Tallow is having a serious moment in the DIY skincare spotlight right now, so today we’re digging into this meaty ingredient. What is it? Is the hype justified? And how can you use it in your DIY skincare creations?
I began working with tallow back in 2011, primarily as the hardening fat in my cold-processed soaps. I don’t make much soap these days, so I purchased a fresh supply of tallow from YellowBee so I could do some fresh formulating with it. The research for this post took me down some seriously unexpected rabbit holes, and this blog post ended up being a lot longer than I expected it to be! I hope you find it helpful.
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Post Overview
What is tallow?
Tallow is a solid fat rendered from animals. The most common source is beef (cows), and that is what this post is about—but fat rendered from sheep, goats, and even bears can be referred to as “tallow” as well. Since it is from dead animals, tallow is neither vegan nor vegetarian.
I’ve found varying definitions for “tallow” vs “suet”. One definition is that tallow is the fat from around the muscles of the animal, while suet is taken from around the internal organs, with suet being the harder of the two fats. The other definition is that suet is the raw fat, and tallow is suet that has been rendered. As the organ fat is harder than muscle fat, the area of the animal where the fat is from does impact the final rendered fat, but how much clarity you’ll be able to get on this will depend on where you purchase it.
All natural products vary, but because tallow is an animal product, it can vary a lot more than most plant-derived ingredients. Obviously sheep, goat, and cow/beef tallow will differ from one another, but the fatty acid composition of tallow can also change a lot depending on the diet and breed of the animal and where it was raised (source). This means beef tallow can vary meaningfully from one supplier to another.
Why are people using tallow in skincare?
If you surf the corner of the web that loves natural skincare, you’ve almost certainly seen some posts extolling the many benefits of using tallow in skincare products. A sample of these touted benefits include:
- High vitamin content
- Antioxidant (vitamin E) content
- Anti-inflammatory properties
- Boosts healing
- Moisturizing
- Anti-aging
- Conjugated Linoleic Acid content
- It doesn’t clog pores
- Anti-microbial properties
- Because it’s an animal product, it’s uniquely similar to our own skin/sebum, making it an excellent skincare ingredient
(Claims taken from these blog posts: How Can Tallow Help Your Skin? from The Healthy Porcupine, 5 Reasons to Use Tallow on Your Skin from Nefertem Naturals, and Beef Tallow for Skin: Exploring the Skincare “Superfood” Everyone’s Talking About from Toups & Co.)
Between this list of benefits and the fact that tallow is relatively inexpensive and easy to source anywhere in the world cows are raised for meat, it’s not surprising lots of people are trying it!
What is tallow when we’re talking about making skincare?
Tallow is a solid fat, similar to shea butter, mango butter, and cupuaçu butter. All the tallow I’ve worked with has been a soft, creamy solid; it isn’t brittle (and doesn’t “snap”) like cocoa butter or crumble like kokum butter.
The tallow I have from YellowBee is firm but still creamy; I can mash it fairly easily with the back of a spoon. I’d say it is similar to shea butter and mango butter in consistency, and falls between the two in terms of greasiness (less greasy than shea, more greasy than mango).
What is tallow made of?
Tallow is fat, so it is composed almost entirely of fatty acids. As with all fats, it doesn’t contain any protein, carbohydrates, or water soluble elements.
The primary saturated (solid) fatty acids in beef tallow are palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acid—two fatty acids that are also found in plant oils and butters. The levels found in beef tallow vary, with palmitic acid around 26–30% and stearic at ~13–35%. The remainder of tallow is mostly oleic acid (34–47%), though it does also contain some other fatty acids like linoleic, linolenic, and myristic (typically 3% or less of each).
