Forget cosmetics, face creams or plastic surgery to reverse the effects of aging. A new perfume is claiming to take years off your appearance by harnessing the emotional power of scent. Ageless, the perfume created by Harvey Prince & Co., combines fragrances apparently associated with youth and vitality: pink grapefruit, pomegranate, jasmine, mango and soft musk. It also claims to counter the smell given off by a chemical released as fatty acids in the skin break down with age. The fragrance is certainly fresh. Some say it's reminiscent of Clinique's Happy.

But unfortunately for those hoping for a quick and easy return to their youth, its claims appear to be more marketing than anything else, says Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor and director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, which seeks to make science more accessible to the public. He hosts the "Dr. Joe Show" on radio stations in Montreal and Toronto and has written many books about the chemistry of everyday life. Yes, studies have shown the body produces more of a chemical called 2-nonenal with age, but there is nothing to suggest it is detectable by most people, or that it can be masked with fragrance, he says.

There is some science behind the company's claim that men judged women wearing Ageless to be younger than they are, according to Kumar Ramani, one of the founders of Harvey Prince&Co. A randomized study done for the company by a PhD student at Columbia University concluded men not only found Ageless to smell more youthful than other scents such as rose, lavender and vanilla, they judged women wearing the perfume to be 6.7 years younger than they were, and 6.6 years younger than the same models wearing a different scent. Released earlier this year in Canada exclusively at The Bay, Ageless sells for $98 for a 100-mL bottle. Schwarcz says while there is definitely a link between smell and emotions, the idea of an age-defying perfume is simply a new way to sell scent. "The whole cosmetic industry has to constantly reinvent itself, and there's only so much you can do, so you always have to keep coming up with gimmicks, and I think that's what this is--it's a gimmick," says Schwarcz. Another Harvey Prince perfume, to be released this fall in Canada, claims to be able to make women more attractive to men. Called Eau Flirt, its formula is based on widely published studies conducted by neurologist Alan Hirsch at Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation. He measured penile blood flow in men in response to particular smells, and found the most effective combined the scents of lavender and pumpkin pie.

The press material for Eau Flirt describes its scent as a blend including "sweet and fruity top notes, floral and spicy middle notes, woods and musk bottom notes, combined with vanilla and pumpkin essences"--sort of the perfume version of pumpkin pie and lavender. A third scent to launch in 2010 is called NYC 10021, the New York postal code of the rich and successful, a la Beverly Hills 90210. Ramani calls it "the sweet smell of success."

Marta Gold