The "Women's Creatine" Scam

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It seems that, every day, a new brand is popping up, and everyone has become an expert on supplements and training. Hey, there’s a lot of great brands and products out there, but there are also those just looking to grab a piece of the money pie.
––Ronnie Coleman

Let’s talk about the recent “women’s creatine” trend AKA an excellent example of how the supplement industry creates confusion where there doesn’t need to be any.

A few days ago, I came across a product marketed as “the best creatine for women in the UK (…) for muscle growth, recovery, and wellbeing.”

These are two of the benefits listed on the product page:
 

• “Build lean, toned muscle – Look defined without bulking up”
• “No hormonal side effects – Works with your body, not against it”

 
This kind of marketing affects most of my clients: cis women and trans feminine people who are worried about getting “bulky,” and trans masc individuals wondering how “women’s” creatine might impact their body.

None of us need this shit, so let’s clear this up.

The product in question contains 100% creatine monohydrate, listed as Creapure.

If you’ve been using creatine for some time, this might ring a bell. Which is unsurprising, because Creapure has been around for years, certainly longer than “women’s creatine.”

Creapure is simply micronized creatine monohydrate, which is milled into a finer powder than regular creatine monohydrate, so it dissolves and mixes more easily in liquid.

As a result, it can be gentler on the stomach.

Also, anecdotally, people on micronized creatine may not get the same weight spike in the first two to four weeks of use as people who take regular creatine monohydrate.

Not that this weight spike is anything to worry about. Creatine is stored in your muscles with intracellular water, and it’s this increase in water that causes the weight gain.

That’s it.

Beyond that, there’s no meaningful difference between Creapure and regular creatine monohydrate.

And more importantly, there’s nothing about Creapure – or any other form of creatine – that makes it “for women.”

Creatine doesn’t work differently based on your sex.

Compared to these “women’s creatine” products, regular creatine doesn’t suddenly cause excessive muscle gain in women, nor does it interfere with natural hormone levels or hormone therapy.

Saying “buy my creatine because it doesn’t have any hormonal side effects” is like saying “buy my water because it doesn’t have any hormonal side effects.”

Of course it fucking doesn’t!

As it pertains to body composition, research suggests that creatine may help increase lean body mass and high-intensity exercise capacity, such as resistance training capacity.

That’s true whether you’re a cis man or woman, a trans man or woman, or a non-binary person.

When you pay for “women’s creatine,” you’re paying for a pink label.

In many cases, that label comes at a higher price, despite the contents being identical to regular creatine monohydrate – the so-called “pink tax.”

Case in point: this “women’s” Creapure is £20 for a 200g tub. The Creapure I buy – again, the same form of creatine monohydrate, just branded differently – is £20 per kilogram.

My Creapure – just “regular” Creapure with no pink label – is five times cheaper.

This isn’t unique to creatine, either.

It’s a broader pattern in the industry: take a well-established product, repackage it for a specific group, and sell it as something more appropriate or safer, rather than helping people understand how and why it works in the first place.

To add insult to injury, the supplement industry overhypes all supplements when, in truth, even one as well-researched as creatine has a minor effect at best.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed Dr. Forbes – also known as Dr. Creatine – on my podcast. Even a creatine expert of his calibre compared creatine to the sprinkles on the icing on a cake.

Most other supplements aren’t as effective as creatine… so they’re even less important than sprinkles.

The bottom line: Gendered marketing for creatine is a very expensive scam. “Regular” creatine monohydrate is the cheapest and most effective form of creatine, whereas the micronized version (Creapure) is slightly more costly.

That said, if you don’t have the budget for performance supplements, you don’t need to buy any of them.

This will not hold you back from getting excellent results, like the supplement industry would have you believe.

If you have some spare cash and want to know which performance supplements might give you the best bang for your buck if you’re interested in building your physique, I’d suggest:

• Protein powder
• Creatine monohydrate
• Caffeine, but likely only if you train in the morning

If you want to learn more about these three, check out my latest podcast interview with Dr. Eric Helms on peri-workout nutrition and supplements.

Also, if you missed my email from a few weeks back, regarding whether you should pick men’s or women’s multivitamins as a trans person, check it out here.

In summary, fuck women’s creatine.

Thank you for reading. May you make the best gains.
 
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