Recently, cult-favorite brand Sol de Janeiro released a new scent of its popular body butter, which boasts an “uplifting and delicious fragrance with notes of vanilla orchid and sheer sandalwood that has been scientifically shown to boost your mood.” But unfortunately, according to one review that’s now gone viral, it may later completely ruin that boosted mood by attracting wolf spiders.



In said review on the Sephora website, user chemkats found herself inside a horror movie plot after using this body butter. Or as she wrote, “If you’re scared of wolf spiders, watch out for these lotions lol. I wanted to love them sooo bad, but one of the ingredients is like kryptonite to wolf spiders! [Note: We assume she means catnip.] When I put it on instantly one will come out. Normally I’ll see one every like 3 years, used this and it was every day. I stopped using it and haven’t seen one since.... Oh and one time, the spider wanted to eat whatever ingredient it is so bad that it chased me. I swear on everything. I’d run left, it ran left, I ran right, it ran right. Like it was legit following the scent.”


This isn’t entirely unheard of — a user of a Sol de Janeiro’s perfume found that it was attracting bugs, and at least one Twitter user replied to the original tweet to share that she had a similar experience with a hairspray that attracted bees. The Sol de Janeiro perfume that allegedly attracts bugs contains vanilla, much like the body butter in question.


One Redditor even tried to break down which ingredients might be causing this phenomenon, landing on two in particular: “Farnesyl acetate is primarily used in skincare for fragrance and same for Hexadecyl Acetate (cetyl acetate) for fruity smell and waxy appearance. Cetyl acetate is commonly used as a thickening agent for body cream and lotion.” Their conclusion? “Combine farnesyl acetate with hexadecyl acetate in right dosage, and it might bring all the thirsty boy spiders to your yard. Because you may also smell like a thirsty girl spider.”


They make no mention of whether these ingredients are actually found in the product, however, and a look at the ingredients list doesn’t show any by those specific names.


While many people are already swearing off the product or buying it in order to conduct their own experiments, others with a keen eye noticed two things: First, that Chemkats’ review was labeled as “incentivized,” meaning they received something in exchange for it, and second (and more damning), Chemkats’ published a review of another product back in March in which they also claimed the product attracted wolf spiders.



Without other examples or any concrete science to back this up, I think the most logical conclusion to draw for now is that Chemkats’ home has a wolf spider problem. Consider calling an exterminator!