Deer are prey animals. Whitetails rely on stealth as their defense. Mule deer tend to rely more on seeing the predator before the predator sees them.
The whitetail isn't necessarily alerted to a specific scent, other than a buck to a female in heat...., the whitetail is alerted to something "different". So say you used apple scent and you are nowhere near an orchard, or corn scent and you are nowhere near a corn crop or a feeder. THAT may hinder your success as suddenly to the deer's senses, something is very different.
So when it comes to pathways, deer are smelling the disturbed ground...the loam scent. They don't look down and think "hooman fut mark, must flee"...they smell the loam scent that they would've made, probably stronger so maybe they think several deer have passed , so they are not sure if they are not following other deer. So one might have second thoughts about adding to that scent by dousing one's boots with fox pee.
The same things apply to scents from common detergents. The deer may be a tad cautious when they pick up the scent of lye soap from a human's face or clothes..., but "lavender and lace scent" from clothing washed in detergent, or if you slathered yourself with Irish Spring deodorant soap, and now you "smell like you're worth exploring"...to a deer you smell like you're worth avoiding.
So as for scents, I rinse my hunting clothes with plain lye soap, and my outer layer I expose to wood-smoke, preferably hickory. I was taught this by a rather accomplished "primitive" hunter, and it doesn't seem to bother the deer one whit. In fact very early one morning a buck caught wind of me, and instead of leaving he turned, and took a few steps toward me and snorted twice while pawing the ground. I also scrape down through the surface leaves to a patch of "bare" ground beneath. Moves twigs away from my feet, and causes more loam scent. I hunt from the ground.
the other thing is movement and color. Now deer don't see color as we do, but they do see tint. IF you're dressed like a walking road-cone, and you're backed up to a dark, thick wall of tree trunks...they see the bright spot that wasn't there before. Remember the idea that they don't like "different". Well folks, in such a scenario, you are different. So the plain lye soap that I use on my hunting clothing (repro 18th century OR modern) also has no color brighteners. In fact I fill the washing machine with hot water at night. I dissolve grated lye soap in the water. I turn it off and go to bed. The heat from the water heater has destroyed the chlorine that I get from town-water-supply, and the next morning the water is room temp. I then gently wash the clothes. Then I drip dry (them drier sheets will leave residue inside the drier drum and defeat you attempt at low scent. ) Lacking chlorine the clothes don't lighten in color, and also lacking are the "brighteners" found in detergent. Basically I'm trying to recreate what my clothes would be like if there was a bar of lye soap and creek with some rocks, to wash the clothing in.
I pick a spot where I've seen deer travel, and try to find the bedding area or the food or the water, so to set up on the paths in between such. I find some brush to get among to break up my outline, so my presence is not too much of a "change". Apparently a broken pattern in my hunter-orange gear is much less change for the deer than a big, honking chunk of blaze-orange out in the open. Also my silhouette I think is important. The fact that the bush on the edge of the meadow is a bit fatter when I'm in it doesn't seem to alert the deer, but a new fat bush in an otherwise empty meadow..., they do seem to dislike that.
I move slow. I try not to make noise. Sometimes it can't be helped. When I must move I step very slowly and I pause a lot, and most importantly I pay attention to the wind.
LD
