According to researchers, scents have a powerful effect on the libido. Years ago, the scent of a woman was apt to be roses, lilacs, lilies, or lavender. These days, it’s more likely to be pears, melons, cucumbers, and avocados.

Haircare products come in kiwi, grape, coconut, and blueberry. Balms soothe the lips with raspberry, cucumber, and tropical fruit blends. Bodysprays mist the skin with the aroma of strawberries, mangos, and assorted citrus fruits.

Who decided that would be a good idea?

When I cashed in a gift certificate for a makeover and a free kit of beauty products, I expected to come away smelling like a floral garden. Instead, everywhere I go I am enveloped in an aromatic fog comprised of the molecular mingling of assorted fruits and vegetables.

By the end of a day in the hot sun, I have begun to smell like that piece of once-fresh produce that got pushed to the back of the “crisper drawer” in the refrigerator for so long that it is now an unrecognizable blob of slimy, rotted, stinking produce which is either a stalk of celery or an orange which has turned into a penicillin repository.

By the way, at my house, we call that refrigerator section the “rotter drawer,” because it is where fresh produce (bought with good and healthy intentions) goes to die a lingering death.

Apparently, beauty product developers and advertisers are promoting the idea that handsome young men will find me irresistible when there is a cloud of fruit flies buzzing around my coconut-scented hair.

I had to stop visiting the zoo because the monkeys caught a whiff of my banana- scented sunscreen and were so overcome with desire that they stopped throwing their own feces and began self-gratifying themselves and following me from one end of the primate habitat to the other.

For those who prefer to smell like more complex aromas, one company offers what they call, “cookbook packages,” which include the scents of desserts and candies. Some of those are shampoos, conditioners, and shower gels bearing the irresistible scents of coconut cream pie, strawberry milkshake, banana nut bread, and chocolate chip cookies.

Their newest products are chocolate perfume and an orangish-brown nail polish bearing the scent of peanut butter. Ahhh, now we’re speaking my language.

I was eager to fill my make-up kit with these sensual delights. I now smelled so good that I could barely resist myself. My only complaints were that the peanut butter nail polish stuck to the roof of my mouth, the strawberry milkshake shampoo left an unpleasant aftertaste, and I have put on 12 pounds.

I smelled so good that I had become a veritable Pied Piper for hungry toddlers, stray animals, and pastry chefs. I think the pastry chefs just wanted my recipes.

Maybe the researchers are onto something, though. I am a firm believer in the awesome power of pheromones as they relate to sexual attraction.

Many years ago, when I got my first whiff of my high school boyfriend, I was instantly consumed by desire. Later I discovered that it was just due to the stale, squashed M&Ms which were stuck to the bottom of his shoe. As far as I am concerned, had we married,  that could be considered fraud, and thus grounds for annulment.

Once he had scraped them off, he had about as much sex appeal as one of the figures in Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. I refused to attend the prom with him unless he would wear a necklace made of M&Ms strung onto a licorice vine.

After the prom, I dumped him for a classmate whose father worked at the local Esther Price Candy factory. He was unattractive, had no personality, and picked me up for dates on a bicycle, but he could get me wholesale chocolates by the case. You’ve gotta know what your priorities are.