no brick in your stomach
Clear, light, dairy-free, around twenty calories. Drink it mid-session, before breakfast, or at 5am on an empty stomach without thinking about it again.
Subscribe & Save 20% on every delivery — or build a Bare Box: buy any 2, get a 3rd free
You Know You Need More Protein Support.
Your Gut Won't Cooperate.
Whey, plant, collagen, BCAAs — you've worked through the list. Your muscles still need the amino acids. Here's the fraction of a shake that actually does the building, on its own, with nothing left for your gut to break down.
- 4.6 ★from 471 verified reviews
- Made in Durban
- 60-day money-back
The dose that gets skipped is the one around training — when a shake is the last thing you want.
01The fraction that matters
your muscle never wanted the shake.
it wanted a fraction of it.
Muscle doesn't build with protein. It builds with amino acids — what protein is taken apart into during digestion. Nine of those are essential, meaning your body cannot make them and has to be given them. Everything else in the tub is packaging around that nine.
So a 25g scoop is mostly a delivery problem. Non-essential aminos, lactose, fillers, flavour and calories all arrive with the part you actually needed, and your gut has to process the lot to release it.
For a lot of people that's exactly where the habit breaks. The shake is heavy, it argues with you mid-session, and after 4pm it competes with dinner — so it gets skipped, and the recovery gets skipped with it.
Bare Aminos is that fraction on its own: 5,000mg of the nine essential aminos, 2,000mg of it leucine, free-form and already broken down. Around twenty calories, dairy-free, mixed clear in cold water. The same repair signal, without the meal attached to it.
Cited
Paddon-Jones et al., Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2004 · Ferrando et al., J Int Soc Sports Nutr 20(1), 2023
02The numbers
the part of the shake that builds. none of the bulk.
Here is the whole label, in the open. Nine essential aminos in free form, 5,000mg in total, 2,000mg of that leucine — the amino acid muscle watches for before it starts rebuilding.
No dairy, no lactose, no whole protein waiting to be dismantled. Nothing in the glass is there to make the number on the tub look bigger.
That's what makes it a habit rather than a chore. Around twenty calories means it doesn't negotiate with dinner, and mixing clear means you can take it at a desk, in a car, or straight after a session without a shaker to wash.
One serving in cold water, once a day, training or not. Small enough that you'll still be doing it in three months — which is the only property that has ever mattered in a supplement.
What one serving carries
- Essential aminos per serving
- 5,000mg
- Of that, leucine
- 2g
- Essential aminos included
- 9
- Calories
- ~20
- Dairy and lactose
- None
Figures per serving. Bare Aminos is an essential amino acid supplement, not a protein powder — it sits alongside the food you already eat.
so why not just drink protein?
You still should eat it — food first, always. This is for the moments a shake is too heavy, too slow, or simply not going to happen.
Bare Aminos
Whey shake / BCAAs
Essential aminos included
All nine
BCAAs: three
Leucine per serving
2g
Varies by scoop
Needs digesting first
No — free-form
Yes
Contains dairy / lactose
No
Whey: yes
Sits in your stomach mid-session
No — mixes clear
Often
Calories per serving
~20
120–200
Works fasted
Yes
No
Bare Aminos is an essential amino acid supplement, not a protein powder — it supplies the essential aminos your body can't make, without the calorie load.
03Nine, not three
BCAAs start the job.
they can't finish it.
BCAAs are three of the nine essential aminos. They're the loudest three — leucine is in there — but a signal isn't a supply. You can tell the site to start building without delivering the bricks.
Which is why so many people report BCAAs doing very little for them and conclude that aminos in general are a waste of money. It wasn't the wrong idea. It was six missing ingredients.
Meanwhile the shake that would have supplied all nine is the same shake your gut has been arguing with for years, so the practical choice ends up being between something incomplete and something you won't take.
Bare Aminos is all nine, in free form, in one clear drink — the full set, in a format that has nothing left for your body to break down. The ISSN's position stand is blunt about this: the non-essential aminos aren't required for the response, but the essential ones are.
