Nootopia Review

Our chief nootropics tester James Dixon takes a look at this premium priced nootropic stack in our Nootopia review. Find out how he got on with it below…

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Written by James Dixon – fact checked by Jason M & the editorial team

James Dixon is one of the key players in the SOMA Analytics’ team. He is a personal trainer and is educated to Masters level in Philosophy. He is a published author and is a keen advocate of high quality nootropic supplements.

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I’m a big fan of nootropics. I’ve got my favored brands, which I use to great effect fairly often. So called ‘smart drugs’, they are a breed of supplements designed to improve brain health, cognitive function, and mental wellbeing, all of which are sorely needed in the fast-paced, anxiety inducing modern world.

I’ll go into one of my favored brands shortly – my favorite, in fact – as an alternative to today’s Nootopia – the product I’m reviewing today. This is because I don’t see much utility in Nootopia for a lot of people. There are also some large flaws in its makeup.

Nootopia is a range of different nootropic supplements designed to be used as stacks for various purposes. They are innovative, borderline brilliant at times. However, whether they achieve exactly what they set out to do, and whether they earn their frankly eye-watering price tags, remains to be seen. Let’s find out just how the do in my Nootopia review.

NooCube bottle

Quick Verdict: Nootopia

Nootopia is a strong-seeming range of supplements. It is all certainly potent, though we don’t know quite how potent, as they hide a lot of dosing information behind patented formulas.

Nootopia is also incredibly expensive and overly involved. If you’re looking to free up brain space, juggling all their different products and plugging into an extra app seems like a silly way to go about things.

There are cheaper, simpler, more open, better options out there. I would go with one of them – with Noocube being my preferred alternative.

About Nootopia

the apex stack

Nootopia isn’t a single nootropic supplement. Rather, it is a brand whose umbrella covers several different nootropic supplements designed to be used as stacks.

They have recently been acquired by BiOptimizers, a US supplement company famous for its over aggressive marketing strategies and overall lack of scruples. However, the range itself was originally created by Mark Alan Effinger, a well-known nootropic aficionado.

Nootopia currently consists of nine separate nootropic formulations. These can be used individually, though the manufacturers advise you to use them as part of their (very pricey) stacks.

These separate supplements are their Brain Flow, Focused Savagery, Nectar X, The Apex, Upbeat, Power Solution, Zamner Juice, Mental Reboot, and GABAlicious. I don’t have the column space to go into all of them individually, but I’ll cover a couple in-depth for a flavor of what they do, whilst going over the range as a broader whole.

The manufacturer groups six of these nine formulations in different permutations into four main stacks:

  • Genius Activator (Nectar-X and Brain Flow)
  • The Neuro Primer (The Apex and Brain Flow)
  • Deep Work Support (Focused Savagery and Upbeat)
  • Social Command (Power Solution and Upbeat)

They also recommend Mental Reboot and Zamner Juice as support for mental wellbeing, including mitigating the effects of stress and anxiety.

GABAlicious, meanwhile, is aimed at boosting GABA levels, which will represent one of the biggest leaps in cognitive function and wellbeing possible. Overall, these supplements are all designed to optimize your cognitive and mental wellbeing, improve creativity, enhance focus and concentration, and tone down stress and anxiety.

Gabalicious by Nootopia

Nootopia go a little further than most with their supplements. You don’t simply get a bottle of pills when you order them. You also get their Brilliant Mind Blueprint, which is a fantastic, accessible, quite simple guide to using the supplements optimally and getting the most out of your cognitive wellbeing.

They have an app, too, which is completely free, and which enables you to track your experience and progress with their supplements.

This is double edged. On paper it’s fantastic. In reality, too, many people will love it. I’m not personally too hyped about it.

This is partly because I’m not too into apps, which is pure personal bias and should be ignored.

It’s partly because this is yet more to think about, meaning you will need to take their products just to be able to find the cognitive space to use them – it’s a little self-defeating.

Nootopia can also be fully personalized, with stacks tailored to each individual customer… allegedly. The truth is more blurred than this. In reality, they can’t do this, it’s just a bit of a false marketing ploy from a known aggressively marketing, unscrupulous outfit.

These negatives aside (and they don’t detract too much, especially for tech-loving, detail-oriented types), we have a clever set of well-designed nootropics that really could bring a great many benefits to some people.

How Nootopia Works

Nootropia’s prices range from around a hundred dollars to around four hundred. You need to bear this in mind from the outset. They are eye-wateringly expensive. I would (and do!) argue that they are unnecessarily expensive.

Nootopia selection

They’re not quite a rip off. The stacks are good, and they’re packed.

However, you get diminishing returns after the first fifty dollars or so. A top-tier single nootropic supplement like NooCube (my favourite, as mentioned above) will set you back around this and will give you everything you could ever need to boost and ringfence cognition and mental wellbeing.

I feel like Nootopia have priced themselves out of the market. If you want to spend the money, you’ll see benefits. However, you’ll see very little difference to something that comes in at around an eighth of the potential cost.

When you’ve chosen your preferred stack, you then go through a questionnaire. This is supposedly to help Nootopia to somehow personalize your stack. However, I’ve looked around, asked around, and most experts agree that this is ineffective.

