Debunked: Spider Spa Day
Perhaps I spent too much time online one day when I first caught sight of an odd post. A person had claimed that they bought a moisturizer from Sephora, a popular beauty store, and ended up attracting wolf spiders. The original post on Reddit garnered attention as other users flocked to hear more. The original poster stated that after buying and using the high end lotion, they were finding way more spiders nearby than usual. Commenters went down rabbit holes and looked at ingredients and began to find various ingredients that they thought might be the cause of such an effect.
Now, at this point my entomologist brain was tuned in; was there any way this could be true? Regardless, my initial reaction was that if somehow Sephora had turned customers into pied pipers for wolf spiders, I'd love to see that in action. I knew that if this lotion was attracting something, it would have to be mimicking a pheromone of some kind or appear to be food. My background lies more so with insects and I'm no spider expert, that title at NPMA is reserved for Laura Rosenwald. She had not heard word of this phenomena yet so I dug a little deeper to find out the truth of the matter.
Sadly (at least for me) it is too good to be true. Experts on spiders weighed in for various news outlets stating that the body butter is not a spider attractant. Wolf spider experts as well as other entomologists noted that pheromones are highly specific and are highly unlikely to be synthesized on accident. The ingredients in the moisturizer were examined and found not to contain anything close to spider pheromones. It seems most likely that the increase in spiders around the original poster was due to the cold weather ushering spiders indoors and therefore encountering humans.
This leads me to what might be an important takeaway from this situation. Every day products are not of concern for attracting specific pests. While it is true that food sources, water, and harborages can create conducive conditions for various pests in your home, you and your customers don't have to worry about accidentally attracting an influx of one particular species due to a pheromone.
Article by Ellie Lane
References
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/29/us/sephora-spiders-body-butter.html
