Cheers Supplement Review (Restore): Honest Take for Canadians

Cheers (formerly Thrive+) is the US brand that did more than anyone to make dihydromyricetin (DHM) a recognizable ingredient rather than a novelty. If you’re researching this category seriously, you’ve already run into them. This review covers what’s actually in Restore, how its multi-ingredient approach differs from a single-ingredient one, and the practical realities of buying it from Canada.

Disclosure: Hovenia is a direct competitor. This review is based on Cheers’ publicly available product information, and we’ve tried to be accurate. We’re describing a difference in approach, not claiming our way works better.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration or Health Canada. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult your healthcare provider before use.

What’s In Cheers Restore

Restore is a multi-ingredient blend — DHM is the headline, but it sits alongside several other actives and micronutrients. Based on Cheers’ published label, a serving includes:

Ingredient	Role (as commonly described)
DHM (Dihydromyricetin) 1,000 mg	The flavonoid the category is built around
NAC (N-acetyl cysteine)	Cysteine source / glutathione precursor
Milk Thistle (standardized silymarin)	Traditional liver-associated botanical
Prickly Pear Extract	Plant extract included in many recovery blends
B-Vitamins (B1, B6, B12, folate)	B-complex
Vitamin C	Antioxidant vitamin
Zinc	Trace mineral

Format: 4 capsules per serving.

That’s the defining characteristic of Restore: it’s a stack. Whether a blend or a single ingredient suits you better is a genuine preference question, not a question of one being objectively superior — and we’ll keep it framed that way throughout.

Blend vs. Single Ingredient: An Honest Difference

This is the most useful distinction for a buyer, so it’s worth being precise.

Cheers Restore takes the “full stack” approach: DHM plus cysteine (as NAC), a liver-associated botanical, a plant extract, and a vitamin/mineral panel, on the reasoning that alcohol affects multiple systems, so a product can address several at once.

Hovenia takes the opposite approach: one studied compound at a full dose, nothing else. It’s single-ingredient pure DHM — 1,000 mg per serving (two capsules), no NAC, no milk thistle, no prickly pear, no B-complex, no electrolytes.

Neither is “better.” They’re different philosophies:

A blend gives you more inputs in one capsule run, if you want the micronutrient and botanical support bundled in.
A single ingredient gives you a clean, simple label — the full headline DHM dose and nothing you’d have to research separately. Easier to know exactly what you took.

The honest framing: if you specifically want the extra actives, a blend like Restore is designed for that. If you’d rather take one well-studied compound at a meaningful dose without the rest of the stack, a single-ingredient DHM is built for that. Both deliver the same 1,000 mg headline DHM dose.

A note on NAC vs. cysteine for Canadian buyers

One blend-specific detail matters north of the border. NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) and L-Cysteine are both cysteine sources, but they sit differently with regulators. In the US, the FDA has issued warning letters questioning NAC’s status as a dietary-supplement ingredient (it was investigated as a drug before being widely marketed as a supplement). For Canadian Natural Health Product licensing, L-Cysteine is generally the cleaner path. This isn’t a safety claim about NAC — it’s a regulatory-positioning difference. If NHP compliance matters to you, it’s worth knowing. We cover the distinction in detail in NAC vs. L-Cysteine: why the difference matters.

The Canadian Pricing Reality

Here’s the honest math for a Canadian buyer, on a per-equal-dose basis so the comparison is fair.

Cheers US pricing: roughly $35–42 USD for a 12-pack.

A Canadian buyer’s landed cost:

USD→CAD conversion: ~$48–58 CAD at typical rates
International shipping to Canada: ~$15–25 CAD
Possible customs/duties: variable, often $0 for supplements under threshold
Roughly $63–83+ CAD for 12 servings ≈ $5.25–6.92 CAD per serving

For a like-for-like 1,000 mg DHM serving, here’s where the leading products land:

Product	Approx. per-serving cost	DHM per serving
Cheers Restore (landed in Canada)	~$5.25–6.92 CAD*	1,000 mg
Cheers Restore (US pricing)	~$2.92 USD	1,000 mg
No Days Wasted	~$3.13 USD	(blend)
Hovenia	~$1.00 CAD ($29.99 / 30 servings)	1,000 mg

*The Canadian premium is shipping and currency, not formula. None of this implies one product works better than another — it’s a cost comparison at the same headline dose.

