Proprietary blend
The standard phrase. One total, members in descending weight order, no individual amounts.
What A Proprietary Blend Actually Hides
One total weight, a list in descending order, and no individual amounts. Here is exactly how much information that leaves you with, and how to use it.
Written by the Gohoneyflush Editorial Desk · Reviewed by Dr. Janyna Mercado, Neuropsychologist · Revised
Quick answer
A proprietary blend prints one total weight for a group of ingredients and lists the members in descending order of weight, without disclosing individual amounts. US labelling rules permit this. What you learn is the order: the first ingredient weighs the most, the last weighs the least. What you never learn is the split, so a blend containing an ingredient studied at 500 mg tells you nothing about whether 500 mg is present.
The rule, in one paragraph
A dietary supplement label has to declare what is in the product. For most things that means a name and an amount. For a proprietary blend it means something less: a blend name, one total weight, and the members listed in descending order of predominance by weight.
That is the whole disclosure. There is no requirement to say how the total is divided, and there is no requirement to explain why any particular grouping counts as proprietary.
The rule exists so that a company that has developed a formula can stop a competitor from copying it exactly. That is a real commercial interest and it is not unreasonable on its face. The side effect is that the buyer cannot evaluate the product either, and the buyer is the one paying for it.
So a blend is not evidence of bad faith. It is evidence that a decision has been taken to make the formula unverifiable, and the correct response is to treat the blend as unverified rather than as either good or bad.
What a blend tells you and what it does not
Three columns, and the middle one is smaller than most people assume.
| Question | Does the label answer it? | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Which ingredients are in it? | Yes. All members must be listed. | Read the list. Names are real information. |
| Which weighs the most? | Yes. Descending order is required. | The first name is the biggest share, the last is the smallest. |
| How much of the first one? | No. | Nothing on the label will tell you. Ask the manufacturer and expect a refusal. |
| How much of the last one? | No. | You can bound it from above: it is less than the total divided by the number of members. |
| Does it reach a research dose? | No, but arithmetic helps. | If the total is smaller than a single research dose, the answer is definitely no. That settles many labels outright. |
| Is it standardised? | Sometimes. | A bracket such as NLT 20% bacosides is a ratio. It becomes useful only when there is a weight to apply it to. |
The one piece of arithmetic worth doing
Take the blend total and divide it by the number of ingredients in it. That gives you the average. It is almost certainly wrong for every individual member, because blends are not split evenly, but it is an anchor.
Then compare that average against the doses the headline ingredients are studied at. If the average is 58 mg and the headline ingredient is studied at 500 mg, you now know that either the blend is extremely lopsided in its favour, or the studied dose is not present.
Then do the harder version: assume the first ingredient takes the entire blend. If even that assumption cannot reach a research dose for it, the question is closed. No split of the total gets there.
That second calculation resolves more labels than anything else in this article. It takes ten seconds and it does not require you to trust anyone.
The ordering rule cuts both ways
If a blend's most impressive-sounding ingredient is listed last, it is the smallest weight in the blend. Marketing rarely arranges itself in the same order as the label, and the label is the one bound by a rule.
Running the arithmetic on our own label
HoneyFlush prints a WMG-NVT Exclusive Blend at 635 mg with eleven members. The average is about 58 mg.
Berberine HCl is the sixth name on that list. Trials use 500 mg to 1,500 mg daily. Even if berberine took the entire blend, one serving would be 635 mg, which is only just inside the bottom of that range, and it is the sixth name, so it does not take the entire blend.
Bacopa monnieri is the fourth name and is studied at around 300 mg of standardised extract for at least twelve weeks. The same reasoning applies and reaches the same answer.
Lutein and zeaxanthin are the last two names, which means the two smallest weights in the blend. They are eye-health carotenoids on a label sold for digestion, energy and clarity.
We sell this product. That arithmetic is still what it is, and publishing it is the only reason anything else on this site is worth reading.
About the product behind this blog
HoneyFlush Advanced Formula is a two-capsule daily supplement: folate, vitamin B12, magnesium and chromium with printed amounts, plus eleven botanicals sharing one 635 mg blend. We explain where the price appears as plainly as we publish the doses.
Order NowRead the label firstFour checks to run on any blend
In order. The first two take seconds and eliminate most products.
Divide the total by the number of members
The average. Not accurate for any single ingredient, and still the fastest way to see the scale of what you are buying.
Find the research dose for the headline ingredient
One search. If the blend total is smaller than that dose, the question is answered and nothing else on the label changes it.
Check where that ingredient sits in the list
First means the largest share. Sixth of eleven means a small one. Last means the smallest weight in the blend.
Count the printed amounts outside the blend
Some labels print several nutrients individually and blend the rest. Those printed amounts are the part you can actually evaluate, and the ratio of printed to blended is a fair summary of how much of the product is checkable.
The fair case for blends
It would be easy to end here with the conclusion that every blend is a trick. That is not true and it is worth saying why.
Some formulas genuinely are the product of work, and a company that has spent money finding a combination has a legitimate interest in not handing it over. The rule exists for that reason and it was not written by marketers.
Some blend members are also present in small amounts for good reasons. A trace of black pepper extract to aid absorption, or a small amount of a supporting botanical, is a real formulation decision rather than a deception.
The problem is not the existence of blends. It is that a blend cannot be distinguished from a bad blend without information the label does not carry, so every blend has to be treated the same way: as a set of names at unknown amounts. If the rest of the label is generous with numbers, that earns a little trust. If the blend covers most of the formula, it does not.
A blend is not a trade secret in the legal sense
Calling a formula proprietary on a label is a labelling choice, not a registered right. It does not stop a competitor sending the product to a laboratory, which is the usual way formulas are copied in practice. That is worth knowing when a blend is defended as protecting innovation.
Blend words worth recognising
Different names, one labelling rule behind all of them.
Exclusive blend
No different in law. The word exclusive carries no regulatory meaning at all.
Complex, matrix, formula
Same thing again. If a group of ingredients shares one number, the rules for it are the same whatever it is called.
Standardised to X%
A ratio applied to an unstated weight. Useful when there is a weight; decorative when there is not.
NLT
Not less than. A floor rather than a target, so the actual figure may be higher, and nothing tells you by how much.
Clinically studied blend
Ask which study, on which blend, at what dose. If the answer is a study on one ingredient at a dose the blend cannot contain, that is the whole answer.
What happens if you just ask
It is worth trying. Write to the manufacturer and ask for the individual amounts in a blend. Some will say no, some will not reply, and occasionally someone will send a breakdown.
A refusal is not proof of anything. A company may be protecting a formula it paid for, and the rule exists to let it. But the answer, or the absence of one, is information you did not have before, and it costs an email.
What is worth noting is the shape of the reply. A company that responds with the rationale, or with a certificate of analysis, is behaving differently from one that responds with marketing copy about proprietary technology.
For this product, the number printed on the bottle for that kind of question is the distributor's line, which is not the same as the order desk.