Walk into any supplement store and pick up a product at random. There is a good chance the label includes something called a "proprietary blend" -- a list of ingredients with a total weight but no individual doses disclosed. Manufacturers call it intellectual property protection. We call it the single biggest obstacle to making informed supplement decisions.
What is a proprietary blend?
A proprietary blend is a legal labeling practice where a company lists the ingredients in a formula but only discloses the total combined weight of the blend, not the individual amounts. The FDA requires that ingredients within the blend be listed in descending order by weight, but that is the only clue you get.
For example, a label might show: "Energy Matrix (3g): Beta-Alanine, Caffeine, L-Tyrosine, Taurine." You know the total is 3g and that beta-alanine is the largest ingredient by weight. But you have no idea whether you are getting 2,800mg of beta-alanine and trace amounts of everything else, or a more balanced distribution.
Why they exist
The stated reason is trade secret protection -- companies claim competitors would copy their exact formulas. In practice, this argument falls apart for several reasons.
First, the supplement industry operates on well-known ingredients with decades of published research. There is no secret about what caffeine, creatine, or citrulline do. The "innovation" is in marketing, not formulation. Second, companies with genuinely effective formulas -- like Transparent Labs, Thorne, and Momentous -- openly disclose every dose and still maintain competitive advantages through quality sourcing, third-party testing, and brand trust.
The real reason proprietary blends persist is economics. They allow manufacturers to list impressive-sounding ingredients at costs that would be impossible if they were dosed at clinical levels. A pre-workout can list citrulline malate (clinical dose: 6-8g) while including just 500mg, padding the rest of the blend with cheap fillers. The consumer sees the ingredient name and assumes efficacy.
Red flags to watch for
Blend total that is too small. If a "Performance Matrix" contains eight ingredients and weighs 4g total, basic math tells you most ingredients are severely underdosed. Cross-reference the blend weight against known clinical doses for the top-listed ingredients.
Long ingredient lists inside blends. The more ingredients crammed into a fixed blend weight, the less room for any individual compound to reach an effective dose. A blend with 15 ingredients in 5g is almost certainly window dressing.
"Pixie dusting." This is the industry term for including a tiny amount of an expensive or trendy ingredient just to list it on the label. If a product advertises nootropic benefits from Alpha-GPC but buries it sixth in a 2g proprietary blend, you are likely getting a sprinkle, not a dose.
Marketing emphasis on ingredient count. Be wary of products that advertise "30+ ingredients" as a feature. More ingredients in a fixed serving size means less of each. Quality supplements focus on fewer, well-dosed ingredients.
Vague blend names. Names like "Anabolic Ignition Complex" or "Neural Drive Matrix" are marketing language with no scientific meaning. They exist to create the perception of sophistication while hiding simple (and cheap) formulations.
How Biorank handles proprietary blends
Our Transparency score directly penalizes proprietary blends. Products that fully disclose every ingredient dose start with a significant advantage in our scoring system. Here is why this matters:
We cannot accurately assess the Evidence score of a product when we do not know the doses. If clinical trials show beta-alanine is effective at 3.2g daily but we cannot verify the product contains that amount, we cannot credit it with the same evidence confidence as a product that proves its dosing.
Similarly, our Formulation score rewards products where doses match or exceed clinical thresholds. Proprietary blends make this assessment impossible, so they receive lower formulation confidence by default.
Products using proprietary blends can still score well overall if they excel in other dimensions -- safety profile, brand testing history, value -- but they face a structural scoring disadvantage that reflects real consumer uncertainty.
The industry is shifting
The good news is that the supplement industry is gradually moving toward full disclosure. Consumer demand for transparency, driven partly by platforms like ours, has pushed many brands to abandon proprietary blends. Companies like Transparent Labs built their entire brand identity around full disclosure, and their success has pressured competitors to follow.
When comparing products, always prioritize those that show you exactly what you are getting. Your money deserves the same transparency you would expect from any other purchase.