📋 Proprietary blends, and why an itemised label is worth paying for
Most supplements in this category hide their amounts. Here is how that works, and what you lose when they do.
A proprietary blend lists several ingredients under one combined total, so you learn the names but not the amounts. 📋 It is legal, extremely common, and the most effective way a fully compliant label can tell you far less than it appears to.
🔍 How it works
Instead of a figure beside each ingredient, the panel shows a blend name and a single number. A seven-ingredient 600 mg blend could be 550 mg of the cheapest component and traces of the rest — and the label would be entirely accurate.
You cannot tell. That is the point.
💡 The one rule that still helps
Ingredients within a blend must be listed in descending order by weight. The first-named is present in the largest amount and the last in the smallest. No numbers, but an ordering — and when the ingredient the marketing is built around sits last, that is informative.
🤷 Why companies do it
The stated reason is protecting a formula from being copied, and occasionally that is sincere. More often, full disclosure would show a headline ingredient sitting well below the amount used in the research that made it famous — present enough to name, not enough to matter.
✅ What an itemised label lets you do
- Compare against research. If tongkat ali is listed at 200 mg, you can check what trials used and reach your own conclusion.
- Compare between products. Two itemised labels sit side by side. Two blends do not.
- Work out value. Price per active milligram is only calculable when the milligrams are published.
- Screen against medication. A pharmacist can assess a named amount far better than a name alone.
🛒 Check the current SodaPeak offer
Packages from roughly $49 per bottle with free shipping on the larger orders. Confirm current pricing and refund terms at checkout.
💰 See today's price🍬 The product this site covers
SodaPeak itemises all seven of its actives — tongkat ali 200 mg, maca 100 mg, ashwagandha 100 mg, L-arginine 50 mg, beet root 50 mg, grape seed 50 mg and a further botanical at 50 mg. No blend total anywhere.
The company has said publicly that this was a deliberate choice. We think it deserves credit, and we think the credit is worth something precisely because the resulting comparison is not uniformly flattering. The full breakdown is here, including where the numbers disappoint.
⚖️ What disclosure does not guarantee
A transparent label with modest amounts is still a modest formula. Disclosure does not make a product work. What it does is let you make an informed decision rather than a hopeful one, which is a different and more valuable thing.
🛒 A quick shopping rule
If you cannot see the amount of the ingredient you are buying the product for, you are buying on trust. Sometimes that is an acceptable trade. It should always be a conscious choice rather than something the label slipped past you.