Attractiveness is not just a face. Reviews show that voice and body odor also play a role in others’ judgments of a person’s attractiveness, and in the largest sample assessing them simultaneously, the relationship among visual, vocal, and olfactory judgments was weak. That is, someone whose face you consider less attractive may, in voice or odor, be more attractive to others than you think.
Groyecka and colleagues in 2017 published a review in the journal Frontiers in Psychology titled “Attractiveness Is Multisensory.” They show that vocal and olfactory cues, separately or together, can strongly change judgments about a person’s attractiveness, and consequently others’ behavior toward them as well. In their view, older research focused more on the face and body and underestimated the contribution of voice and body odor.
The main message of this review is that perception of a person is built from several senses simultaneously. The face is only one of the inputs. Voice, odor, and body posture also contribute to first judgment and mate choice.
Scent and voice also contribute to judgments of attractiveness — Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
[Further research needed: Groyecka and colleagues’ review summarizes the literature and does not report the exact effect size of each sense alone. Therefore, it cannot be concluded from it that voice or odor “matters more than the face.”]
Do Face, Voice, and Odor Align with One Another?
Williams and Apicella in 2023 in the journal Heliyon examined 881 judgments about the attractiveness of face, voice, and body odor in men and women. In men, no correlation was seen among these three senses. In women, the attractiveness of odor, face, and voice had a weak correlation with one another. A general attractiveness factor also had a small contribution to these correlations.
This result is inconsistent with our common intuition. If attractiveness were a single trait, a person with an attractive face should also have an attractive voice and odor. In this sample, this was not the case, and at least in men each sense was its own separate story.
One limitation should be set alongside it: these 881 were others’ subjective judgments, not measurement of an objective trait. Weak correlation means that in this sample the three senses were rated almost independently of one another, not that each is unimportant. And because in men the correlation was zero, this pattern cannot be generalized to all populations without caution.
So the image you have of yourself, if it is built only from the mirror, is incomplete. Your voice and your odor are, in others’ minds, parts of “you” to which you have less direct access.
Watkins’s 2025 review in the journal Biological Reviews gives a broader picture. He writes that attractiveness is stably inferred across multiple senses and that biological theories explain why we on average differentiate among people. At the same time, this judgment also changes systematically with the judge’s own traits, environment, and experiences. According to him, more than thirty years of research have produced strong effects, but have also left good reason for humility about the precise physiological mechanisms.
So two things are true together: some patterns are shared among people, and each person’s taste also comes from their experience and situation. This means that “the most attractive person” is not a fixed and single quantity.
What Role Does Our Perception of Our Own Attractiveness Play?
Bale and Archer in 2013 in the journal Evolutionary Psychology examined 287 young people, 98 of whom were men. The attractiveness people ascribed to themselves, confidence about appearance, and body satisfaction all predicted self-esteem. In each case, this relationship passed through confidence in romantic relationships. The relationship of self-perceived attractiveness with self-esteem was stronger in women than in men.
The practical meaning of this finding is precise: what raises self-esteem is not only “being beautiful,” but that a person believes they can start and maintain a romantic relationship. This study is descriptive and does not show that increasing confidence in a relationship raises self-esteem.
In my clinical experience, which is not statistical evidence, many clients who are dissatisfied with their appearance speak, instead of about their face, about fear of rejection. This fear is consistent with the above result, but it does not prove that treating confidence in relationships would bring them to higher self-esteem.
My position is clear: attractiveness should not be evaluated with a one-dimensional measure, nor should it be considered a promise of “changing yourself.” Understanding that attractiveness is multisensory helps us read ourselves and others more fairly.
What Did Freud Say About Odor and Attraction?
Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930, Standard Edition, volume 21), in one of his footnotes, says that in evolutionary history, humans’ becoming upright and setting aside the importance of odor in sexual relations was accompanied by a change in the role of the senses. In his view, the diminishing importance of odor, in favor of sight, was one of the grounds for the change in the mode of attraction. [Further research needed: the exact page number of this footnote in the printed text should be verified against the Standard Edition.]
This is a psychoanalytic reading and includes a hypothetical claim about evolutionary history, not empirical evidence. Nevertheless, this same idea explains why odor is considered unimportant in everyday conversation, even though new research shows it still plays a role in judgments of attractiveness.
The conclusion is: attractiveness is not a single and only visual trait. Voice and odor also contribute; the correlation among the senses is weak; and our own belief about our attractiveness reaches self-esteem through confidence in relationships. With the available data, the promise of “how to become more attractive” cannot be given.
Is Voice More Important Than Face in Attractiveness?
No. Groyecka and colleagues’ review shows that voice and odor also contribute, but it does not compare the exact contribution of each sense.
Are the Attractiveness of Face, Voice, and Odor Correlated with One Another?
Only weakly, and only in women. In 881 judgments, no correlation was seen in men, and in women odor, face, and voice had a weak correlation.
Why Is Self-Esteem Related to Attractiveness?
In the study of 287 young people, self-perceived attractiveness was related to self-esteem through confidence in romantic relationships. The study is descriptive and does not show causality.
Can Attractiveness Be “Increased”?
These studies have not examined such an intervention. Any simple promise in this regard goes beyond the available data.
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Groyecka A, Pisanski K, Sorokowska A, et al. Attractiveness is multimodal: beauty is also in the nose and ear of the beholder. Front Psychol. 2017;8:778. PMID 28572777
Williams MN, Apicella CL. A test of multimodal communication in humans using 881 judgements of men and women’s physical, vocal, and olfactory attractiveness. Heliyon. 2023;9(6):e16895. PMID 37342575
Watkins CD. Mate assessment based on physical characteristics: a review and reflection. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2025;100(1):113-130. PMID 39175167
Bale C, Archer J. Self-perceived attractiveness, romantic desirability and self-esteem: a mating sociometer perspective. Evol Psychol. 2013;11(1):68-84. PMID 23353113
Freud S. Civilization and its discontents (1930). Standard Edition, vol. 21.
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Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