Approximate % of 6 fatty acids found in beef tallow vs. 7 different butters
| Beef tallow | Shea butter | Mango butter | Cocoa butter | Cupuaçu butter | Murumuru butter | Kokum butter | Mafura butter | |
| Palmitic acid | 26–30% | 4% | 9% | 25% | 7% | 5% | 4% | 35% |
| Stearic acid | 13–35% | 38% | 40% | 36% | 33% | 2% | 54% | 3% |
| Myristic acid | 3% | 25% | ||||||
| Oleic acid | 34–47% | 49% | 41% | 34% | 43% | 15% | 40% | 50% |
| Linoleic acid | 3% | 5% | 7% | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 10% |
| α-Linolenic acid | 1% | 1% |
Approximate % of 6 fatty acids found in beef tallow vs. 7 different oils
| Beef tallow | Soybean oil | Wheat germ oil | Coconut oil | Flax oil | Palm oil | Oat oil | Hemp oil | |
| Palmitic acid | 26–30% | 11% | 17% | 9% | 7% | 44% | 18% | 7% |
| Stearic acid | 13–35% | 4% | 1% | 3% | 5% | 4% | 2% | 3% |
| Myristic acid | 3% | 18% | 1% | |||||
| Oleic acid | 34–47% | 24% | 19% | 6% | 15% | 40% | 40% | 11% |
| Linoleic acid | 3% | 52% | 55% | 2% | 14% | 10% | 38% | 57% |
| α-Linolenic acid | 1% | 8% | 6% | 58% | 1% | 16% |
NOTE: These tables do not include all the fatty acids in the non-tallow butters & oils, so those numbers will not add up to 100%.
As you can see, a blend of palmitic, stearic, oleic, and linoleic acids is very common in plant butters and oils. Most plant butters have substantially more of either stearic or palmitic acid, so having relatively high concentrations of both (as tallow does) is somewhat unique. The inclusion of both myristic acid and linolenic acid in a solid fat is also somewhat unique, though the levels are quite low.
The fatty acid composition of tallow does have some unique elements, but it’s not a super duper unique oil like meadowfoam seed oil or pomegranate seed oil.
Is tallow uniquely excellent for skin care?
Tallow is not a well studied skincare ingredient, so most of the studies cited by blogs discussing its benefits examined elements that are also present tallow, not tallow itself. A lack of studies into the efficacy of specific natural ingredients as skincare is very common, so this isn’t a knock against tallow or those blogs—just a thing to keep in mind. However, I did notice some of the evidence cited as support related to consumption rather than topical application, and those are not relevant to a discussion of skincare.
From my research, most of the more fantastic benefits attributed to tallow are either not unique to tallow (as its fatty acid composition is not terribly unique), or not applicable to tallow (usually due to the touted compound being present at substantially lower concentrations than are shown to be beneficial).
I am not saying tallow does not have benefits as a skincare ingredient—just that claims like “X has been shown to do Y > tallow contains X > tallow does Y” should be taken with several grains of salt.
High Vitamin Content
One of the most common claims I’ve seen about tallow (and especially grass fed tallow) is that it’s really high in vitamins—usually A, E, D, and K.
I enjoyed this post from Buffalo Gal Grassfed Beauty: Vitamins in Beef Tallow Revealed By Shalley Carrell and Jennifer Woodson. The authors had samples of their grass-fed tallow independently tested to determine the vitamin content, and they found their high quality grass-fed tallow was not a significant source of vitamins. It definitely contained vitamins (including ones not reflected in the USDA’s information on tallow, indicating that USDA data is probably on grain fed tallow), but the levels weren’t high enough to be meaningful.
“Contrary to popular claims, our results indicate that even the highest quality tallow, which we consider therapeutic grade, is not as vitamin-rich as commonly believed. The true value of tallow appears to lie in its fatty acid profile, a topic we will explore in future posts.”
– Shalley Carrell and Jennifer Woodson at Buffalo Gal Grassfed Beauty
I was especially interested in the retinol content found in Buffalo Gal Grassfed Beauty’s tested tallow, which registered at 159 IU per 100g (they note “the USDA recorded all forms of Vitamin A at 0”, so 159 IU/100g is much higher than the USDA’s version of “normal” levels for tallow).
One IU of retinol is 0.3 micrograms (mcg), so 159 IU retinol per 100g of tallow works out to 0.0000477g of retinol per 100g of tallow. This translates to a retinol content of 0.0000477% in this particular grass fed tallow. As potent as retinol is, this really isn’t much at all. The Ordinary sells a 1% retinol product, and SkinCeuticals sells 0.5% and 0.3% retinol products. I would not expect the amount of retinol in tallow to have any skincare effects.
Vitamin E content
Many of the anti-aging, healing-boosting, wrinkle-preventing, collagen-production-increasing, and generally “awesome-for-skin” claims I’ve seen for tallow cite its vitamin E content as the reason for its excellence. According to the USDA, tallow contains approximately 27mg vitamin E (alpha tocopherol) per kilo (2.7mg/100g). This is more alpha tocopherol than some oils and butters, but it’s still not very much.
