Hey Chemist

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I\'ve been checkin out the regent compounds from Stone and maybe im missin the point of the purpose of regents but it seems to me that attraction is still a better value than these. I mean if you mix up a batch equell to attraction using regent compounds it would be more expensive. Maybe I\'m not understanding regent compounds. Is it possible that the ingredients in attraction aren\'t the same quality as the regents? Maybe I\'ve miscalculated. Let me know.
Thanks.

[Chemist]

If you mixed the ingredients in Stone\'s kits to get the components of Attraction, the cost would be about $90.

At this time, female PI is a better deal for a single component mixture at $70 for 11 mg of androstenol only.

Realize, Attraction\'s concentration is fixed at less than 0.29 mg/ml and its concentration ratio is fixed and it comes scented. If you want the exact ratio and concetration found in Attraction, then clearly attraction is the better deal.

However, Stone\'s products are for those of us that want better control over our mixtures. These products allow us to custom mix our own concoctions and add our own scents - we are able to mix concoctions anywhere from 0 to 2mg/mL in any ratio with Stone\'s stuff and add it to any cologne.

It\'s like the difference between a Hostess Apple Pie and making your own. Yes I can go to the 7-11 and pick one up for $1 and it would take me all of 5 minutes to buy and eat. But sometimes, I want to buy the raw ingredients myself and bake my own - I have more control over how sweet or done I want the pie. And yes, it costs more and takes more time. Sometimes I might only want to eat the apples - and forget all that other stuff. With the hostess pie, no such luck, I\'m stuck with what was already made and it would be impossible to eat only apples.

But sometimes all you want is the prepackaged quick consistant product - and in fact, I just ate one of those Hostess Apple Pies 5 minutes ago and it did the trick.

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Thanks Chemist. It makes better sense now. Thanks.
Later.

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I was curious as to why the androstenol they list cost more than the Female primal version, so I wrote to them and asked! Answer? NOT THE SAME STUFF! Apparently (to be fair no one said this directly) - but they did say that there are a few different compounds that fit the chemical category of \"Androstenol\" compounds. They also told me that the pheromone compounds they list are \"reagent\" grade - and are much more pure than what is normally used in pheromone cologne preparations. The rep I talked to informed me that the compounds they have listed are the ones that they have been working with, doing research on and so forth, and have found to be the most effective. I got the idea that the \"androstenol\" PI uses might be a cheaper chemical than the \"androstenol\" that stone offers. Does THAT make sense? images/icons/crazy.gif
Chemist maybe you can clear this up. I agree it is DEFINATELY worth a few extra bucks to be able to experiment with much higher grade individual materials, but could they possibly be even more EFFECTIVE materials as well?

[Bruce]

Hello,

Various bits of related info:

I have arranged with Phil at Stone Labs to sell some version of the individual concentrate kits at Love-Scent. Hopefully, we\'ll have them in a couple of weeks.

On the cost/quality of the various pheromones. I am not convinced that there are different chemicals that can go by the name \"androstenol\" or any other phero-chemical. What we do have is various raw pheromone ingredients sold as \"androstenol\" or any other individual pheromone which are of dubious quality. This generally means that there are a lot of impurities in the substance and/or the actual amount of the androstenol by wt. is not actually what the seller says it is. When the pheromones are made it is necessary to add reagent compounds which are later removed to a greater or lesser extent and these are the typical impurities that you have to reckon with, but not by any means the only ones.

When I first started doing business with LaCroy Chemical, I sent them samples of all the products I was dealing with at the time and they did chemical analyses on them. In particular they had a big belly laugh at DateMate which they said was loaded with impurities of various sorts and showed me a long peice of paper containing a graph with various spikes which they tried to explain coresponded to things that didn\'t need to be in there. They never said: \"Hey that is not the REAL androstenol.\" They just said there is a lot of junk in there. And when a chemical supply company tells you this is \"reagent grade\" or \"food grade\", it just means this is clean stuff, and that is generally what I hear Phil saying about the chemicals he likes to use in his products. I also have a lot of faith in the guys at Primal though. They have very high business standards and tests have always found their products to contain more than what they guarantee. I think it is barking up the wrong tree to say Primal is using \"fake\" androstenol or anything along those lines. If it is inferior in any way to what is in the Stone Lab products, I would say it has not been refined as much to remove the chemicals used to catalyze the production of the pheromone chemicals.

Next: I have a rather embaressing announcment about Attraction. I have written a number of e-mails to the maker to verify the figures that I have been advertising on the website for the two products they sell me, and I just got an answer about an hour ago. Andro does indeed contain 4.2 mg of androstenone, but Attraction contains only 1.2 mg of androstenone and 2.1 mg of androstenol a far cry from what I understood from my first phone conversation with the company. With the much lower price tag on androstenol over androstenone, I thought the old figures were generous but credible. To get a LOT of androstenol, the new Primal is still the best deal.

There IS an unscented version of Attraction as it turns out though, and we have a 100 bottles of that on the way; same price as the scented.

Cheers,
Bruce

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Oh well id better stay away from attraction and move to alter ego. Also stay with the edge no wonder i get way better hits oh well, we learn new things every day.

[Chemist]

Androstenol is a popular or trade name for several compounds. Compounds traditionally were named so they descibed the chemical makeup of the substance or sometimes named after the place or person that discovered it or something like that. There was no systematic way to describe something precisely and sometimes one name was general enough that it could actually refer to several compounds. A trivial example is the compound popularly referred to as sugar (yes chemists call sugars a class of compounds - but thats not the point) - can be fructose, glucose, sucrose (most likely).

