How to Read a Proprietary Blend Label

Retina Clear's label uses a two-tier disclosure format that's worth understanding, because it's common across the supplement industry and easy to misread at a glance.

Tier One: Fully Disclosed

Seven ingredients -- Vitamin A, C, E, Zinc, Selenium, Copper, and Chromium -- each have their own printed milligram (or microgram) amount and percent daily value. This is the fully transparent part of the label: you can check each of these against a nutrition reference or a doctor's recommendation.

Tier Two: The Proprietary Blend

The remaining 14 ingredients -- including well-known compounds like bilberry, ginkgo biloba, and taurine -- are combined under a single "351mg proprietary blend" line. You know the total weight and every ingredient's name, but not the individual amount of any single one.

Why the Distinction Matters

If a clinical study used, say, a 100mg dose of bilberry extract, there's no way to know from Retina Clear's label whether you're getting a comparable amount, a fraction of it, or more. The blend format discloses more than a single vague ingredient name would, but less than individual dosing would.

A Practical Approach

When evaluating any proprietary-blend product, check which ingredients are inside your area of concern (for example, safety-relevant ones like beta-carotene) and confirm whether those specific ones are dosed individually or folded into the blend. On Retina Clear, beta-carotene happens to be in the dosed tier -- so its 450mcg RAE amount is a known quantity, even though the accompanying carotenoids (lutein, zeaxanthin) are not.

← Back to the blog