Cited
Ferrando et al., J Int Soc Sports Nutr 20(1), 2023 — ISSN position stand on essential amino acid supplementation, conclusions 05 and 06. doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409
Independent evidence · not our study
the conclusions aren't our opinion.
they're the ISSN's.
In 2023 the International Society of Sports Nutrition reviewed the literature on essential amino acid supplementation and published ten conclusions as its official position. Numbers 02, 05 and 06 are the ones that answer the whey question. Here they all are — and where Bare Aminos sits against them. We didn't run the study and we didn't choose the numbers.
Read the position standRecover between sessions
1.5–3g
The dose at which muscle protein synthesis switches on. Every Bare serving delivers 5,000mg.
Skip the digestion
0
Free-form aminos need no breaking down — they raise blood amino levels fast, and that rise is the trigger.
Keep training past forty
2g
Ageing muscle needs a greater proportion of leucine to overcome anabolic resistance. That is our leucine dose.
Hold muscle while cutting
~20 cal
EAA requirements rise in a deficit. Bare covers the full amino load for about twenty calories.
The full position
all ten conclusions, in plain language
01
ISSN position
Repair is the point
Protein turnover replaces the muscle proteins training degrades. That turnover is the metabolic foundation everything else sits on.
02
ISSN position
Free-form works fast
Free-form EAAs raise blood amino levels quickly, and that rise is what switches muscle protein synthesis on.
03
ISSN position
Safe to add
The safe upper limit of EAA intake comfortably accommodates supplementation on top of the food you already eat.
04
ISSN position
1.5–3g starts it
At rest, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated from as little as 1.5–3g, and plateaus around 15–18g.
Bare, not the ISSN
Every Bare Aminos serving delivers 5,000mg of essential aminos, including 2g of leucine.
05
ISSN position
Only the essentials
The non-essential aminos are not required for the response. Nine is the list that matters.
06
ISSN position
Better than protein
Gram for gram, free-form EAAs stimulate muscle protein synthesis more than an equivalent amount of intact protein.
07
ISSN position
Take it daily
Repeated EAA doses through the day do not blunt the anabolic response to your actual meals.
08
ISSN position
Age needs leucine
Ageing muscle is less sensitive — “anabolic resistance” — and needs a greater proportion of leucine to respond.
09
ISSN position
Even without training
In anabolic-resistant populations, EAA supplementation can improve functional outcomes without exercise attached.
10
ISSN position
More when cutting
EAA requirements rise in a caloric deficit. Meeting them is what preserves anabolic sensitivity while you lose weight.
Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR, Hirsch KR, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: essential amino acid supplementation on skeletal muscle and performance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 20(1), 2023. doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409. These findings describe essential amino acids as a category — Bare Aminos has not itself been the subject of a clinical trial.
The science
free-form aminos,
or a whey shake?
The full comparison — digestion, speed into the blood, the share of what you swallow that is actually essential, and the calorie load. Plus what aminos don't do, which is the part most pages leave out.
Read the science →About an 8 minute read
- 9essential aminos, all of them
- ~20 calagainst 120–200 in a shake
- ISSN 2023position stand, quoted in full
The product
Bare Aminos
the fraction that builds.
nothing bolted on.
Nine free-form essential aminos in one clear drink — 5,000mg with 2g of leucine, around twenty calories, no dairy and nothing left to digest. A glass of cold water, under a minute.
01
All nine essential aminos, no dairy
02
Nothing left for your gut to break down
03
~20 calories — it doesn't compete with dinner
Why
Free-form aminos skip the digestion step entirely, which is what raises blood amino levels fast — and that rise is the trigger. Mixes clear, ~20 calories, dairy-free.
Read the full label →
04What this is not
food first. this is for the gaps food doesn't fill.
Bare Aminos is not a protein replacement and we won't sell it as one. Meals do the heavy lifting; this covers the specific windows where a meal isn't practical and the aminos still are.
That distinction is why the calorie count is low on purpose. If it were a meal it would have to compete with your actual meals, and the first thing anyone drops from a day is the drink that made them less hungry for dinner.
