Future Society Targets Body Odor at the Microbiome Level With Base Scent

Future Society has launched Base Scent, a daily scent care treatment built around a fundamentally different proposition for managing body odor: rather than killing odor-producing bacteria, blocking sweat or masking unwanted smells with fragrance, the formula is designed to work with the skin microbiome to influence the odor molecules produced by the skin itself.

• From the archives: Body Odor & Scent

The approach reflects a broader evolution in cosmetic science, from treating the microbiome as something to suppress toward treating it as a functional ecosystem whose activity can potentially be modulated. In the case of Base Scent, that means attempting to influence the metabolic pathways through which skin microbes convert largely odorless sweat and glandular precursors into volatile compounds perceived as body odor.

Future Society says the technology behind Base Scent is the result of five years of research spanning whole-genome sequencing, microbial screening, machine learning, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), RNA sequencing, metagenomic analysis and human testing. The company's final formula was approved in January 2026 following an expanded screening and formulation program.

The frontier of odor biochemistry

The scientific premise is important because body odor is more than the smell of sweat.

Fresh eccrine sweat is largely odorless. Characteristic axillary odor emerges when microorganisms on the skin metabolize precursors secreted by the body, generating volatile compounds with substantially different odor characteristics. Research over the past two decades has established that specific bacteria and specific enzymes participate in these transformations.

Among the best characterized pathways is the production of 3-methyl-3-sulfanylhexan-1-ol (3M3SH), a highly potent sulfur-containing odorant. Certain axillary Staphylococcus species can take up an odorless cysteinylglycine-conjugated precursor and enzymatically release 3M3SH. Other pathways involving Corynebacterium can liberate compounds including 3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid (3M2H) and 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid (HMHA).

That distinction gives Base Scent a different technical target from conventional deodorant chemistry. Rather than attempting to eliminate the microorganisms responsible for these reactions, Future Society is attempting to influence their metabolic activity and, consequently, the chemical profile of the resulting odor.

“It's not that bacteria are ‘good’ or ‘bad,’” Future Society writes in its technical account of the development. Instead, different microbial populations have different metabolic capabilities, meaning that the composition and activity of an individual's microbiome can contribute to a highly individualized chemical scent profile.

The microbiome becomes the formulation target

Future Society's development program began in February 2021 with the creation of a microbial reference library. The company says it collected and whole-genome sequenced bacterial strains from multiple skin sites, then mapped their metabolic pathways to understand the biological machinery involved in odorant production.

That was followed by approximately a year of high-throughput screening. Thousands of combinations involving nutrients, temperature and pH conditions were evaluated to determine how microbial communities responded to different inputs. By February 2022, the company had generated a candidate ingredient list for further screening.

The next step brought machine learning into the formulation process. Future Society says it trained a model using the screening data to predict combinations of ingredients capable of shifting the microbial ecosystem in a desired direction. Candidate blends were subsequently tested against microbial communities and repeatedly refined through July 2024.

The result was not simply a conventional prebiotic added to a personal care formula. The company describes the technology as a targeted prebiotic system intended to provide nutrients that favor a particular pattern of microbial activity. The company's Base Scent landing page identifies the technology as patent-pending PSE, or a prebiotic treatment designed to shift the scent produced by the microbiome toward a more balanced state.

The distinction is significant. In traditional deodorant development, bacteria can be treated as an undesirable variable to be reduced. In this model, the microbial community becomes part of the formulation system itself.

The odorant science is particularly interesting

Future Society used GC-MS to examine the chemical output of microbial communities and treated the resulting odor profile as a collection of individual molecules rather than a single phenomenon called “body odor.”

The company's research examined compounds including 3M2H, hexanoic acid, nonanoic acid, isovaleric acid and sulfur-containing 3M3SH, alongside compounds that can have neutral or even desirable olfactory characteristics.

3M2H, for example, is associated with the characteristic “goaty” or hircine character of axillary odor. Isovaleric acid can contribute sour, cheesy and fatty notes, while 3M3SH is associated with intensely sulfurous, onion-like characteristics. These are not merely theoretical odor descriptors: independent research has established the biological pathways through which several of these compounds are generated.

At the same time, the skin's chemical output is considerably more complicated than a list of “bad” odorants.

Future Society reports detecting compounds including hexanal, indole, acetic acid, geranylacetone, sulcatone and benzyl alcohol. Indole is particularly illustrative: at low concentrations it can contribute a jasmine-like facet to fragrance, while at higher concentrations it can become distinctly animalic. (Indole and its derivative skatole are also famously described in some instances as having a distinctly fecal note.) The implication is that personal scent is a chemical mixture whose perception depends on concentration, interactions and context, rather than a binary division between odor and no odor.

This is one of the more interesting aspects of the Base Scent concept for fragrance developers. The objective is not necessarily to create a new odor. It is to modify the substrate on which an individual's eventual scent perception is built.

A chemical-fingerprint approach

In an early June 2023 study, Future Society says its formulation produced changes across dozens of chemical signals rather than simply reducing a single signature odorant. The company focused its reporting on compounds that changed by more than 25%.

Among the changes it reports were reductions in multiple odor-associated molecules. But some less objectionable compounds also changed. Future Society specifically cites an increase of more than 25% in 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, which it describes as having citrus, fresh, floral, oily and sweet characteristics, while other compounds remained relatively stable.

That finding gets to the conceptual core of the technology. The desired outcome is a different molecular fingerprint.

That is a more nuanced proposition than masking body odor with a fragrance accord. A masking product introduces an external odor profile over an existing biological odor profile. Base Scent is intended to intervene upstream, before—or while—the microbial metabolism generating those odorants occurs.

