Ingredients

What's in them

Every dietary ingredient we use is a food, a piece of one, an amino acid, a vitamin or a mineral. Full transparency, always.

Last reviewed 27 Sep 2026

Three of our products are oral supplements. The fourth is a cosmetic scalp serum containing a synthesized peptide.

Oratide Daily

Whey protein concentrate — 25 g, giving a full 20 g of protein. Made from sweet cheese whey, separated by filtering. Nothing is chemically rearranged. When the amount of food going in drops sharply, protein is usually the first thing to fall short.

Vitamin D3 — 20 mcg. 100% of the Daily Value.

Zinc — 8 mg. Essential for immune function.

Vitamin B12 — 6 mcg. B12 deficiency has been shown to promote hair shedding and brittle nails.

Inactive dried yeast — 2 g. Baker's yeast, grown on molasses the way baker's and nutritional yeast always have been, then heat-killed and dried whole. It brings its micronutrients and cell-wall material with it.

Contains milk.

What we deliberately left out of Daily

Iron. The research names it and we left it out anyway. Iron without a documented deficiency is not benign, and it competes with zinc and copper for absorption. To see if you are low on iron, you need a blood test. Discuss it with your doctor.

Vitamin A. Also named. Retinol carries a real risk profile at supplemental doses, particularly in pregnancy, and this is not a product we can add due to those concerns.

Extra leucine. 20 g of whey already carries roughly 2 g of leucine. More is a label decoration, not a nutritional decision.

Oratide Roots

L-cystine — 500 mg. An amino acid and one of the main building blocks of keratin — a raw material for hair. The body also uses cysteine to make glutathione, one of its own antioxidants.

Pumpkin seed — 400 mg. Cucurbita pepo, a food, milled whole. A source of magnesium, zinc, healthy fats and fiber.

Millet seed flour — 200 mg. A gluten-free whole grain providing protein, fiber and B vitamins.

Pantothenic acid — 92 mg, as calcium pantothenate. Vitamin B5 supports red blood cell formation and skin repair.

Biotin — 300 mcg. Vitamin B7 builds fatty acids and processes amino acids for skin, hair and nails.

Copper — 0.9 mg, as copper gluconate. An essential mineral with an established daily value, involved in the structure of the hair shaft.

Oratide Restore

Bovine collagen peptides — 10 g, types I and III. Collagen from bovine hide, hydrolyzed into short peptides. Shown to improve skin hydration and elasticity, plus modest wrinkle reduction.

Vitamin C — 90 mg. A powerful antioxidant that protects cells from damage, and it's essential for making collagen. The enzymes that build collagen inside your body require ascorbate (vitamin C) to function.

No fish, no egg, no dairy.

Oratide Scalp

Copper tripeptide-1 — 1%, or 600 mg in the 60 mL bottle. A copper peptide used in skin and scalp cosmetics for decades.

It's synthesized rather than taken from a food — the only active in the line that is. Oratide Scalp is a serum cosmetic you leave on your scalp, and it supports the appearance of fuller-looking hair.

Why the things you swallow are boring, and why the serum isn't

Every active in Daily, Roots and Restore has a long history of human consumption, which is the main reason we chose it.

Scalp is the deliberate exception, and it's worth saying plainly. Copper tripeptide-1 is a synthesized peptide. It is a cosmetic you apply and leave on, not a supplement.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Every ingredient, one at a time

Open any of them. You get the amount as the panel prints it, what the substance actually is, where it comes from, and — where there is one — the study, the dose that study used, and how ours compares. Where we claim nothing, it says so and says why.

Bovine Collagen Peptides (Types I & III)Hydrolyzed collagen · collagen hydrolysate10 g per serving

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

Collagen protein from bovine hide, cut by enzymes into short chains — peptides — so it dissolves in a cold drink instead of setting into a gel. Types I and III are the collagen types found in skin.

Nine of the ten grams are counted as protein on the Supplement Facts panel. The difference is water and mineral content, not filler.

Source
Bovine hide, enzymatically hydrolyzed. Provisional until the supplier's specification is on file.
Molecular weight
Around 2,000 daltons average — provisional, to be replaced with the supplier's own figure. A hydrolysate is a distribution of chain lengths, not one number, so any brand quoting a single exact weight is quoting an average too.

What it is for

Supports skin hydration and skin elasticity.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Studied dose
500 mg to 10 g a day, for 4 to 16 weeks
What was measured
Instrument-measured skin hydration and skin elasticity, pooled across 35 randomized controlled trials and 2,534 participants. Both improved, modestly, and the improvement was statistically significant.
Our dose against it
We use 10 g, the top of the range the meta-analysis covers. Nothing here is above a dose that has been studied.

