What Is a Proprietary Blend — And Why We Will Never Use One

What a proprietary blend is

A proprietary blend is a mixture of ingredients listed under a single collective name on a supplement label, with only the total weight of the mixture disclosed — not the individual amounts of each ingredient within it.

For example: "Cognitive Performance Blend (Lion's Mane, Bacopa Monnieri, L-Theanine) — 450mg"

This tells you that the total blend weighs 450mg. It does not tell you whether that 450mg contains 400mg of Lion's Mane and 25mg each of the other two — or 400mg of the cheapest ingredient and trace amounts of the others listed for label appeal.

Why companies use them

Two reasons are commonly given. The first is competitive protection — if a formula works, keeping the exact doses proprietary prevents direct replication. The second is cost management.

In practice, the second reason dominates. Proprietary blends allow manufacturers to list impressive ingredients on the label while underdosing the expensive or research-supported ones. The consumer sees the ingredient names. The consumer does not see that the clinical doses established in research are nowhere near what is in the capsule.

How to identify underdosing

Research showing benefit for most well-studied ingredients has established minimum effective doses. Ashwagandha KSM-66: 300–600mg. Lion's Mane: 500–1000mg. L-Theanine: 100–200mg. Magnesium glycinate: 200–400mg elemental.

When a proprietary blend containing multiple ingredients totals less than any single ingredient's minimum effective dose, at least some of those ingredients are decorative.

What we do instead

Every Stryō formula discloses every ingredient at its individual dose. Full stop. If we cannot dose an ingredient at a level supported by research, we do not include it. If including it at the right dose would make the formula too expensive for the market, we reformulate rather than underdose.

This is not unusual in pharmaceutical manufacturing. It is the standard we hold ourselves to in wellness manufacturing — because the difference between a therapeutic dose and a decorative dose is the difference between a supplement that works and one that doesn't.

You can verify our disclosed doses against the research. That is the point.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.