- Cotton seed oil: ~270mg/kg
- Inca nut oil: ~1,423 mg/kg
- Olive Oil: ~212mg/kg
- Moringa Oil: ~134mg/kg
- Oat Oil: ~346mg/kg
- Wheat germ oil: 1,300 mg/kg
It is very possible that the tallow examined for the USDA number was not the most vitamin-rich version possible. House of Tallow asserts grass fed tallow contains 4x more vitamin E than grain fed tallow, which bumps that number to 108mg/kg, but that’s still substantially lower than the decidedly un-trendy cotton seed oil, and less than 10% of the vitamin E found in wheat germ oil.
If we assume a vitamin E content of 108mg/kg for grass fed tallow, that works out to 0.0108% vitamin E content. According to Realize Beauty, regular cosmetic concentrations of vitamin E range from 0.1-2%; 10–200x more than the levels found in tallow.
Conjugated Linoleic Acid content
The Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) content of tallow is often called out as a unique benefit, specifically for tallow from grass fed cattle. Levels of CLA vary quite a lot, but are still a fairly low percentage of tallow. A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef found levels varying from 0.13–16.1%. Funnily enough, both of those numbers are from grain-fed cattle. Most of the studies this review included found less than 1% CLA in grass and grain fed beef fat. Of the 12 reported levels, only 4 were above 1%; 6 fell between 0.53–0.87%.
Nefertem’s blog post on the benefits of tallow cited A Topical Anti-inflammatory Healing Regimen Utilizing Conjugated Linolenic Acid for Use Post-ablative Laser Resurfacing of the Face: A Randomized, Controlled Trial when discussing the benefits of the CLA in tallow for skincare. The results of this study were promising, but this study did not look at Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) as found in tallow; it tested Conjucated Linolenic Acid (CLnA).
The CLnA used in the study was extracted from pomegranate seeds. Pomegranate oil is quite a unique oil, containing a whopping 80% punicic acid, which is a CLnA—Conjucated Linolenic Acid rather than Conjugated Linoleic Acid. They’re similar, but not the same (source), so I’d be hesitant to assume the results of a study of the effects of CLnA in skincare apply to CLA. The study did not mention what % of CLnA was in their treatment, but if you want some CLnA in your skincare routine, buy some Pomegranate Oil.
I wasn’t able to find any studies on humans examining the effects of topically applied Conjugated Linoleic Acid. This study on mice is promising, but the levels of CLA (2 or 5%) are much higher than most levels found in grass or grain fed tallow in A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef, and of course, we are not mice.
Barrier repair/anti-inflammatory
How Can Tallow Help Your Skin? by The Healthy Porcupine asserts the anti-inflammatory properties of tallow come from its vitamin content, but as we’ve already discussed, the vitamin content of tallow is not very high.
Tallow contains approximately 34–47% oleic acid, 3% linoleic acid, and 1% linolenic acid. Natural Oils for Skin-Barrier Repair: Ancient Compounds Now Backed by Modern Science found that “Oils with a higher linoleic acid to oleic acid ratio have better barrier repair potential, whereas oils with higher amounts of irritating oleic acid may be detrimental to skin-barrier function.” This conclusion puts tallow in the “may be detrimental to skin-barrier function” category, but it’s got plenty of company there—olive oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, mango butter, cocoa butter, and loads of other oils and butters contain far more oleic acid than linoleic acid. When working with oils & butters that are high in oleic acid it’s a good idea to blend them with fats that are higher in linoleic acid, like sunflower oil and grapeseed oil, to shift the formulation towards the “better barrier repair potential” side of things.
House of Tallow’s post also presents Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) as a reason for anti-inflammatory action, but they don’t link to any sources to support this claim (side note; I am getting very strong “written by ChatGPT” vibes from that article—why is the brand referring to themselves and their products in the third person?).
It doesn’t clog pores
I don’t pay much attention to whether or not something is supposed to clogs pores (comedogenicity) as the rating systems for determining this are pretty flawed, everyone’s skin is unique, and the overall formulation is really important, too. Lab Muffin has an entire article on this; I highly recommend reading it.
Anti-microbial
Nefertem’s blog post cited tallow’s vitamin D content as support for an anti-microbial claim, linking to a paper titled Discovering the link between nutrition and skin aging as support. I followed the quote through to the original study; Vitamin D Induces the Antimicrobial Protein hCAP18 in Human Skin. Though small (there were only four participants), this study did find topical vitamin D application to have some promising effects:
“We here demonstrate the upregulation of hCAP18 in human skin in vivo following a single application of vitamin D compounds topically. These findings reveal an intriguing mechanism to enhance skin protection, linking the UVB-dependent photochemical vitamin D with hCAP18, involved in wound repair and antimicrobial defense.”
