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Not medical advice. We critique labels, pricing and marketing, not medicine. Talk to your doctor before starting any supplement.
Stop buying thisStop Buying Proprietary-Blend Anything
"Pump Complex." "Energy Matrix." "Recovery Blend." Three different names for the same trick: hiding how much of each ingredient you're actually getting.
The practice, not a person
Under FDA labeling rule 21 CFR 101.36(c), a supplement brand can group ingredients under a trademarked blend name and disclose only the combined total weight, not each ingredient's individual dose (eCFR 101.36, confirmed by the industry's own trade group's compliance guidance,CRN). That's legal. It's also the entire reason a "12g Pump Matrix" can be mostly cheap filler ingredients with a gram or two of the thing you actually wanted, and you'd have no way to tell from the label alone.
A blend name is not an ingredient. It's a curtain, and the law lets brands keep it closed.
The FTC, separately, has said it wants brands to be able to substantiate the claims tied to proprietary blends, and in 2025 sent notices to roughly 700 marketers warning that unsubstantiated claims and undisclosed material connections can trigger civil penalties under its penalty-offense authority (FTC). That's pressure on the industry as a whole, not a finding against any one named company. We're not calling out a brand here. We're calling out the format.
How to check your own tub in five minutes
- Flip the container over and find the Supplement Facts panel.
- Look for a bolded blend name (Matrix, Complex, Blend, Formula) with one combined weight next to it, like "Focus Matrix, 1,200mg."
- If every ingredient under that heading has no individual milligram number, you cannot verify the dose of any single ingredient inside it.
- Compare the ingredient order. Ingredients are listed by descending weight, so whatever is listed last in the blend is present in the smallest amount, possibly a token amount just to get it on the label.
- A tub with zero blends, every ingredient with its own milligram number, passes this check automatically. That's the whole standard.
We're not saying skip every supplement with a blend name on it. We're saying a brand that won't disclose individual doses is asking you to trust a number you can't check, and that trust should cost less than a brand that shows its work. When two products are priced similarly and only one discloses full doses, the choice isn't close.
See a full-disclosure pick we'd actually buy →