Labels
Why We Print The Numbers
What a proprietary blend legally conceals, why brands use them, and what we gave up by refusing.
Published 2026-09-10 · 8 minute read · Gelagen Notes
There is one line on a supplement panel that decides whether the rest of it means anything. It is the word "blend", and it is worth understanding exactly what it permits.
What A Proprietary Blend Is
A brand may group several ingredients under a single name — a "radiance complex", a "hair matrix" — and declare one combined weight for the whole group. The individual ingredients must be listed, in descending order by weight, but the amount of each may be withheld as a trade secret.
So a panel reading "Glow Blend, 850 mg: marine collagen, biotin, horsetail extract, hyaluronic acid, silica" is complete and lawful. It is also compatible with 845 mg of the cheapest item and roughly a milligram of everything else.
What It Conceals In Practice
Whether any ingredient is present at a useful amount. The named ingredient that sold you the jar may be there in a quantity that no study has ever tested.
Whether you are approaching a ceiling. You cannot add a blend to your other supplements, because you have been given the total of a group rather than the amount of any member. This is the practical harm, and it is the one nobody mentions.
What you are paying for. Ingredient costs vary by orders of magnitude, and a blend makes the mix impossible to price.
The Legitimate Case, Stated Fairly
There is one, and it deserves to be heard. A brand that has spent money developing a specific ratio can have that ratio copied within a season by a competitor reading the label. Blends protect genuine formulation work.
The counter-argument is that a supplement is something people swallow daily and stack with other products, and the buyer's ability to calculate their own intake outweighs a formulator's commercial secrecy. Different companies weigh that differently. We weigh it toward the buyer.
What Refusing One Costs Us
Printing every amount means printing the ones that look unimpressive next to a competitor. Our zinc figure is 2.7 mg where a rival can print 15 mg inside a blend and look ten times more generous. We then have to spend a page explaining why a smaller number is the more considered choice, and some readers will not stay for the explanation.
It also means we cannot pad the panel. A blend lets a brand add fifteen botanical extracts at trace level and print fifteen impressive names on the front. Our panel is thirteen declared nutrients because that is what is in the jar.
How To Read Any Panel In Ten Seconds
- Serving size first — it rewrites every number below it
- One figure beside every single name, or walk away
- The word "blend", "complex", "matrix" or "proprietary" is your cue to look harder
- Check where your headline ingredient sits in the order
- Read the "other ingredients" line, where the base and allergens live
None of this is unique to supplements or to this company. It is simply the part of a label that rewards ten seconds of attention, and ours is written to survive it.
Quick Answers
Are proprietary blends illegal?
No. They are entirely lawful and widely used. The ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight; only the individual amounts may be withheld.
Does a blend mean the product is bad?
Not necessarily. It means you cannot verify what is in it or add it to your other supplements, which is a reason for caution rather than a verdict.
Why do some ingredients have no daily value?
Because no reference intake has been established for them. That is a statement about the reference tables, not about the ingredient.