– Vitamin D Induces the Antimicrobial Protein hCAP18 in Human Skin
That’s pretty cool! The study applied “twenty-five micrograms calcipotriol in 0.5 g ointment”; calcipotriol is a type of vitamin D. This works out to 0.005% calcipotriol. The highest vitamin D content I found for tallow worked out to 0.0000009% (36 IU per 100g (3.5oz); 1 IU vitamin D = 0.000000025 g; = 0.0000009g, 0.0000009g/100g = 0.0000009%).
Even if we assume the vitamin D in tallow and calcipotriol function identically, given the massive difference in concentration, I would not assume the results of this small study translate to topically applied tallow.
This isn’t to say tallow definitely doesn’t have anti-microbial properties, but if they do exist, it is unlikely they come from its vitamin D content.
Because it’s an animal fat, it’s similar to our skin/sebum and therefore uniquely well suited to skincare
I’ve seen this claim quite a lot, and it certainly sounds nice. It seems to make sense—cows are mammals, we’re mammals, so the idea that there’s some synergy there is appealing and doesn’t seem implausible.
“Sebum is a light yellow viscous fluid, composed of triglycerides, free fatty acids, squalene, wax and sterol esters, and free sterols.”
Variation in Sebum Fatty Acid Composition Among Adult Humans studied “4 sebum samples collected at 2-week intervals from each of 10 adult human subjects” and found “marked differences in wax ester fatty acid composition between subjects were apparent.” Anatomical variation in the amount and composition of human skin surface lipid found sebum also varies depending on where on the body the sebum is excreted.
Nefertem’s blog post asserts that tallow “is almost identical to the oil naturally found in your skin”. They do not supply a source, but given how much the composition of both beef tallow and human sebum varies, it’s a pretty bold claim.
“Human sebum consists of squalene, esters of glycerol, wax and cholesterol, as well as free cholesterol and fatty acids. Triglycerides and fatty acids, taken together, account for the predominant proportion (57.5%), followed by wax esters (26%) and squalene (12%).”
Human sebum isn’t just fatty acids, but comparing the fatty acids in sebum to those in tallow is an easy way to begin evaluating the validity of a claim that human sebum and tallow are “almost identical”.
Fatty Acid Profiling in Facial Sebum and Erythrocytes From Adult Patients With Moderate Acne found that “Palmitic acid (PA, C16:0), sapienic acid (SA, C16:1n-10), stearic acid (C18:0), myristic acid (C14:0), and oleic acid (OA, C18:1) are the top five most abundant FAs (fatty acids) in the sebum, accounting for about 31%, 21%, 11%, 10%, and 8%, respectively, for control subjects.”
Let’s compare those numbers to tallow:
| Fatty acid | % in human sebum (control) | % in beef tallow |
| Palmitic acid (C16:0) | 31% | 26–30% |
| Sapienic acid (C16:1n-10) | 21% | 0% |
| Stearic acid (C18:0) | 11% | 13–35% |
| Myristic acid (C14:0) | 10% | 3% |
| Oleic acid (C18:1) | 8% | 34–47% |
The palmitic acid number is the only one that’s close. Even allowing for variations between different humans and cows, the fatty acids present in human sebum and tallow are far from “almost identical”.
The composition of human subcutaneous fat is slightly closer to that of tallow, but it’s still not terribly close; human subcutaneous fat has far less stearic acid and quite a lot more linoleic acid. That said; the composition of our subcutaneous fat isn’t something that matters in a discussion of skincare.
Tallow, Rendered Animal Fat, and Its Biocompatibility With Skin: A Scoping Review, an academic review published in 2024, focussed on these five research questions:
- Does the composition of tallow make it better suitable for use on skin?
- What is the benefit of using tallow on skin?
- Does tallow have therapeutic properties for skin conditions?
- What side effects does tallow have on the skin?
- Is tallow reef-safe?
