A proprietary blend groups several ingredients under one name and lists a single combined weight — for example, "Focus Blend, 750 mg." It's legal, and it's common. It also makes the dose of any single ingredient impossible to verify.
Why it matters
If a blend is 750 mg and contains six ingredients, one of them could be 700 mg and the rest a sprinkle — or the reverse. You have no way to tell. In practice, blends are often ordered so the cheap, high-volume ingredients come first and the marquee ones are "fairy-dusted" in trace amounts to justify the name on the front of the tub.
How to spot the trick
- Any named "blend," "matrix," or "complex" with a single combined weight.
- A long ingredient list under one number.
- Marquee ingredients listed after filler-type ingredients (order is by weight).
What to do
Prefer products that disclose every dose individually — the good ones increasingly do, because transparency is a selling point. When a dose is hidden, treat it as unverified rather than assuming it's adequate. In our grading, any hidden amount caps a product's Formula grade, because a dose you can't see is a dose we can't stand behind.
Educational only — not medical advice.