Why We Don't Use Proprietary Blends (and Why You Should Care)

Pick up a pre-workout at a supplement store. Turn the tub around. You'll see something like this: Explosive Energy Matrix — 12,435 mg, followed by a list of eight or ten ingredients. What you won't see is how much of any individual ingredient is in your scoop.

That's a proprietary blend. Legally allowed, brand-friendly, cost-friendly — and almost always designed to make it impossible for you to tell whether the product is worth what you're paying for it. This is the single practice in the supplement industry we're most opposed to, and here's why.

What a Proprietary Blend Actually Is

Under U.S. supplement labeling regulations, brands can group multiple ingredients under a single trade-named “blend” and disclose only the total weight of the blend plus the list of ingredients (in descending order by weight).^[1] They do not have to tell you how much of each individual ingredient is present.

That's the whole trick. When you see “Energy Matrix 8,000 mg — caffeine anhydrous, beta-alanine, L-citrulline, taurine, L-tyrosine,” you know those five ingredients add up to 8 grams. You have no idea whether it's 7,900 mg of taurine and 100 mg of everything else, or the reverse.

Why Brands Use Them

There are three honest reasons and one dishonest reason.

The honest reasons:

• Trade-secret protection. A genuinely novel ratio of active compounds is a legitimate trade secret, and blending obscures the formula from copycats.
• Marketing simplification. “Focus Matrix” sounds better in ad copy than “caffeine 200 mg + L-theanine 100 mg + tyrosine 500 mg.”
• Formulation flexibility. A brand can adjust internal ratios without changing the label if the total blend weight stays the same.

The dishonest reason — and this is the common one: hiding the fact that clinically active ingredients are dosed far below the amounts research shows are effective, while headlining a big impressive-looking blend total.

The Underdosing Problem

Most supplement ingredients have research-backed effective doses. When you know the numbers, proprietary blends stop looking innocent.

Ingredient	Research-supported dose	Common blend disclosure
Creatine monohydrate	3–5 g/day[2]	Listed inside a proprietary blend
Beta-alanine	3.2–6.4 g/day (for endurance benefits)	Listed inside a proprietary blend
L-citrulline	6–8 g/day (for pump/performance)	Listed inside a proprietary blend
Caffeine	3–6 mg/kg body weight	Sometimes disclosed separately, sometimes not

Now imagine a pre-workout with a “Performance Blend 3,000 mg” that lists creatine, beta-alanine, and citrulline together. The minimum effective doses of those three ingredients alone total roughly 12 grams. If the whole blend is 3 grams, at least two of those ingredients are dosed below the level that research shows actually does anything. But you can't tell which two.

Real-World Examples

The most famous case is USPlabs' Jack3d. Its current formulation lists a proprietary blend of 12,435 mg containing arginine alpha-ketoglutarate, creatine monohydrate, beta-alanine, caffeine, 2-aminoisoheptane HCl, geranium extract, yohimbe extract, and schisandra chinensis extract — eight ingredients under a single number.^[3] There is no way to know from the label how much of any single ingredient you're getting per scoop.

The prior version of the same product hid DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine) inside a proprietary blend, an ingredient the FDA later issued warning letters against in 2013 after adverse-event reports including hospitalizations.^[4] Consumers had no way to know how much DMAA was in each scoop until independent lab testing measured it.

Then there's amino spiking, which broke into public awareness around 2015 when several major protein powder brands were sued for including cheap free-form amino acids (glycine, taurine, creatine) that inflated their total “protein” content on nitrogen-based lab tests, without providing the actual complete-protein amino acid profile buyers thought they were paying for.^[5] Proprietary blends made these fillers easier to hide inside branded formulations.

How to Spot a Blend That's Hiding Something

Three tests to run on any label with a proprietary blend:

1. Add up the minimum effective doses of the listed ingredients. If the total blend weight is smaller than that sum, at least one active ingredient is being underdosed.
2. Look at ingredient order. Ingredients are listed by weight (highest first). If a marquee ingredient is listed near the end of a long blend, its dose is trace.
3. Compare to independent brands that publish full doses. If a competitor sells the same ingredient set at a similar price with individual doses disclosed, ask why the proprietary-blend brand won't do the same.

Why We Don't Use Them

The Fit Nerd's product line uses single-ingredient or fully-disclosed formulations. Every ingredient on every label lists its per-serving dose in milligrams or grams. No “blends,” no branded matrices, no hidden ratios.

Practically, that means when you buy our Creatine Monohydrate, you're getting 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per serving — the dose the ISSN position stand cites as effective^[2] — and nothing else disguised behind a trade name. Same across the rest of the Bestsellers collection. If we can't tell you exactly what's in it and how much, we don't sell it.

Two things this costs us:

• We can't hide underdosing. If a formulation would require an inconveniently large scoop to be clinically effective, we either accept the bigger scoop or don't offer the product.
• We can't hide behind marketing names. Every claim we make is one you can verify against the number on the label.

That's the point. If a supplement brand won't tell you exactly what's in it, that's the answer to whether you should buy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are proprietary blends illegal?
No. Under DSHEA and 21 CFR 101.36, blends are legal as long as the total weight and full ingredient list (in descending order) are disclosed.^[1] They're a regulatory allowance, not a violation.

Is every proprietary blend bad?
Not by default — a genuinely novel formulation may warrant trade-secret protection. But the honest use case is rare, and the pattern of underdosing behind a big-looking blend total is common enough that skepticism is the right default.

How can I calculate whether a blend is underdosed?
Look up the research-supported dose of each ingredient in the blend (NIH ODS fact sheets and ISSN position stands are good sources). Add the minimum effective doses. If your sum exceeds the blend total, at least one ingredient is under-dosed.

What should I look for instead?
A supplement label where every active ingredient is listed with its individual per-serving amount in milligrams or grams. That's a fully-disclosed label — sometimes called an “open-label” formula — and it's the transparency standard we hold ourselves to.

The Bottom Line

A proprietary blend is a legal choice to hide dosing information. Sometimes it protects a real trade secret. More often it hides underdosing of ingredients that would otherwise be the product's whole selling point. The way to protect yourself is to only buy from brands that publish full per-ingredient doses — which is what our entire Bestsellers collection does, and always will.

References

1. U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. 21 CFR 101.36 — Nutrition labeling of dietary supplements. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. View source
2. Kreider, R. B., Kalman, D. S., Antonio, J., et al. (2017). International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 14, 18. View source
3. USPlabs. Jack3d Advanced — Supplement Facts (proprietary blend disclosure). Retail product page. View source
4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2013). DMAA in dietary supplements. FDA consumer update on 1,3-dimethylamylamine warning letters. View source
5. Class-action reporting on protein amino-spiking lawsuits (2015). Multiple protein-powder brands were sued for using non-protein amino acids to inflate protein content on nitrogen-based lab tests. Summary: View source