It’s worth reading the entire review (it’s available for free at the link above—just keep in mind that it does not deal exclusively with beef tallow, so some results discussed are for tallow from other animals), but I want to draw your attention to this portion of the conclusion:
“Tallow was found to offer hydrating and moisturizing properties. However, other compounds that were studied in comparative studies such as pumpkin seed oil and linoleic acid were found to offer superior hydrating and moisturizing benefits than tallow… Research indicated that tallow may be beneficial in helping with skin conditions such as dermatitis, psoriasis, dry skin, and wounds. However, more research needs to be conducted with larger sample sizes to determine the longitudinal effects of tallow on a variety of skin types and skin disorders.”
– Tallow, Rendered Animal Fat, and Its Biocompatibility With Skin: A Scoping Review
Basically: tallow has its uses, but did not out-perform other ingredients it was tested against, undermining claims of its inherent superiority as a skincare ingredient. More research is needed.
What are the pros of tallow?
Local sourcing
Unlike many plant butters, tallow can usually be sourced locally no matter where you live. If someone is raising cows for meat near you, you should be able to get your hands on some local tallow.
Moisturizing
The research does not support claims of tallow being a uniquely excellent moisturizer, but tallow is still a nice moisturizing, emollient fat.
Cost
Tallow can be quite an inexpensive ingredient, depending on how you source it. If you’re willing to render it yourself, it’s usually very cheap. I’ve gotten it for free from some butchers (that was just a bag of raw chunks of fat), while others charged for it but ran it through their meat grinder first, making it easier to render.
If you’re purchasing pre-rendered tallow it will be more expensive as you’re paying someone else to do that work (and deal with that mess) for you. Just like purchasing meat, prices will vary depending on how the animal was raised. Small batch, grass-fed, organic tallow will cost more than tallow from factory-farmed cattle.
Using all of the animal
Tallow can be a waste product, so by using it, you’re helping make the most of an animal. The fat trimmings I got for free from a local butcher were literally diverted from the trash; what one butcher set aside from one shift of meat cutting and trimming turned into a couple pounds of rendered tallow that made lovely soap. Every other day (at that particular butcher, at least), all that fat was just thrown away.
Whether or not you could consider it a more environmentally friendly option than other fats will depend a lot on 1) what you’re comparing it to and 2) the specific tallow you’re using.
Raising cattle for meat is very energy and resource intensive. “Cattle are the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide… [and] livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases.”
Of course, shipping goods around the world (like getting shea butter from Ghana to Canada) also has an impact. According to Wikipedia, “ships are responsible for more than 18% of nitrogen oxides pollution, and 3% of greenhouse gas emissions.” That’s just ships—trucks, trains, and airplanes will add to that number.
Out of the plant based ingredients we use, palm oil has one of the worst reputations for environmental impact. Calorie for calorie, beef (not beef tallow—beef protein) produces nearly 45x more greenhouse gas emissions than palm oil, and nearly 89x more than sunflower oil. Even accounting for the higher caloric density of fat vs. protein, this is a massive difference.
If the tallow you’re using was destined for the trash and was sourced locally, I think that’s most environmentally friendly way to use tallow. The environmental impact has already been made in the name of steak & hamburgers, and diverting anything from the landfill feels like a win. But, given the massive carbon footprint of cattle, it really does seem like the biggest win for the environment would be if that cow hadn’t been raised for meat in the first place.
It’s trendy
Tallow is getting lots of attention these days, so you might be able to get some more eyeballs and interest in your products by using it.
What are the cons of tallow?
It’s fat from a dead animal
Tallow definitely isn’t vegan or vegetarian, and comments on a post about tallow in soap making that I published in 2013 reveal that even people who happily eat beef can find the idea of beef fat in their skincare off-putting.
The smell
Just how much your tallow smells will depend heavily on how it has been processed/rendered, but even professionally rendered tallow can have a distinct meaty smell. The smell of the stuff I have carries through to the final product at levels as low as 5%; it’s not overwhelming, but it’s definitely noticeable and not terribly pleasant.
Tips for working with stinky ingredients: 5 ingredients that will make your formulations smell awful
The variability
This variability in the fatty acid composition of tallow can make following online DIYs made with tallow more challenging than DIYs made with other ingredients. This is because it’s hard to be sure how the tallow you have compares to the tallow the formulation was developed with. The higher the concentration of stearic and palmitic acids, the harder the tallow will be. The lower the concentrations, the softer the tallow will be. If you’re following a formulation that was developed using tallow that was substantially harder or softer than yours, you will get different results, and that can be frustrating—especially for newer makers who aren’t certain how to adjust the formulation to get the desired result.
