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Most people turn a bottle over, see a wall of small type, and turn it back. Fair enough. But there are only four things on a supplement label that matter for deciding whether it is worth your money, and once you know where they sit you can read any bottle in the time it takes to walk from the shelf to the counter.
1. The serving size, not the bottle size
Everything in the facts panel is per serving, and a serving is whatever the maker says it is. Two bottles can look identical on the front while one asks you to take one capsule a day and the other three. Divide the count on the front by the serving size and you have the real number of days in the bottle.
2. The form of the ingredient
Magnesium is not one thing. Neither is vitamin B12, iron, or zinc. The word after the mineral, such as citrate, glycinate, oxide, or picolinate, tells you which compound is in the capsule, and the compounds are not interchangeable in how they are absorbed or how they sit in the stomach. If you have a form that works for you, look for that word first and the brand second.
3. The “other ingredients” line
This is the fine print under the facts panel: the capsule material, fillers, flow agents, colours. A short list is usually a good sign. A long one is not automatically bad, but it is worth asking why a vitamin needs it.
4. Who tested it
Supplements are not checked before sale the way medicines are, so a third-party testing mark on the label is one of the few outside signals you get. It does not tell you the product works. It tells you the bottle contains what the label says, at the amount the label says.
Bring the bottle in. We will go through the label with you at the counter, and we would rather do that than sell you something you do not need.