A systematic nomenclature came about in which more detail about the substance its referring to. Thus simple names like picric acid or lye gave way to more descriptive names. The trouble is these new names sound something like 1,2-diethyl-bis-hydro-nora-acetly carbonic mumbo jumbo. Its just easier for most people to say androstenol than a whole bunch of numbers and methyls and ethyls and hydros with words that end up being longer than supercradafradalisticdoodad (this explaination is supposed to be somewhat funny - so you people that took Organic Chemsitry and remebered what you learned - just laugh knowingly and walk away).

Reagant grade vs. food grade vs. whatever grades. These are important for reasons not really applicable to us. It\'s important that scientists take notes and use the highest class of compound available to acheive the desired result without confounding variables. Reagant grade Sodium Chloride is available at the shop downstairs, but I\'m going to use Generic Pathmark Salt that cost me 33 cents to put on my food. The different grades available from chemical supply houses are generally the same compound with different percents of purity and impurities usually specified in the description of the compound from the place of purchase. Sodium Chloride is the same compound available at the supermarket or in the various grades available at the chemical supply houses - it\'s what else that\'s in there that\'s different. The stuff available at the supermarket being the most impure - with Diamond Salt being the most impure. When you injest it - your body doesn\'t care nor does it have anyway of knowing where it came from. An organic source or chemically synthesized - it doesn\'t matter.

There are some cases where synthesizing a compound is more effective than extraction from a natural source. There are also some cases where one method creates a similiar compound with minor differences such as some atoms bent the opposite way or are absent or moved a few places over. It is usually the most cost effective method and practical that is chosen. A name such as Androstenol can group all these variants into one, the more detailed nomenclature will distinguish these compounds.

The androstenol compound that is most effective in is my eyes is the one that matches the one in the literature. Does DateMate, Attraction, PI and the others use this one?I don\'t know and the cost to find out is too probitively expensive for someone in my position-you can always ask to find out.

Summary: Androstenol refers to several compunds. Which ones are effective - look at research and literature and match the chemical names. Reagant grade? It\'s not important - but what else is in there can be. We\'re not doing research here where a contaminant could screw up weeks of chemical synthesis or render an expreiment reproducible. This is a hobby and there\'s a certain purity that\'s good enough.

I don\'t find Stone products to be unreasonably priced at all. His $100 kit is perfect for those that understand its intent. It\'s not meant to be dabbed on - but rather extracted precisely with the syringe and DILUTED then applied with an atomizer.

If you\'re in this deep, then this is right in line.

Perhaps a more mini kit can be offered with 1/3 of the ingredients for $45 also. That should go along way!!!

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Hey guys, I just got a reply back from a chemist-friend that I queried regarding this \"androstenol\" thing - and he agreed with you, chemist - there are like 12 different compounds in that class! The most problematic point for me was that he says the prices for these various \"androstenol\" compounds can vary from a few dollars per milligram, to hundreds of dollars per milligram! Now I\'m REALLY confused.?. What\'s to say that one company can\'t use a \"cheaper\" version of \"androstenol\" to cut costs??? Also, my source informed me that \"eliminating impurities\" is exactly why one would buy \"regent\" grade - regent implying that it was ULTRA-pure - 99.99% or better by definition (the \"4 nines\" purity level). He told me that impurites here can be very bad - other steroid compounds, odorous ester compounds, possibly poisonous by-products - Tech grade could be as low as 97% - that\'s 3% stuff we don\'t want!

Is ther any way to tell WHO is using the right stuff? images/icons/crazy.gif

[Chemist]

Most of the scientific articles refer to:

5-ALPHA-ANDROST-16-EN-3-ALPHA-OL,

However, some are vague and don\'t jsut use the words \"androstenol\" or tehir nomentlature is so vague that it could refer to 2 or 3 possible forms. Below are some articles I uncovered (this is about 6% of the total):

Dufort I, Soucy P, Lacoste L, et al.
Comparative biosynthetic pathway of androstenol and androgens
J STEROID BIOCHEM 77 (4-5): 223-227 JUN 2001

Shinohara K, Morofushi M, Funabashi T, et al.
Axillary pheromones modulate pulsatile LH secretion in humans
NEUROREPORT 12 (5): 893-895 APR 17 2001

Morofushi M, Shinohara K, Funabashi T, et al.
Positive relationship between menstrual synchrony and ability to smell 5 alpha-androst-16-en-3 alpha-ol
CHEM SENSES 25 (4): 407-411 AUG 2000

Shinohara K, Morofushi M, Funabashi T, et al.
Effects of 5 alpha-androst-16-en-3 alpha-ol on the pulsatile secretion of luteinizing hormone in human females
CHEM SENSES 25 (4): 465-467 AUG 2000

Krzymowski T, Grzegorzewski W, Stefanczyk-Krzymowska S, et al.
Humoral pathway for transfer of the boar pheromone, androstenol, from the nasal mucosa to the brain and hypophysis of gilts
THERIOGENOLOGY 52 (7): 1225-1240 NOV 1999

Thornhill R, Gangestad SW
The scent of symmetry: A human sex pheromone that signals fitness?
EVOL HUM BEHAV 20 (3): 175-201 MAY 1999

PORTMANN MO, MARGOT C
COMPARATIVE OLFACTION OF WOODY, MUSK, AMBER AND STEROID TYPE ODORANTS - THE ANDROSTENOL MYTH
CHEM SENSES 20 (1): 166-166 FEB 1995

Gilbert AN, Knasko SC, Sabini J
Sex differences in task performance associated with attention to ambient odor
ARCH ENVIRON HEALTH 52 (3): 195-199 MAY-JUN 1997