They would need to make each capsule for each person separately, which is unfeasible even at Nootopia’s prices (you would be looking at thousands of dollars for this kind of job).

However, you would never know this, as Nootopia hide their products behind proprietary blends. This means that they never tell you doses, how much of any given ingredient is included in each serving. For me, this is a massive red flag. I usually write products off immediately for doing this.

It’s only their innovative nature and thoroughness, which I admit interests me, that is keeping me from doing so here.

So we won’t know how personalized the product actually is, as we don’t really, fully know how much of anything is in each capsule. Try proving that they’re not personalizing everything – you can’t, and the reason you can’t is a good reason to avoid Nootopia.

The ingredients lists all look quite good. I’ll run through a couple below. Assuming the doses are correct and safe (and we can only assume), you should be getting plenty to set you on your path to robust cognition and mental health.

This is as it should be with a nootropic – you should find your anxiety and stress levels falling even as your focus, creativity, attention, energy levels, and more are heightened.

Does Nootopia Work?

I’m going to roll this section and the ingredients breakdown into one lengthier segment today. There are too many individual products to review separately, so I want to take a look at how well the brand overall performs, and how good a few sample supplements look on paper, to give you an idea of what you would be buying into if you parted with your hard earned dollars.

I’m based in the UK, so I knew it might be difficult to get my hands on a lot of Nootopia’s products. They unfortunately use some compounds that are illegal over here (and in plenty of other territories, too) and their lack of dosing and other bits and pieces don’t conform to Europe’s stricter standards.

Supplement stack

As ever, I dislike proprietary blends and always warn people away from them. Nootopia’s products are no different.

In terms of legality, Nootopia uses something called Omnipept, which is pretty oblique. It’s hard to get to the bottom of what it is.

After a bit of digging, though, I found out that Omnipept is a merging of different racetams with herb extracts. This allows them to make the racetams more potent. It also allows them to make this borderline illegal (or, in Europe, actually illegal) product seem benign by slapping a nondescript name on it.

Racetams are a dodgy, dodgy class of drug. They share a pyrrolidone nucleus and several, like piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam, pramiracetam, and phenylpiracetam, are common pharmaceutical grade nootropics.

This is what we’re talking about, here. They are prescription only in most territories and inhabit something of a grey area in the US. An over-the-counter nootropic supplement shouldn’t be going anywhere near them.

Nootopia also make use of what they call capsule-in-capsule technology. This means that they put smaller capsules into one bigger one in a bid to enhance their supplements’ efficacy. The smaller ones inside the bigger one bypass your stomach acid and are then able to get directly into your bloodstream. Nootopia offer no scientific proof for this claim.

Aside from the racetams – and this is a big aside – there are plenty of good quality ingredients in most of Nootopia’s pills.

For example, Brain Flow, their main nootropic aimed at improving mental performance, has some genuinely brilliant items in its formula. You will find ingredients like guarana, ginger, pregnenolone, curcumin, and nandina extract.

This is a bit of a scattergun approach – there is little here that will actively give you a nootropic benefit – but it should give you a nice, mild energy kick whilst improving blood flow to your brain.

Focussed Savagery, as you might expect, is designed to give you more drive whilst improving focus and concentration. Basically what most of us would use a double espresso for.

You shouldn’t combine it with caffeine, as they dose it so highly, and even then it may give you stomach upset and cramps. I experienced a terrible headache whilst taking it, too, so had to abort my trial pretty quickly.

It’s not surprising when you look at the ingredients list, which includes things like methyl B-100, l-tyrosine, coleus forskohli, caffeine and caffeine anhydrous, and guarana, CDP-choline, curcumin, omnipept-N (a big no-no), as well as some vitamins and botanicals.

Goodness, this is overkill. They don’t tell you the dosage, which is awful. These ingredients are dangerous in high doses!

Given my reaction to them (and my generally good tolerance of stimulants), I suspect they dose them above a safe limit. I cannot recommend Focussed Savagery with a good conscience. It won’t make you savage. It will simply make you ill. L-tyrosine, stimulants, and racetams together are a stupid, stupid idea.

Nectar X exemplifies a large part of what I don’t like in Nootopia’s practices. It’s a nice product that gives a good feeling, far less severe than Focussed Savagery. It gave me a nice, even energy boost without much by way of side effects. I managed to take it for more than a day or two without getting ill. It’s a low bar, but this is where Nootopia have put me.

The ingredients list is too long, however, for such a relatively mild effect. You get: 

SuperCelastrus, acetyl-l-carnitine, vitamin B12, uridine monophosphate, l-theanine, citric acid, caffeine anhydrous, phenylalanine, arginine AKG, rhodiola rosea…

… D-ribose, trimethylglycine, vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), glutamine, calcium citrate, monk fruit extract, lemon extract… 

… ginger, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), maltodextrin, and omnipept-P, omnipept-O, omnipept-1 (three different racetam compounds!)

What on earth is this all about?

They must include some of these at entirely negligible doses just to fit them into a dose. This is perhaps why they’ve gone off-piste with Nectar X and made it as a soluble powder rather than as a capsule.

