By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026
Most supplement labels are designed to be looked at, not read. Big claim on the front, small print everywhere else. You don't need a chemistry degree to see through that. You need about ten seconds per point, and you need to know where to look.
Are the doses actually stated, or just the ingredient names?
This is the single biggest tell. A legitimate label states a specific amount for each ingredient, in milligrams or grams, next to its name. If a product lists ingredients under a made-up blend name with one combined weight and no individual breakdown, you can't work out if any single ingredient is doing anything. We've written a full explainer on how that trick works and what to look for: proprietary blends explained.
Is the amount elemental or the amount of the compound?
This one catches almost everyone. Minerals like magnesium are usually bound to something else, a citrate, a glycinate, an oxide, because the raw mineral doesn't dissolve well on its own. A label can print the weight of that whole compound, which is a bigger, more impressive-looking number, or the weight of the mineral itself once you strip the binder away. Only the second number, the elemental amount, tells you what you're actually getting. We go through the maths in reading a magnesium label properly. If a label states a compound weight and never mentions elemental content, that's a gap worth asking about.
Does it carry an AUST L number, or is it a food with a nutrition panel?
In Australia, a product is regulated one of two ways, and the label tells you which. A listed medicine carries an AUST L number, usually near the barcode, and that listing means the ingredients and claims have gone through a Therapeutic Goods Administration process. A product without that number is being sold as a food, which means it's regulated under food standards instead, and it carries a standard nutrition information panel rather than a medicine listing. Neither path is automatically better than the other, but they're genuinely different regulatory categories, and a label should make it obvious which one you're holding. If you can't tell, that's worth a second look.
What's actually sweetening it, and what's filling it out?
Check the ingredients list for the sweetener, not just the marketing copy. "Sugar free" and "no added sugar" are both real, checkable claims in Australia, but they don't tell you what replaced the sugar. It might be an intense sweetener, a sugar alcohol, or nothing at all if the product just isn't sweet. The same goes for the flavour. If a flavour is artificial, the ingredients list has to say so, so a list that reads "natural flavour" is telling you something a front-of-pack line never will. Anti-caking agents, fillers and flow agents show up here too. None of these are automatically a problem, but a label that makes them easy to find is telling you something different to one that buries them.
Is there an allergen statement, and does it match what's actually in the tub?
Common allergens have to be declared under Australian food labelling rules. But some ingredients sit outside the standard allergen list while still carrying a real hypersensitivity risk, plant-derived extracts in particular. A properly written label flags those too, even when it isn't strictly required to. If an ingredient list includes a botanical extract with no allergen note anywhere on the pack, that's a gap, not a reassurance.
Where's the country of origin mark, and does it match the ingredient story?
Most packaged food sold in Australia has to carry a standardised country of origin mark, the kangaroo logo with the bar chart showing the proportion of Australian ingredients. That mark is a legal requirement, not a marketing choice, which makes it one of the more reliable things on the pack. Read it alongside any "Australian made" or "Australian owned" language elsewhere on the label or the website. Packing and blending happening in Australia is a different claim to the ingredients being grown or sourced here, and the origin mark is where that distinction actually has to be accurate.
Who makes it, and where?
A brand doesn't have to name its manufacturer, and most don't, for ordinary commercial reasons. But the label or the brand's own site should tell you something concrete: the facility is in a stated country, it operates under a named quality standard, batches are tested before release. "Manufactured under strict quality control" with nothing else behind it is filler. A specific, checkable fact about where and how something is made is worth more than any adjective next to it.
Running the checklist on our own label
We built Settl's label to answer these questions before anyone has to ask them. Every ingredient amount is printed, not blended away. There's no AUST L number because Settl is sold as a food, and it carries a standard nutrition information panel rather than a medicine listing. The country of origin mark states the true proportion of Australian ingredients. It's one worked example, not a template you can only trust because it's ours, run the same seven checks on anything else in your cupboard. If you want to see the full label laid out, it's on the product page.
None of this is legal advice, just the questions worth asking before you hand over your card details.
Cheers, Roy