Why We Don't Use Proprietary Blends

Open a supplement bottle from almost any brand and you'll see a list called 'proprietary blend'. Below it, a total weight. Inside it, individual nutrients listed with zero quantity. You're paying for a mystery box.

This practice is completely legal. It's also completely unhelpful. And after talking to hundreds of people using supplements, we realised that proprietary blends are where transparency goes to die.

What proprietary blends actually hide

A proprietary blend is a mixture of ingredients listed under a single header with no individual quantity disclosures. So a product might say "Proprietary Blend 750mg" and underneath list liver powder, beef kidney, heart, thyroid, and adrenal. You see all five ingredients. You have no idea whether the blend is 700mg liver powder with 25mg of everything else, or if it's distributed equally, or anything in between.

Manufacturers claim this protects their secret formula. In practice, it protects their ability to cut corners without transparency. A brand can use fillers. They can load the blend heavily toward cheaper ingredients and lighter on expensive ones. They can change the formula without changing the label. You'd never know.

This matters because nutrients aren't fungible. Liver and kidney are both nutrient-dense, but they carry different micronutrient profiles. If a blend is mostly kidney and barely any liver, the nutrient you actually get is different from what you expected. And since you were never told the ratio, you can't adjust your consumption or choose a different product.

You cannot make an informed choice about a supplement if you don't know what you're actually taking.

The regulatory loophole

The FDA permits proprietary blends under the provision that they're protecting trade secrets.¹ In practice, almost no supplement company actually uses proprietary blends because they've discovered something genuinely new or revolutionary. They use them because it gives them legal cover to be vague.

Other major regulated industries don't work this way. Pharmaceutical manufacturers must disclose exact quantities of every active ingredient. Food manufacturers must list nutritional content with precision.¹ Even cosmetics, which are far less scrutinised than supplements, typically need to list ingredients and percentages.

But supplements exist in this middle ground where opacity is tolerated. The result is a market where brands can literally change their formula week to week without customers noticing, because the label tells you nothing about actual quantities.

Some brands use proprietary blends because their formula is actually incomplete or underdosed. Rather than commit to quantities that would look weak on paper, they hide behind the blend label. If they published the quantities, it would be immediately obvious that the nutrient amount is inadequate for human biology.

Why quantities matter more than you think

Your body doesn't respond to an ingredient. It responds to a dose. Liver is nutrient-dense, but 10mg of liver powder is a homeopathic gesture. It will do nothing. 1,000mg of liver powder actually carries meaningful nutrition.

The difference between a therapeutic dose and a useless dose might be ten-fold. You could be taking two entirely different products depending on where the brand cut corners, and the label would look identical.

Research on supplementation is always dosed. Studies that show benefit of iron supplementation in anaemia use specific quantities. Studies on B12 absorption use measurable amounts. When a brand refuses to tell you quantities, they're essentially saying "we don't know if our dose works, and we don't want you to find out."

Women's health particularly suffers from this. Menstrual-support formulas often use proprietary blends claiming to address hormonal balance. You have no way to know if the formula contains 5mg of a supporting herb or 500mg. The therapeutic threshold might be 200mg, but you'd never know if you're getting 10% of that or 250% of that. You're guessing.

A dose below the threshold of efficacy is useless. A dose above it is often wasted. Only transparent quantities let you make the right choice.