What we do not claim

Not hair. Not nails. Not wrinkles. Not dermal density.

The same meta-analysis looked at wrinkles and at dermal density and found nothing: once a single extreme outlier was removed, collagen was statistically indistinguishable from placebo on wrinkles, and the authors write that the data do not support a benefit on dermal density. Hair and nails it did not test at all.

Hydration and elasticity are what the evidence supports, so those are the only two things we say.

EvidenceBatool 2026All of it, in full

Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid)90 mg per serving — 100% of the Daily Value

Ascorbic acid: the same molecule found in fruit and in most supplements on a shelf. Water-soluble, so the body holds no reserve of it and what is not used is passed.

90 mg is the full Daily Value used on US labels.

Why we claim nothing for it

Vitamin C's part in the body's own collagen formation is textbook nutrition, and we could say it the way every other brand does. We have not, because we hold ourselves to citing a paper we have read and checked, and there is no verified record on our file for it yet.

When there is one, this card will say so and cite it. Until then it tells you what the vitamin is and stops there.

Whey Protein Concentrate (from milk)WPC25 g per serving, delivering 20 g of protein

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

Protein from milk. Whey is the liquid fraction left when milk is separated for cheese; it is filtered, concentrated and dried.

A concentrate, not an isolate. An isolate is filtered further to strip out nearly all of the milk fat and lactose. We kept the concentrate: it is the less processed of the two, and the fat and lactose it retains are why 25 g of powder yields 20 g of protein rather than 23.

Source
Bovine milk. Instantized — treated with lecithin so the powder wets and disperses instead of clumping on the surface of a drink.

Why we claim nothing for it

The panel says 20 g of protein and 40% of the Daily Value. That is an amount, and an amount is a fact we can state without claiming anything follows from it.

We once cited a study on whey and appetite. Read properly, it found that people ate less at the next meal and then made it up later in the day — total daily intake was no different. So the claim came off the site and the citation was retired. It is still on our substantiation file, because a record of what we removed is worth more than a record of what we kept.

Dried Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)Nutritional yeast · brewer's yeast2 g per serving

The same organism that raises bread and ferments beer, grown, harvested and dried. A whole ingredient rather than an extract: it brings B vitamins, trace minerals and cell-wall beta-glucans in whatever proportions the yeast grew them.

That is also why it carries no standardized active and no percentage on the panel. There is nothing in it to standardize to.

Source
Cultured Saccharomyces cerevisiae, dried. Not an extract, not autolyzed.

Why we claim nothing for it

We claim nothing for it. It is in Daily because it is a recognized food that has been eaten for a very long time and it brings a spread of B vitamins along with the protein — not because we have a trial saying 2 g of dried yeast does something.

If we find one we have read and checked, it will appear here.

Vitamin D (as cholecalciferol)Vitamin D3 · 800 IU20 mcg per serving — 100% of the Daily Value, which is 800 IU in the older unit

Cholecalciferol: the form the skin makes from sunlight, and the form found in oily fish and egg yolk. Fat-soluble, so unlike vitamin C the body does hold a reserve of it.

US labels have used micrograms since 2016. The 800 IU you may be used to seeing is the same 20 mcg.

What was measured
Nothing was measured on us. The review we cite is a review of published evidence rather than a trial, and it names vitamin D among the nutrients that commonly run short when weight comes off quickly.

Why we claim nothing for it

The paper we cite recommends that clinicians counsel people on adequate intake. It reports no trial that tested supplementing anybody, and it did not study a product — ours or anyone else's.

So the honest statement is the narrow one: this is a nutrient that runs short in the circumstance our customers are in, and Daily contains the full Daily Value of it. What follows from that, we do not claim.

EvidenceGupta 2026All of it, in full

Vitamin B12 (as cyanocobalamin)Cobalamin6 mcg per serving — 250% of the Daily Value

Cyanocobalamin, the most stable and most studied form of B12 and the one used in the majority of clinical trials. B12 occurs naturally almost only in animal foods.

250% of the Daily Value looks like a lot and is not: B12 absorption is limited by a carrier protein that saturates, so a modest surplus is how a small dose reliably delivers a full one. It is water-soluble and unused amounts are passed.

What was measured
Nothing was measured on us. The review we cite is a review of published evidence, and it names B12 among the nutrients to counsel on during rapid weight loss.