The people who get the most out of it are usually the ones who stopped trying to force a shake into a slot where a shake was never going to fit — the 5am start, the commute, the hour after training when the last thing you want is dairy.
One serving, cold water, once a day. It sits alongside the food you already eat rather than arguing with it, which is the whole reason it survives past week two.
What changesAnd roughly when
the first thing you'll
notice is what's missing.
you stop dreading taking it
This is the quiet one that decides everything. A supplement you don't have to talk yourself into is a supplement you'll still be taking in month three.
the recovery gap starts closing
Not because the dose is bigger than a shake — because it's the dose you actually took, on all the days the shake would have been skipped.
05How to read it
notice the first one.
judge it at three weeks.
You already have a baseline for this. You know what a shake felt like going down and you know what the next morning after a hard session feels like — so unlike most supplements, this one is easy to audit honestly.
The mistake is judging it on day three. People take two servings, notice something small, decide they imagined it, and stop right before the part where it compounds.
The other mistake is judging it on the wrong measure. This isn't there to change the scale or the mirror in a fortnight. It's there so the recovery happens on the days it otherwise wouldn't have.
So use it properly: notice the first glass, then judge it at two to three weeks on whether you're going again sooner and whether you're still taking it without arguing with yourself. If it hasn't earned its place by then, the 60-day money-back guarantee is exactly what it's for.
4.3
★★★★★
from 471 verified reviews.
★★★★☆
“I've struggled with gut issues that resulted in a frequent upset stomach. Since making the switch, I have not had any of these symptoms. Easier for me to take every day, as I got tired of daily whey shakes.”
★★★★★
“The sachets are a perfect size to pop in your gym bag, no more decanting in a container and mess everywhere. Taste is subtle and very refreshing. No bloating or digestive issues. Quick & easy repair & recovery. 100% recommend.”
★★★★★
“I have started using this product about a year ago, and I absolutely love, without taking any extra whey protein I have maintained and built muscle… I recover faster, and I love that there is no aftertaste!”
Not sure it's for you?
60-day money-back. Use the whole thing — if nothing changes, we refund it.
the honest answers.
Is this dairy-free?
Yes. Bare Aminos contains no dairy and no lactose — it's nine free-form essential amino acids, not a milk-derived protein. There's no whole protein in it for your body to break down.
How is this different to a protein shake?
A shake is whole protein your body still has to digest. This is nine essential aminos already in free form — 5,000mg in total, 2,000mg of it leucine — so there's no digestion step, it's about twenty calories, and it mixes clear. It's a top-up alongside your food, not a meal replacement.
I've taken BCAAs and felt nothing. Why is this different?
BCAAs are three of the nine essential aminos. They carry the signal but not the full supply — the ISSN's 2023 position stand is clear that the response needs the essential set, not a subset of it. Bare Aminos is all nine.
Do I still need to eat protein?
Yes — food first, always. This is designed to sit alongside your meals and cover the windows a meal can't: early mornings, mid-session, and the hour after training. It is a supplement, not a replacement.
Will it break my fast?
Honestly, yes — if you're fasting strictly. A serving is about twenty calories and the aminos are absorbed straight away, which is the whole point of them. Most people doing time-restricted eating take it at the end of the window, with the first meal, or after training. If you're fasting on medical advice, check with your healthcare professional first.
When does it ship, and what does delivery cost?
Orders ship from Durban in 2–4 working days, anywhere in South Africa. Delivery is free over R1250 and tracked on everything else. All prices are in ZAR.
Complementary medicine / health supplement; not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual experiences vary. All prices in ZAR.
Buy any 2 — 3rd FREE
close the gap.
close the gap.
build the box.
Mix and match any three Bare products — Aminos, Hydrating Aminos, Creatine, Carb Fuel or Electrolytes — and the cheapest one is FREE, applied automatically at checkout. No codes.
Your box
3 of 3
Aminos · Mixed Berry
R549
Hydrating · Mango Orange
R549
Aminos · Peach Ice Tea
FREE
You pay
R1,098
R366 each · R12.20 a serving
Build your box →