How to read a supplement label (and what a proprietary blend is hiding)

I built Hollow Labs on 2 rules. Choose hard things on purpose. Never lie on a label.

The second rule exists because this industry lies on labels constantly, and legally. The main instrument for it is called a proprietary blend, and once you learn to spot one, you can't unsee it. This post teaches you to read any supplement label in about 2 minutes. Use it on my products too. Especially on mine.

What a proprietary blend actually is

Flip over a pre-workout at any supplement shop. Odds are decent you'll find something like this:

"Performance Matrix: 4,500 mg. Citrulline malate, beta-alanine, betaine anhydrous, taurine."

Here's the trick. The law requires the brand to tell you the total weight of the blend and list its ingredients in descending order. It does not require them to tell you how much of each ingredient is inside.

So that 4,500 mg blend could be 4,000 mg of the cheapest ingredient and a dusting of everything else. You cannot tell. That's the entire point of the format. The blend name sounds scientific, the ingredient list looks impressive, and the actual doses are a secret.

Why brands use proprietary blends

The generous explanation brands offer is protecting their formula from copycats. It doesn't survive contact with reality: any decent lab can reverse-engineer a supplement, and every effective ingredient's clinical dose is published research anyone can read. There's no secret to protect.

The real reason is cost. Effective doses are expensive. A gram of the good stuff costs what it costs, and a label that hides amounts lets you include 10% of an effective dose while charging for the full story. The industry term is dusting: add enough of an ingredient to legally list it, nowhere near enough for it to work.

When a brand hides its doses, ask yourself which explanation fits. A company that paid for full doses wants you to see them.

How to read a supplement label in 5 steps

Grab any supplement you own and do this now.

1. Start with the serving size. Every number on the panel is per serving. Some brands quietly set the serving at 2 scoops so the per-scoop reality is half of what the label implies. Check what a serving actually is and what you'd actually take.

2. Check for blends. Scan for any line that gives one weight for multiple ingredients. Blend, matrix, complex, system: different words, same hiding spot. If the products you're comparing have one and you can't tell how much of anything is inside, you can stop evaluating. There's nothing to evaluate.

3. Compare doses to the research. For a fully disclosed label, check each active ingredient against the amounts used in studies. You don't need a degree for this; the common ones are easy to remember. Creatine monohydrate: 3 to 5 g daily. Citrulline malate: 6 to 8 g pre-workout. Beta-alanine: 3.2 to 6.4 g per day. If a label shows 500 mg of citrulline, that's set dressing.

4. Check the form. The same ingredient comes in versions that behave differently. Magnesium oxide is poorly absorbed; glycinate is absorbed well. A label that names the exact form is being straight with you. "Magnesium (as... nothing)" is a shrug.

5. Read the "other ingredients" line. This is where fillers, dyes, and anti-caking agents live. Some excipients are necessary to manufacture the thing at all, so a short list is normal. A long parade of colorants and titanium dioxide tells you where the budget went.

Two minutes, maybe less once it's habit. And it changes how you shop permanently.

Why every dose is on every Hollow Labs label

Some background on why I'm like this about labels.

I got sober in 2013. The gym is a large part of how I've stayed that way, and early on, broke and rebuilding, I bought supplements with money I couldn't spare. Some were honestly dosed. Some were not. I couldn't tell the difference then and it burns me that the industry counts on people not being able to tell.

So when I started Hollow Labs, the second rule was non-negotiable: every ingredient, every dose, printed on the label. If a full dose of something makes the product too expensive to build, I don't build the product. This costs me real margin, and I'd rather grow slow than grow lying.

I'm not asking you to take that on faith. The opposite, actually. Take the 5 steps above and run them against any Hollow Labs product, then against whatever you currently buy.

If mine loses the comparison, buy the other one and email me which product beat me, because I want to know. That's the standard. Hold everyone to it, including me.