By team Briyo Supplements · Updated August 2026
An awkward admission from inside the industry: a supplement label is simultaneously a legal document and a sales pitch, and some brands lean much harder on the second half. The good news - once you know the tricks, they're easy to spot. Here are the red flags we'd check on any bottle.
Red flag 1: the "proprietary blend"
The classic. A label lists "Proprietary Wellness Blend - 800 mg" with six impressive ingredients underneath and no individual amounts. Why? Because blends legally only need to disclose the total. That 800 mg could be 790 mg of cheap filler powder and a sprinkle of everything else - a practice with its own industry nickname, fairy dusting.
The check: every active ingredient should have its own milligram number. If a brand hides amounts inside a blend, ask yourself why.
Red flag 2: doses that exist only on the label
An ingredient can be genuinely effective at 500 mg and present at 20 mg - technically on the label, practically useless. Brands do this to borrow an ingredient's reputation without paying for its dose.
The check: for the ingredient you're actually buying the product for, spend two minutes comparing the label dose against the amounts used in published studies. If the label is 10x lower, that ingredient is decoration.
Red flag 3: "natural" doing heavy lifting
"Natural" has no strict regulatory definition on supplements - it can mean almost anything, and often means nothing. Same family: "clinically proven" without naming the ingredient, dose or study; "doctor recommended" without naming a doctor.
The check: vague authority words are neutral at best. Specifics - named ingredient forms, exact doses, actual certifications - are what carry information.
Red flag 4: no third-party testing
A brand testing its own products and declaring itself pure is a student grading their own exam. Independent lab testing - for potency, heavy metals and contaminants - is the difference between a claim and a fact.
The check: look for explicit third-party testing language, and better, brands that publish lab reports.
Red flag 5: missing basics
Quick hygiene checklist any legitimate Indian supplement should pass: an FSSAI license number on the pack, a full ingredients list including excipients, batch number and expiry date, manufacturer address, and a clear statement that it's a food supplement - the disclaimer isn't a weakness, it's a legal requirement honest brands display plainly.
The check: no FSSAI number, no purchase. It's that simple. You can verify a license on the FSSAI website in under a minute.
Red flag 6: the miracle vocabulary
"Cures." "Melts fat." "Reverses ageing." "Detoxes." Indian regulations don't permit supplements to claim they treat or cure disease - so any product shouting that it does is announcing either ignorance of the rules or contempt for them. Neither belongs in your body.
The check: honest supplement language sounds modest - supports, contributes to, helps maintain. Modesty on a label is a green flag, not weak marketing.
Red flag 7: cheap forms hiding behind familiar names
Subtler, but real: nutrients come in forms with very different absorption. Magnesium oxide vs citrate, vitamin D2 vs D3, folic acid vs methylfolate. The name on the front stays the same; what your body gets doesn't.
The check: the specific form appears in the ingredients list. A brand proud of its forms names them; a brand hiding them lists "magnesium" and moves on.
The two-minute routine
Flip the bottle. Individual doses, not blends. Compare the hero ingredient's dose to research. Find the FSSAI number and expiry. Look for third-party testing. Distrust miracles. That's it - two minutes, and you're harder to fool than most of the market.
FAQ
What's a proprietary blend and why avoid it? A blend discloses only a total quantity, not per-ingredient amounts - which lets brands under-dose expensive ingredients invisibly. Prefer labels with individual doses.
How do I verify an FSSAI license? The license number on the pack can be checked on FSSAI's official site. No number at all is an automatic no.
What does third-party tested actually mean? An independent laboratory - not the brand - verified the product's potency and purity. The strongest version is a brand that publishes those lab reports batch-wise.
Are supplements with disclaimers weaker? The opposite - the "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure" line is required by regulation. Its presence signals a brand following the rules; miracle claims signal the opposite.
Briyo products are food supplements and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult a healthcare professional before use if you have a medical condition or are taking medication.