Mental Reboot

This brings me onto my second point about obscuring your ingredients lists. I don’t generally like powders. Other than being inconvenient, they generally often come with a long list of fillers, preservatives, and artificial flavorings that your body could do without. I don’t know what additives they put in this powder, as they don’t say, but it blends well and tastes strong, so I’m assuming it’s a lot.

There are plenty more supplements to look at in their range, but I think by now the main points are made. This is often potent stuff. Sometimes it is dangerously potent.

They don’t tell you how much of anything is going in, nor do they tell you what additives they use. More than half the ingredients are obscured, so you just have to trust that this stuff is good for you. Given some of it can make you immediately sick, it’s a safe bet that it isn’t good for you.

A lot of it works. The price is just too high. In fact, the price is too high across the board. For several hundred dollars, I don’t want Nectar X’s mild effects or Focussed Savagery’s overpowering, headache inducing posturing.

We should be able to expect a nice middle ground that won’t kill us in the process. And nothing is worth paying for with your health, which I suspect anyone using some of this stuff long term will end up doing.

The app is OK, at least. You can track yourself in 30-day bursts, taking note of how you’re feeling so that you can figure out which supplements in their range work for you (I assume there is an ‘intense headache and nausea’ option).

It gives you tips for optimization (though how you can optimize something like Focussed Savagery is beyond me). You get a lot of information about the supplements and their ingredients (except for the most crucial information – dosing and hidden additives).

It works well and is easy to navigate. Again, they’ve set the bar low for something that costs hundreds of pounds, but there we are.

Alternatives To Nootopia

I have to try out all sorts of supplements as part of my role as a supplement reviewer. However, if I’m going in with my own money, with nothing but cost-benefit to think about alongside my overall wellbeing, I’m very selective. And if I’m buying a nootropic with my own money, for the best results going, I generally go with NooCube.

NooCube isn’t simply one of the best nootropics going (the best, in my opinion). I would rate it as one of the best supplements in today’s market full stop. It does everything a top-shelf supplement should – it’s backed by a wealth of clinical data, is potently dosed with high-quality ingredients, is comprehensive and smart in its formulation, and is really very reasonably priced for what you get (for contrast with Nootopia, a month’s supply can set you back as little as around forty bucks).

Noocube front of bottle

I honestly cannot recommend it highly enough.

NooCube is made by Wolfson Brands, a company I have long admired. They are behind some of the market’s most recognizable, popular supplements, including the likes of CrazyBulk, Crazy Nutrition, PhenQ, XYZ Collagen, and TestoPrime (the latter of which, TestoPrime, I use daily).

These are all solid supplements with a good track record of satisfying customers by bringing about their desired results.

This is certainly the case with NooCube. It is perhaps Wolfson Brands’ finest, by far one of the best nootropic supplements going. There are only a couple that can even compete (Mind Lab Pro is also always a good bet, consistently vying with NooCube for the top spot).

As stated above, you get a broad range of coherently stacked ingredients, all well-dosed and backed up by solid science with NooCube’s formula. This includes 12 separate nootropic ingredients, with trusted compounds like bacopa monnieri, l-theanine, l-tyrosine, oat straw extract, alpha GPC (a big, big win), cat’s claw, and a robust vitamin complex included, among others.

These 12 nootropics should work on five main strands of your cognitive health and wellbeing. All told, these strands will combine to improve your clarity and focus, working memory, reduce anxiety and stress symptoms, and generally improve your mental wellbeing whilst maintaining longer term cognitive health.

It’s an almost perfect product. I would recommend it over something like Nootopia any day.

Verdict

I’m a big nootropic fan. As above, I use them consistently. I’m physically active, write several thousand words per day, and have a toddler – a little cognitive support is always welcome in my household!

I wouldn’t ever buy from Nootopia, however. Some of their formulas are promising. If they showed dosing and full ingredients lists, I’m sure some of them would be great. There is currently no way of knowing, however. This is unfortunate and is generally an instant write-off for me. It is here.

Some of their formulas are downright bad, too. They are dangerous and reckless with their stimulant contents. They give you compounds that are barely legal in some territories, and which are controlled substances (i.e., illegal without prescription, or simply illegal) in others.

I cannot trust a company that operates in this way.

Their obliqueness and lack of regard for their customer’s health (and for the law!) make me want to avoid them.

This is before we consider the money they are asking for their services, which is eye watering. Their products are over-engineered and overstuffed, meaning inflated prices. And, I think, the company themselves are simply greedy – even as packed as their products are, there is no need for the price tags they are asking.

Do the sensible, safe thing. Choose from more economical, better brands. Go with something like NooCube for all the benefits, none of the risks, and a much more agreeable price tag.

James writer image

This article was written by: James Dixon – SOMA Analytics PT, Nutritionalist & Published Author

James Dixon is one of the key players in the SOMA Analytics’ team. He is a personal trainer and is educated to Masters level. He is a published author and is a keen advocate of high quality nootropic supplements. James enjoys helping others to reach their peak both physically and mentally and believes that expressing his knowledge through his writing is an effective way to positively impact the wellbeing of others on a larger scale.