I used a blend of stearic acid, C10-18 Triglycerides (Butter Pearls), and sweet almond oil to approximate two versions of tallow: one with the lowest levels of palmitic and stearic acids I found in my research, and one with the highest levels I found in my research.
The low end was soft and creamy; the high end was substantially harder and did not melt or even really soften when I massaged it into my skin—it was almost more like a wax than a butter. I’ve never encountered tallow that hard in all my years of using it, so those higher numbers might not be very common, or it could be that they rarely co-exist (meaning you might get the high end of the palmitic range but the lower end of the stearic acid range in a tallow, or vice versa, but not both at the higher end).
“Faux” tallow made with the high end of palmitic and stearic acids was very firm; I couldn’t spread it across my skin.
“Faux” tallow made with the lower end of palmitic & stearic acids was soft, creamy, and spreadable.
It’s trendy
I’ve watched lots of ingredient trends come and go over the last 10+ years, and nothing stays super popular forever. If you sell skincare, I’d be wary of investing too much into developing a product line entirely around beef tallow (or ANY trending ingredient!) unless you’re truly passionate about it. As with all trends, the interest will probably drop off quite sharply when the next viral ingredient sashays into the spotlight.
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Does it live up to the hype?
I’d say this is a very personal thing.
I’ve been part of the DIY skincare world for over a decade, and I’ve seen a lot of oils and butters have their trending moment. A month, a season, a year where YouTube/Instagram/Facebook groups/etc. were overflowing with posts asserting that this one ingredient would solve all your skincare woes; that it had no downsides; that it would change your skin and your life forever.
When I was a newer maker I tended to buy every trending ingredient I could get my hands on, and I’d say none of them lived up to all of the hype. They all had plusses and minuses, but none of them made me throw out all my other ingredients and go all-in on just one thing.
Tallow in skincare has not been studied extensively, so I cannot point to any big clinical trials proving that it is (or isn’t) an absolutely fantastic skincare ingredient; what little research there is does not support it being a uniquely excellent skincare miracle. A lack of studies for natural ingredients is not uncommon; there aren’t studies proving the awesomeness of many of my favourite ingredients, and that doesn’t make me love them any less! Studies are expensive to run (especially big ones) and take time, so a lack of research just means no researcher or institution has directed the time and resources required to do it.
From my research, many of the more sensational claims about tallow are unfounded. From my experience using it, it has some plusses and some minuses—just like every other ingredient I’ve ever used. I think the best way to think of it is as a soft, rich emollient, similar to shea butter or mango butter.
It’s a nice, rich (but not too rich!) emollient that is great at moisturizing the skin. Keeping your skin moisturized is a big part of maintaining barrier function, and when your skin’s natural barrier is firing on all cylinders, you are far less likely to struggle with skin issues like acne, dehydration, inflammation, and sensitivity. A healthy barrier also means wounds and blemishes heal faster.
Comments from readers and viewers show some people’s skin really loves tallow, and they report getting far better results with it than they have with plant derived butters and oils. Everyone’s skin is unique, and finding and using ingredients YOUR skin loves is one of the best parts about making your own skincare. I’m so glad these people have found something that really works for them.
So:
- If you’re interested in it and want to try it, go for it! You never know—you might fall in love.
- If you’ve already tried it and loved it, carry on—I’m certainly not here to “yuck your yum”. Everyone’s skin is unique, and if your skin loves tallow, I’m stoked you’ve found something that works for you.
- And, if you’ve already tried it and didn’t understand why everyone else was so excited, that’s about where I’m falling on this (and pretty much every other super popular fat I’ve ever tried—this isn’t just a tallow thing!).
Some trendy oils and butters stick around became DIY staples; others fade. From what I’ve observed, the more readily available and inexpensive an ingredient is, the more likely it is to stick around—so, I predict we’ll be seeing tallow in DIY/skincare spaces for quite a while.
What should you buy?
Look for grass fed tallow from cows that lived the best lives possible; that gives you the best chance of getting a tallow that is higher in vitamins and CLA.
I also recommend purchasing as locally as possible. Beef (and therefore beef tallow as well) is incredibly energy intensive to produce, so it’s a good idea to avoid stacking shipping on top of that if you can.
