UK brand PhD Nutrition have decided to launch a new series called PhD Woman. If you are a regular Stack3d reader you will know that unless a women’s range has good reason to in fact target women. It just comes off as a money driven scheme to take advantage of a market who it willing to buy something just because it speaks to them, regardless of price point. Same thing can be seen in certain sports specific supplements, family value protein powders, and heavily marketed fat burners. Unfortunately PhD Woman does in fact join the ever growing list of mis-formulated products and money hungry femininely branded companies.
PhD Woman lines up a total of 6 supplements, Meal Replacement, CLA, Body Sculpt, Energy Bar, and Support & Recovery which is available in both powder and bar form. To get the ball rolling and give you an idea of the philosophy behind the range. The brand’s weight loss aid CLA is identical to the CLA from PhD’s regular line up. However in true rip off fashion it has 33% less pills. No price has been confirmed but you can bet your bottom dollar that this will not cost less than PhD’s 90 count CLA. In the off chance that it does, you gotta wonder why on Earth would you even produce the same product twice, with less in it. Quick answer to that is money, and the brand will no doubt be expecting women to pay that little bit more for the gold top and subtitle ‘for the active woman‘.
You would think that the more complex formula of Body Sculpt may actually be at least a tiny bit different. Sadly, PhD Woman disappoint once again. Without even so much as a change to the caffeine amount, Sculpt is a direct replica of PhD’s Lean Degree. Word for word, dose for dose, and yes the serving count has been dropped as well. However instead of going with 33% less like CLA, the team went with 50%. Giving Sculpt 60 capsules compared to Lean’s 120.
The last two formulas from the disrespectful line are Meal Replacement and Recovery. In a not so surprising result, both of them are very similar. One is labeled as a meal shake containing 25.5g of protein, 19.7g carbs, and 2.3g of fat, with a major selling point of added CLA, carnitine, green tea, and number of insignificant extras. The other powder supplement makes claims against recovery, however it also has the under dosed extras along side 20.g of protein, 4.7g carbs, 0.5g fat, and a sad 150mg of glutamine. The two are a mile better than Sculpt and CLA, but since they have no real point of difference and an almost guaranteed over the top price tag. PhD Woman is rendered even more useless.
Sometimes brands make their intentions so obvious it is almost like a slap in the face. The PhD move towards the female crowd shows only one intention, and that is not to help women. You don’t make two supplements, one smaller than the other, give it a pretty label, and sell it for more without dollars signs slot machining around your eyes. While we can not confirm if that is in fact PhD’s motivation, we can definitely tell you that these products have not been designed with customers in mind. As a matter of fact, if you do think about purchasing any of the PhD Woman’s items. Take a deep breath, put it back, and find anything else. Because even though the brand’s other formulas are the same, and have a better price. Just the thought of such a cheap move should put you off PhD entirely.
