Thoughts on Prop Blends?

But when we have “experienced experts” justifying using prop blends for the “mystery,” and then other “experienced experts” not using standardized extracts because “there wasn’t room on the label,” one can’t help but wonder if there’s ever really a time we can inherently “trust” that any formulator will make “smart” decisions. I’d much rather be able to “check their work” if I can.

Of course, as you said, if it’s just for a stimulant blend where the only goals are acute subjective effects, then yeah, you just try it once or twice and see if you like it, but for more subtle effects that take weeks to be observed, I’d much prefer to be able to at least know if I’m getting logical doses, you know. Should I just trust that, for example, an unstandardized dose of Bacopa in a prop blend is a quality extract and properly dosed because the formulator is smart? Bacopa takes ~6 weeks to work, so I’m looking at at least 2 bottles of this hypothetical product to test it; at least with disclosure, I know if the research indicates it’ll likely have benefits as included in the product instead of having no idea.

FIrst of all, James Boccuzzi is not an expert formulator. He’s a brand owner and sales director. That comment was an interesting point of view, and I don’t necessarily disagree that the majority of consumers buy based off packaging and marketing and searching for a desired feeling they think it will give them.

You may not have designed a label before, but there are always sacrifices made unless you want it to look terrible. I would’ve sacrificed something else, sure.

If you want to check people’s work you should see if they’ll hire you as a consultant or into QC

You can still use a standardized extract or Bacopa without advertising it explicitly on the label with a badge. Even if you don’t want to pay a premium for Bacognize, you can still source a standardized extract…

And I mean “check their work” before I buy a product. A basic check to see if the product makes sense and is likely to work before I spend money on it. I see 300mg Bacognize, I know it’s likely to help with memory with daily use; I see unstandardized Bacopa and I have no idea. There’s a lot more trust involved.

And hearing that they didn’t use a standardized extract because of label space doesn’t exactly inspire that confidence.

Edit: and, as your own article said, how do we know that they won’t change the extract on us between batches? So even if we like it now, how do we know it’ll be the same “good” extract later? Again, more trust is involved, and this is an industry where there’s a lot of reasons not to inherently have all that much trust.

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Again, when you’re just going for acute subjective effects, I don’t think prop blends are unforgivable, but for a daily product, something where it takes weeks/months to truly observe any benefits, like ergogenic products or even some nootropics, I really think it’s a different story.

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I think we’ve both made our points clear here though, and we’re likely to just go in circles at this point; anyone reading this can form their own conclusions, about prop blends and disclosure in general, and about specific products.

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Simple answer for me, pre-workouts specifically.

Ergogenics should be disclosed, stim-blends, as long as they have the caffeine disclosed I’m ok with to some extent, I prefer full-disclosure of course. If I were to come out with a product, it would have no prop blend.

Was this reasonable enough?

(edited for typos)

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I mean, if some company would come with a formula that is somenthing like the og coke cola, I would maybe justify the inclusion of a mild prop blend, to avoid copycats. But being realistic, many products with caffeine and choline bitartate are included in a prop blend.

Almost no one is coming with ingredients and formulas that would advance the industry like several steps, I do not see the need to include prop blends.

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Some of the best formulas I’ve ever seen do not include prop blends. For example Morphogen, or the guys from WG Nutrition with their Synervol. Even the british from ClearPharm who showed some crazy formulas (do not know what happened with their upcoming supps).