Earwax & Body Odor

Your result, the one DNA position behind it, and what the research says.

7/10 confidence.

About Earwax & Body Odor

ABCC11 is a transporter that pumps certain molecules out of cells, including in the glands that make earwax and underarm sweat. This variant disables the transporter, producing dry, flaky earwax and far less of the compounds that skin bacteria convert into body odor. It's the textbook example of one letter of DNA quietly controlling two traits that seem unrelated - and the dry-earwax version is common in East Asian populations and rare elsewhere.

Good to know: Earwax type and body odor are set by the very same gene. The dry, low-odor version is common across East Asia and rare in Europe and Africa. Many people with the dry version make so little odor compound they barely need deodorant.

Fun fact: Deodorant sells poorly in much of East Asia partly because most people carry the low-odor ABCC11 version.

Discovery: The ABCC11 variant was identified as the determinant of earwax type in 2006, and tied to underarm odor by 2010.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: ABCC11

Variant (rsID): rs17822931

Location: Chr 16:48,224,287

dbSNP rs17822931

The studies

A SNP in the ABCC11 gene is the determinant of human earwax type (Yoshiura K et al., Nature genetics, 2006)

A functional ABCC11 allele is essential in the biochemical formation of human axillary odor (Martin A et al., The Journal of investigative dermatology, 2010)

The impact of natural selection on an ABCC11 SNP determining earwax type (Ohashi J et al., Molecular biology and evolution, 2011)

Association between the ABCC11 gene polymorphism-determined earwax properties and external auditory canal microbiota in healthy adults (Amari Y et al., Microbiology spectrum, 2025)

Other lifestyle traits

Sneezing at Bright Light: A common variant linked to the photic sneeze reflex, the sudden urge to sneeze on stepping from shade into bright sunlight.

Pain Sensitivity: A change in the sodium channel that pain-sensing nerves use to fire, linked to where your pain threshold sits.

Duffy Blood Group: The position that sets which of the two main Duffy forms sit on your red blood cells, one of the classical blood group systems.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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