Approach to Fragrance
Many personal care brands use synthetic fragrances in their products. What makes the BASED approach different?
A lot of brands treat fragrance as a finishing touch. They pick something that broadly fits and move on. Our approach is different. We're building what we believe is the modern masculine fragrance palette. We start with a note most people already love, like citrus, vanilla, or something warm and resinous, then build complexity underneath it with naturally-derived ingredients. You pick it up and immediately connect with it, but the more you wear it, the more layers you notice.
You mentioned naturally-derived ingredients. What does that actually mean?
Our fragrances are formulated with naturally-derived ingredients, which means they trace back to natural sources: plants, resins, woods, fruits. We hold ourselves to the highest IFRA (International Fragrance Association) standards throughout the process.
The tradeoff is that a naturally-derived palette is significantly more limited than a synthetic one. Some effects are harder to achieve and take more creativity to pull off. But that constraint shapes the character of our fragrances.
What does creating a new signature scent look like, start to finish?
It starts with an atmosphere. Before we think about specific notes, we're building a world around the fragrance: imagery, a feeling, a time of day, a setting. That becomes the creative brief for the perfumer. So instead of saying "we want something that smells like sandalwood," we're describing an environment and an emotion. The perfumer interprets that into ingredients, and then we refine together until it captures what we originally envisioned.
How long does developing a new signature scent typically take?
Longer than most people would expect, because we’re not using off-the-shelf blends. In a given year, we might work through over two hundred iterations across our fragrance pipeline. Some directions come together quickly. Others take months. And some get scrapped entirely, not because they aren't good fragrances, but because they don't fit where the brand is going. Every fragrance has a reason to exist.
Why invest this much in fragrance for products that are primarily about hair or skin performance?
Because grooming is more than what you see in the mirror. Many brands focus entirely on the visual result: how your hair holds, how your skin looks. We care deeply about that too. But fragrance is part of how you feel in the product and how you carry yourself throughout the day. It's the part of your routine that stays with you after the product has done its job.
What should someone expect from a BASED signature scent that they won’t find in other personal care products?
Depth. Many personal care products give you a scent that's straightforward and fades quickly. We're building fragrance with layers: an initial impression that evolves as you wear it, complexity that rewards attention, and a formulation designed to work across your full routine. We're not trying to make the most popular fragrance. We're trying to make one that smells like nothing else on the market.
Experience all 4 BASED signature scents in our Body Lotion lineup: Santal. Amber. Dawn. Dusk.
The 60-Second Version
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Our process starts with an atmosphere, not a formula. Each fragrance begins as imagery and emotion before a single ingredient is selected.
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We work directly with perfumers rather than going through layers of intermediaries, which means the creative vision stays intact from brief to final product.
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Every BASED fragrance is built with naturally-derived ingredients, sourced globally and held to the highest IFRA standards.
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A naturally-derived ingredient is more limited than a synthetic one, which forces more creativity and longer development timelines, but the results have a depth and character that shortcuts can’t replicate.
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Fragrance at BASED is treated as a core part of the product experience, not an afterthought layered on at the end.