Why we claim nothing for it

Same limit as vitamin D, and it is worth repeating rather than assuming you read it once. The paper recommends counseling on intake. It tested no supplement, and it did not study Oratide.

We say what is in the powder and how much. We do not say what it will do for you.

EvidenceGupta 2026All of it, in full

Zinc (as zinc gluconate)8 mg per serving — 73% of the Daily Value

An essential trace mineral, supplied as zinc gluconate — zinc bound to gluconic acid, a form chosen for tolerability rather than for any claimed advantage over other salts.

8 mg rather than the full Daily Value of 11 mg is deliberate. Zinc and copper compete for the same absorption route, and a large standing zinc dose can push copper down over time. Roots contains copper. Someone taking both should not be forced to choose.

What was measured
Nothing was measured on us. The review we cite names zinc among the nutrients to counsel on during rapid weight loss; it ran no trial of supplementing it.

Why we claim nothing for it

Zinc has a long list of functions in the body and we could recite them. We have not, for the same reason as the rest of this page: the paper behind it recommends adequate intake and tested no supplement.

The interesting thing about the zinc in Daily is not a claim, it is the amount — and the reason it is under the Daily Value is written above.

EvidenceGupta 2026All of it, in full

Sunflower LecithinAn other ingredient — not an active

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

A fat from sunflower seeds that lets powder wet properly instead of floating in clumps on the surface of a drink. It is the difference between a scoop that stirs in and one you have to chase around the glass.

Sunflower rather than soy, deliberately. Soy lecithin is cheaper and works identically, and it would put a second major allergen on a label that already has to declare milk.

Source
Sunflower seed.

Why we claim nothing for it

It is a processing aid. It makes the powder behave. We claim nothing for it and it is listed here because a deep dive that skips the unglamorous half of the ingredient list is not a deep dive.

Silicon DioxideSilica · an other ingredient, not an active

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

An anti-caking agent, used at well under one percent. It coats the powder particles so they do not bind to each other in a humid kitchen, which is the whole reason a tub opened in July still scoops in September.

Chemically it is the same material as sand and as the little desiccant sachets, in a very fine food-grade form.

Why we claim nothing for it

None. It keeps powder loose.

L-CystineCystine — two molecules of L-cysteine joined together500 mg per serving of 2 capsules

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

An amino acid. Two molecules of L-cysteine bonded through their sulfur atoms, which makes it the more stable of the pair and the one that survives in a capsule on a shelf.

Cystine is one of the sulfur-bearing amino acids, and sulfur-bearing amino acids are abundant in keratin — the structural protein of hair and nails. That is a fact about the protein, and we are careful to leave it as one.

Source
NOT YET CONFIRMED, and we would rather say so than let you assume. Most food-grade L-cystine is made by hydrolyzing keratin, and the usual feedstocks are poultry feathers, hog hair or human hair. We have asked our manufacturer for the origin in writing, on the specification sheet, and we want the fermentation-derived material.
Studied dose
Unknown — and that is the honest answer. The trial published a list of ingredient names with no quantities anywhere in it.
What was measured
Hair density, counted per square centimetre, in 80 patients at a dermatology clinic over six months. Density rose by 9.9 hairs/cm² at three months and 12.3 at six, against placebo.
Our dose against it
We cannot compare them, because the paper printed no doses. Any brand telling you it matches that formula is matching something the authors never published.

Why we claim nothing for it

That trial is the reason this category sells L-cystine, and it does not support Roots.

It tested ten ingredients; we use four. One of our four is a different preparation — the trial used pumpkin seed oil, we use the milled seed. It published no doses, so the formula cannot be matched even in principle. And its participants were people who had walked into a clinic with diagnosed hair loss, not people reading a website.

We cite it because it is the real evidence in this category and you should be able to read it. We do not stand on it.

EvidencePiquero-Casals 2025All of it, in full

Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) SeedMilled pumpkin seed — not the oil400 mg per serving of 2 capsules

The whole seed, milled. A food, eaten as one for a very long time.

The distinction between the seed and the oil is not pedantry and it is the single most important thing on this card. The trial usually cited for pumpkin seed in hair supplements used pumpkin seed OIL. We use the milled seed. Those are different materials with different compositions, and we will not let the one borrow credit from the other.

Source
Cucurbita pepo seed, milled. A whole-food ingredient, not an extract and not standardized.

Why we claim nothing for it

We claim nothing for it, and the preparation is a large part of why. We are not the material that was tested.

It is in Roots because it is a recognized food with a sulfur-rich protein content and it belongs in a capsule built out of foods. That is the whole of our reasoning, and you now have all of it.

