it its proper name), one of the 900-plus molecular components of jasmine. Used for the very first time in Dior’s citrusy classic, Eau Sauvage, Bochum’s researchers discovered that hedione stimulates the area of a woman’s brain responsible for the release of sex hormones. Fitting, then, that the word hedione should come from the Greek word for pleasure.