For an occasional buyer (a couple of times a year), the shipping premium may not matter much. For regular restocking, the landed cost adds up quickly. That’s the practical case for a domestic option, independent of any efficacy claim.

The NPN Question for Canadian Buyers

Cheers Restore does not carry a Health Canada Natural Product Number (NPN). That matters in a few concrete ways:

Regulatory framework. Health Canada requires an NPN for natural health products sold in Canada. A product sold here without one isn’t operating inside the Natural Health Products Regulations. Buying from a US site for personal import sits in a grey zone.

Review signal. An NPN means Health Canada has reviewed the product within the permitted-claims framework, and GMP manufacturing is required. That’s a verification layer products without an NPN don’t have.

Border friction. NPN-free supplements crossing the border can occasionally be flagged or held. Usually fine for personal quantities, but not guaranteed.

For context, Hovenia is pre-launch and US-first today, with a Canadian NPN application in progress — so this is a difference of where each brand is in the process, stated plainly, not a knock on Cheers.

What Cheers Does Well

Credit where it’s due:

Honest science communication. Cheers’ published content is careful about what DHM does and doesn’t show. They don’t make “eliminates hangovers” claims, and the category is better for that example.

Brand depth and social proof. Years of content, media coverage, and a large review base that no Canadian newcomer currently matches.

A full product range. Beyond Restore, Cheers sells separate hydration and other recovery products, so if you want a multi-product system, it exists.

If the multi-ingredient, multi-product approach is what you’re after, Cheers is a well-built example of it.

The Bottom Line

Cheers Restore is a legitimately good, thoughtfully formulated multi-ingredient product. For US buyers who want a blend, it’s one of the strongest options in the category.

For Canadian buyers specifically, the relevant trade-offs are:

Cost: currency plus international shipping push the landed per-serving price well above domestic options — a pricing fact, not a quality judgment.
Regulatory: no Health Canada NPN means operating outside the Canadian framework.
Approach: Restore is a blend; if you’d prefer a single studied compound at a full dose with nothing else on the label, that’s a different product category — single-ingredient DHM — not a “better” version of the same thing.

If you’re weighing Cheers against Hovenia, the cleanest way to see the difference is side by side.

→ Hovenia vs. Cheers: full comparison → → Best DHM Supplement in Canada 2026 → → DHM dosage: 300 mg vs 1,000 mg →

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Cheers supplement work? DHM, the headline ingredient in Cheers Restore, has been studied mostly in animal models and a smaller number of human trials, and the evidence is still preliminary. Cheers’ own content is honest about this. No DHM product — Cheers, Hovenia, or any other — should be presented as a guaranteed outcome. For the underlying biology, see what causes a hangover.

What’s the difference between Cheers Restore and a single-ingredient DHM? Restore is a blend — DHM plus NAC, milk thistle, prickly pear, a B-complex, vitamin C, and zinc. A single-ingredient product like Hovenia is just DHM at 1,000 mg per serving, nothing else. Both share the same headline DHM dose; the difference is whether you want the extra actives bundled in. Neither is more effective by virtue of the format.

Why is Cheers more expensive for Canadians? The premium is currency conversion plus international shipping, not the formula. On a per-equal-dose basis, a 1,000 mg DHM serving of Cheers lands around $5.25–6.92 CAD in Canada, versus roughly $1.00 CAD for a domestic single-ingredient option.

Does Cheers have a Health Canada NPN? No. It’s sold from the US without a Canadian NPN, which puts purchases for Canadian use in a personal-import grey zone. Hovenia’s NPN application is in progress.

Is NAC in Cheers a problem? Not a safety issue for personal use. It’s a regulatory-positioning difference: NAC’s status as a supplement ingredient is contested in the US, and L-Cysteine is generally the cleaner path for Canadian NHP licensing. More in NAC vs. L-Cysteine.

Reviewed for accuracy against Cheers’ publicly available product information and the cited literature. Hovenia is a Canadian liver-health supplement company and a direct competitor to Cheers; our product supports healthy liver function and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA or Health Canada.

The brand behind this: Hovenia is single-ingredient pure DHM — 1,000 mg per serving (two capsules), $1/serving, for the nights you drink. Join the waitlist → · See the product →