The distinction could ultimately matter for fragrance formulation because it potentially changes the role of fragrance itself. Rather than designing a fragrance powerful enough to overcome an underlying odor, formulators could theoretically work with a more predictable and neutralized personal scent environment.

Looking beyond bacterial counts

Perhaps the most technically ambitious element of the research is Future Society's attempt to investigate microbial function rather than simply microbial abundance.

In 2023, the company says it combined RNA sequencing of mock microbial communities with metagenomic DNA sequencing from internal human studies. The goal was to determine whether the treatment changed what microbes were doing, rather than simply changing how many microbes were present.

Future Society reports that genes associated with converting sweat-derived compounds into stronger-smelling molecules showed reduced activity after treatment, including pathways associated with production of 3M2H and related thiol compounds. Meanwhile, genes associated with basic microbial functions such as metabolism and cell maintenance were reportedly unaffected or increased among the microbial populations the company sought to encourage.

That distinction is scientifically meaningful. The established body-odor literature already demonstrates that odor formation depends on specific microbial enzymatic activities. For example, research has identified particular transport systems and enzymes in Staphylococcus hominis involved in converting an odorless precursor into 3M3SH. Other work has identified Corynebacterium enzymes involved in releasing acidic odorants from odorless precursors.

The formulation evolved because the microbiome did not behave uniformly

Future Society's development history also illustrates one of the biggest challenges associated with microbiome-based personal care: people do not have identical microbial ecosystems.

The company says its early research produced a clearer odor shift in men than in women, prompting another round of investigation. In April 2025, it restarted screening using the same nutrient-screening and machine-learning strategy but expanded the program to more than 150 individual compounds and hundreds of nutrient interactions.

New formulation work began in June 2025, with a targeted blend completed by October and the final formula approved in January 2026.

That iterative process underscores why microbiome claims are more complicated than simply saying a product “balances the microbiome.” The relevant variable is not only which organisms are present but what substrates are available to them, which metabolic pathways they possess, which pathways are active and how the resulting metabolites interact.

Existing research has similarly shown substantial individual variation in axillary precursor concentrations, microbial composition and odor intensity. One culture-independent study of 24 volunteers found differences in bacterial loads, odor intensity and odor descriptors between individuals and between morning and afternoon sampling.

The first human results

Future Society reports that the final Base Scent formula was evaluated in a seven-day clinical study conducted in May 2026 involving 25 participants.

Participants completed a seven-day washout using unscented soap without deodorant, antiperspirant or other scented products. Participants were required to have at least mild detectable odor at baseline. They then used Base Scent twice daily for seven days.

Two independent trained graders conducted blinded odor assessments four to six hours after the participants' final application. On the company's five-point odor scale, average odor scores decreased from 2.90 at baseline to 2.35 after seven days, which Future Society reports as statistically significant. Sixty-eight percent of participants demonstrated a measurable improvement.

A separate 14-day in-home study included 102 participants who reported dissatisfaction with their existing deodorant or antiperspirant. During the first week they incorporated Base Scent into their existing routines; during the second week they used Base Scent alone.

At Day 14, Future Society reports that 79% said their baseline scent felt more neutral, 81% said they had greater freedom to choose their personal scent, 78% reported less body odor and 77% said the product helped their body smell good without needing to mask it with another product.

The company also reports that 80% of participants in the consumer study observed fewer scent fluctuations throughout the day and 75% felt more confident in their scent.

The distinction between these data sets is worth maintaining: the 25-person clinical study used blinded expert odor assessment, while the 102-person study measured consumer perceptions and experiences. Neither should be interpreted as equivalent to long-term population-level evidence, and Future Society itself acknowledges that its understanding of the full range of neutral and pleasant compounds is still developing.

What makes Base Scent different

The most significant aspect of Base Scent may be the category it proposes rather than the particular ingredient blend.

Deodorants traditionally operate through one or more of three mechanisms: masking odor with fragrance, inhibiting odor-producing bacteria, or reducing the amount of substrate available for microbial metabolism by controlling perspiration. Antiperspirants add another mechanism by reducing sweat delivery.

Base Scent proposes a fourth: metabolic modulation of the skin microbiome.

That makes it closer conceptually to precision skin care than to conventional deodorant.

The technology also creates a new formulation objective: rather than optimizing for complete odor suppression, formulators can theoretically optimize the composition of the odor profile. 

Implications for fragrance and personal care

If the approach proves robust across larger and more diverse populations, microbiome-directed odor modulation could eventually expand the design space for products positioned between skin care, deodorant and fragrance.

It could also create opportunities for products designed around an individual's existing scent rather than attempting to overwrite it. Future Society explicitly positions Base Scent as something that can be used either alongside deodorant or on its own, reinforcing the idea that the treatment is intended to modify the underlying scent environment rather than supply a conventional fragrance cover.

For fragrance developers, the most intriguing possibility is a future in which personal scent is treated as another formulation variable. A fragrance could potentially be designed for a more neutral biological baseline, while consumers could choose an external fragrance according to preference rather than odor-control necessity.

There are also scientific questions still to resolve. Future Society says the strength of its effect varies by sex and likely by individual skin chemistry. The company is continuing to characterize the full odor profile, including compounds that remain unchanged or increase.

That work will be important because the microbiome is a living, changing ecosystem influenced by genetics, age, environment, hygiene, sweat, pH, hormones and other factors. Established research also shows that the relationship between microbial abundance and odor is not necessarily straightforward: relatively small populations of particular organisms can have outsized effects when they possess the enzymatic machinery required to generate highly potent odorants.