Pick up almost any supplement in this category and you will find the words proprietary blend on the label. It sounds like a trade secret worth protecting. In practice it is the industry's most effective way of not telling you how much of anything you are getting.
This piece explains the mechanism, and then applies it to our own shelf — including the places where we come out of it badly.
What the phrase actually does
A supplement label normally lists each ingredient with an amount. A proprietary blend instead lists several ingredients together under one total weight, in descending order of quantity, without saying how that total is divided.
So a label reading "Focus Blend 600 mg: lion's mane, bacopa, rhodiola, saffron" tells you almost nothing useful. That 600 mg could be 570 mg of lion's mane and 10 mg each of the rest. Descending order is the only constraint, and it is a very weak one.
This matters because botanical extracts have dose-response relationships. The research literature on lion's mane, saffron, rhodiola and bacopa is built on specific amounts. A blend that contains a trace of an ingredient with good trial evidence is not a product with that evidence behind it — it is a product with that ingredient's name on the label. The industry term for the practice is fairy dusting, and the proprietary blend is what makes it invisible.
The four questions worth asking
- Is there a per-ingredient amount, in milligrams? If every active is inside a blend total, you cannot evaluate the product. Full stop.
- Is there a certificate of analysis, and does it name this product? One COA applied across a dozen SKUs is a marketing asset, not a test result. Look for the sample ID and the date.
- Does the COA show the actives, or only the contaminants? This is the one most people miss. Plenty of brands publish a heavy-metals or pesticide screen — which is good — and never test whether the active ingredients are present at the claimed amounts.
- Can you reach the lab? A real report names the laboratory, the analyst and a contact. If you cannot verify the report exists, it is a picture of a document.
We wrote a longer walkthrough on reading one: how to read a supplement COA.
Now the uncomfortable part: our own shelf
It would be easy to write this article and quietly leave ourselves out of it. So:
Pura Vida uses proprietary blends. Every one of the three formulas lists an "Uplifting proprietary blend," a "Tranquil proprietary blend" or a "Calming proprietary blend" alongside its disclosed ingredients. We do not know what is in those blend lines, because the manufacturer has not told us, and we have asked.
What makes the products defensible anyway is that the ingredients that matter are quantified by an independent lab regardless of what the label does. FESA Labs measured the actives directly and we publish the reports:
- Uplifting — lion's mane 203.58 mg, bacopa 122.15 mg, L-theanine 91.43 mg, rhodiola 81.43 mg, saffron 11.4 mg (sample D90060824-1)
- Tranquil — total kavalactones 58.74 mg, lemon balm 136.36 mg, passionflower 90.91 mg, L-theanine 90.91 mg (sample D90060824-3)
- Calming — turmeric 196.08 mg, ginger 98.04 mg, quercetin 98.04 mg, boswellia 49.02 mg, vitamin C 39.22 mg, cat's claw 19.61 mg (sample D90060824-2)
All three issued 25 August 2026, all three published in full. A lab assay beats a label, because the lab has no incentive to flatter the formula.
Truemoola Holy Moly is the weaker case on our shelf. It is our best-selling euphoric product. Its functional mushroom base is disclosed — lion's mane, reishi, cordyceps — but the euphoric effect comes from a proprietary euphoric blend whose contents we do not know. We have asked the supplier and do not have an answer. If undisclosed actives are a dealbreaker for you, that product is not for you, and we would rather say so than let you find out later.
And the honesty test on our own claims
The real test of whether a seller is being straight with you is whether they publish numbers that hurt. So here is ours: we compared the amounts in Uplifting against the doses used in human trials, and several of ours fall short. Saffron at 11.4 mg against trials using 28 to 30 mg. Lion's mane at 203.58 mg against trials using up to 3 g a day.
We published that because it is true. A brand that only ever shows you flattering numbers is selecting what it shows you, and you should assume the rest is worse.
What to do with all this
You do not need to become an analytical chemist. One habit covers most of it: before buying any supplement, look for a per-serving milligram figure for the ingredient you are buying it for. If it is inside a blend total and there is no lab report naming that product, you are buying a name on a label and nothing more — and you should pay accordingly.
Apply it to us too. The reports are here.
For adults 21 and over. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.