EvidencePiquero-Casals 2025All of it, in full

Millet (Panicum miliaceum) Seed FlourProso millet · common millet200 mg per serving of 2 capsules

A cereal grain, milled to flour. Proso millet is a staple food across much of Asia and Africa and has been for thousands of years — it is one of the oldest cultivated grains there is.

In a hair supplement it is usually there as millet seed oil or an extract. Ours is the milled grain.

Source
Panicum miliaceum seed, milled to flour. A whole-food ingredient, not an extract and not standardized.

Why we claim nothing for it

No human trial that we have read and verified tests millet for hair. Not one.

So this is a food in a capsule of foods, and nothing more than that is claimed for it. We would rather tell you that plainly than dress up a laboratory paper as evidence about a person.

BiotinVitamin B7 · vitamin H300 mcg per serving of 2 capsules — 1,000% of the Daily Value

A water-soluble B vitamin. It is a cofactor for a small number of enzymes involved in fat and amino-acid metabolism, and outright biotin deficiency is rare in people eating ordinary food.

A safety fact that belongs on this card rather than in small print: biotin interferes with a wide range of laboratory blood tests, including cardiac troponin, and can produce wrong results that nobody spots. FDA has issued a safety communication about it. Tell your doctor and the laboratory staff that you take a supplement containing biotin. That warning is on the Roots label for the same reason.

Studied dose
1.25 to 10 mg a day by mouth, across the ten studies reviewed — plus 5 mg intramuscular and topical preparations
What was measured
Hair growth in people with alopecia, across mixed populations: telogen effluvium, androgenetic alopecia, alopecia areata in children, healthy men, and patients on isotretinoin.
Our dose against it
300 mcg. The reviewed range starts at 1.25 mg — four times our amount — and runs to 10 mg, which is more than thirty times it. We are an order of magnitude below the low end, so those studies are not even testing our dose.

Why we claim nothing for it

Biotin is the ingredient this whole industry is built on, and we claim nothing for it.

The 2026 systematic review concludes, in the authors' own words, that current evidence does not support routine biotin supplementation for alopecia in the absence of documented deficiency. The review most often waved at as proof biotin helps hair found eighteen reported cases — and in every one, the person had an underlying pathology causing the problem. Read properly it says close to the opposite of what it is used to say.

We put biotin in Roots because it is a B vitamin that belongs in a hair capsule the way it belongs in a multivitamin, and because leaving it out would have been its own kind of statement. We did not put it in so that we could tell you it works. It is there, the label says how much, and that is the end of it.

EvidenceMoltó-Balado 2026·Patel 2017·FDA 2017, biotin and lab testsAll of it, in full

Pantothenic Acid (as calcium pantothenate)Vitamin B592 mg per serving of 2 capsules — 1,840% of the Daily Value

A water-soluble B vitamin, supplied as calcium pantothenate, the stable salt used in essentially every supplement that contains it.

Two numbers on the panel are worth explaining. We put 100 mg of calcium pantothenate into the capsules, and the panel declares 92 mg — because the rule is to declare the vitamin itself, not the salt carrying it, and the calcium accounts for the difference. And 1,840% of the Daily Value is a large multiple of a very small requirement: the DV is 5 mg.

Why we claim nothing for it

We have no verified study on file for pantothenic acid and hair, so we make no claim for it.

It is a conventional inclusion in a hair capsule at a conventional amount. When we have read a paper worth citing, it will be linked from this card. If we never find one, this card will keep saying this.

Copper (as copper gluconate)0.9 mg per serving of 2 capsules — 100% of the Daily Value

An essential trace mineral, supplied as copper gluconate. The requirement is small and the window is narrow, which is why this is exactly 100% of the Daily Value and not a multiple of it.

Copper and zinc compete for the same absorption route in the gut, and a standing surplus of one pushes the other down over time. It is the reason the zinc in Oratide Daily is set at 8 mg rather than the full 11 mg — so that taking Roots and Daily together does not quietly work against itself.

Why we claim nothing for it

No claim. Copper is here because a formula containing this much zinc across the range ought to contain copper, and because the Daily Value exists and we can meet it exactly.

Note that this is copper as a dietary mineral. The copper in Oratide Scalp is copper tripeptide-1, a different thing entirely, applied to the scalp rather than swallowed, and nothing on one card carries over to the other.

Hypromellose (capsule)HPMC · the capsule shell itself

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

The capsule, not something inside it. Hypromellose is made from plant cellulose, and it is the reason Roots is a vegetarian capsule rather than a gelatin one.

Gelatin is cheaper — two to three times cheaper per capsule — and at sixty capsules a bottle that difference is cents. Everything in the fill is an amino acid, two milled seeds, two vitamins and a mineral. A gelatin shell would have been the only animal-derived thing in the bottle.

Source
Plant cellulose.

Why we claim nothing for it

It is a container. The only thing worth saying about it is what it is made of, which is above.

Rice Hull ConcentrateThe flow agent — not magnesium stearate

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

A flow agent. Capsule fill has to move through a machine without sticking, and something has to make it slide. The industry default is magnesium stearate; we specified rice hull concentrate instead.

We will be straight with you about why. Inside an opaque capsule nobody sees or tastes either one, and magnesium stearate at one percent is not a quality problem. This is a decision about what we are willing to have on the ingredient list, not a decision about what works better. We think that is still a legitimate reason, and you should know it is the reason.

Source
Rice hulls.

Why we claim nothing for it

None whatsoever. It helps powder move through a machine.

Copper Tripeptide-1GHK-Cu · glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine copper1% of the formula — about 600 mg in the 60 mL bottle

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

Three amino acids — glycine, histidine and lysine — joined in a chain and bound to a copper ion. The peptide is not invented: GHK occurs naturally in human plasma. The material in the bottle is synthesized rather than extracted from anything.

One thing you should know before you open it: at 1% this serum is blue. Distinctly, saturated blue. That is what a copper complex looks like at that concentration, it is not a fault, and a colourless copper peptide serum would be the one worth asking questions about.

Source
Synthesized. Not a plant extract, not an animal derivative. The INCI order and the finished pH are still to be confirmed in writing by our manufacturer.
Molecular weight
Around 340 daltons for the tripeptide, and a little over 400 for the copper complex — to be confirmed against the supplier's specification. Either figure makes it a very small molecule: a fraction of the size of the collagen peptides in Restore, which is the comparison most people are reaching for.
What was measured
Hair count in 45 men with diagnosed male pattern hair loss, over six months, using a topical spray.

Why we claim nothing for it

This is the one we expected to be able to stand on, and could not.

The only human randomized controlled trial we could verify on this peptide and hair tested a combination of 5-aminolevulinic acid with a COPPER-FREE version of the peptide. A different molecule, in a combination, and the peptide was never tested by itself. The participants were diagnosed men. And hair growth is an endpoint a cosmetic may not claim at all, whatever a trial found.

Two studies commonly cited in this category — a 2015 trial in postmenopausal women and a 2018 comparison against minoxidil — we could not locate in the medical literature index, so we do not cite them. You will find them cited elsewhere.

Scalp is a cosmetic. It is sold as a leave-on serum, and we tell you exactly what is in it.

EvidenceLee 2016All of it, in full

GlycerinGlycerol

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

A humectant: a small molecule that holds water and keeps it from evaporating off the skin. It is one of the most used ingredients in cosmetics anywhere, and one of the best understood.

It is second on the INCI list, after water, which tells you it is present at a meaningful percentage rather than as a trace.

Propanediol1,3-propanediol — not propylene glycol

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

A solvent and a second humectant. It dissolves things water alone will not, thins the feel of a glycerin-heavy formula so it does not sit tacky on a scalp, and makes the preservative system work harder than it would on its own.

Worth separating from a similar name: propanediol is not propylene glycol. It is usually produced by fermenting corn sugar, and it is the gentler of the two on skin.

Source
Typically fermentation-derived from corn sugar. To be confirmed with the finished INCI.
Phenoxyethanol and EthylhexylglycerinThe preservative systemBoth at or below 1% — phenoxyethanol is capped at 1% in cosmetics

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

The pair that stops a water-based product growing bacteria and mould. Phenoxyethanol does the preserving; ethylhexylglycerin is a skin conditioner that also disrupts microbial membranes, which lets the phenoxyethanol work at a lower level than it would need alone.

A leave-on product that contains water must be preserved. A serum sold as preservative-free is either not water-based, or it is relying on something it would rather not name on the front of the bottle.

Citric Acid and Sodium HydroxidepH adjusters

Provisional — this is our formulation, not yet confirmed in writing by our manufacturer. What is still open is written below.

Two ordinary chemicals used in tiny amounts to set the finished pH: one acid, one base, dosed against each other until the number is right.

They matter more here than they would in most serums. Copper tripeptide-1 is stable across a fairly narrow band, and a formula that drifts outside it loses the active it was built around. These two are how it is held there.