Given how messy and time consuming rendering your own tallow is (see the next section for more on that), I’d purchase pre-rendered tallow. If you do this, check the ingredient list as some products will have added antioxidants you may not want. The smaller the producer, the less likely this is. If you buy a gigantic box of food grade tallow from a restaurant supplier that’s much more likely to contain added antioxidants than a smaller portion from a local producer.
How is tallow rendered?
In its raw form, animal fat is mixed with other bits of dead animal, like meat and blood—things we don’t want in our products. Rendering removes these things, leaving behind just the fat.
Un-rendered, ground tallow from the butcher.
After the first round simmering, but before and cooling.
To render your own tallow, chop up (or grind) the raw fat and boil it in a pot of water. The fat will melt out of everything else and float to the surface of the pot. Once the mixture cools you’ll be left with a layer of solid fat floating atop of pot of meaty water.
Read more: How to Render Tallow for Making Soap
I’ve rendered quite a lot of tallow in my life but I’m certainly not a rendering expert. If you’re planning on using the tallow in skincare (rather than soap, where the any lingering smell is less of an issue), I’d recommend rendering it several times to help reduce the smell and ensure you’ve removed all the impurities. You’ll also want to take care to ensure the finished fat doesn’t have any water left in it. I always stored my tallow in the freezer until I needed it.
Freshly rendered tallow, ready for the freezer & soaping.
Rendering your own tallow is going to be the cheapest way to get your hands on some, but it’s also a messy, smelly, greasy process (especially if you’re processing large amounts of it). I’m definitely on team “buy it pre-rendered” these days. If you do decide to render your own, know it’ll create quite a bit of meaty waste that’s not exactly something most humans would be stoked about eating. In order to reduce animal waste as much as possible, see if you can find a friend or neighbour with a dog to give it to if you don’t have a dog of your own who would love it.
Additionally—if you do decide to render your own tallow, take care to ensure you’ve strained and rendered out every last bit of blood, meat, water, and anything else that isn’t fat as those impurities will dramatically shorten the shelf life of any formulations made with that tallow.
A photo some tallow rendering I did in 2013. This tallow has been rendered once already and you can see there are bits of blood and other meaty stuff stuck to the bottom of it that you definitely wouldn’t want in your skincare.
How to use tallow in DIY skincare
Three brand new tallow formulations
I developed three beginner friendly tallow formulations to pair with this massive blog post:
My favourite way to use it
Tallow is an excellent ingredient in soap, making a fantastic alternative to palm oil. I’ve shared tons of cold processed soaps that include tallow; check them out here.
Some easy skincare starting points
If you’re looking for skincare formulations to use tallow in, try using tallow instead of soft butters like shea butter, mango butter, and murumuru butter. You can swap out some or all of the soft butter for tallow.
Tallow contains more palmitic acid than these butters (and usually less stearic acid) so you may need to adjust the formulation a bit to get the desired level of firmness, but it’s a good starting point! The more the formulation relies on the butter for its consistency, the more like you are to need to make adjustments. A whipped body butter that’s 60% shea butter will almost certainly requiring adjusting if you replace all that shea butter with tallow, while a balm that contains shea butter but mostly relies on beeswax for its hardness will likely be good to go out of the gate.
I’ve shared over 200 free formulations for everything from balms to body butters to lotions using these butters over the years, so I’m sure you’ll find something you want to make!
To find a list of formulations using each butter, visit their entry in the free Humblebee & Me DIY Encyclopedia and scroll down to the bottom.
Buttery challenges
Because the composition of tallow has lots of overlap with butters, you can encounter many of the same challenges with it. I’ve written extensively about these challenges and how to tackle them in relation to body butter, and those same strategies apply.
If not cooled properly, tallow can become grainy or mealy. This can also happen throughout the life of the product if it is exposed to temperature fluctuations.
Learn more: Why is my body butter grainy?
As it is pure fat, tallow can absolutely feel greasy on the skin. I think tallow feels less greasy than shea butter but more greasy than mango butter.
Learn more: Why is my body butter greasy?
Anhydrous formulations made with tallow are sensitive to ambient temperature: they will melt if they get too warm, and harden if they get too cold. Just how much temperature swings will impact your formulation will depend on what else is in it.
Learn more: Why is my body butter melting?
The smell
Personally, the smell of the tallow is its biggest potential downside and one of the hardest things to work around when making skincare. I’ve never had any issues with the smell of tallow when used in cold processed soap.
Just how strongly your tallow smells of meat is one of the many characteristics of tallow that can vary quite a lot, so if yours doesn’t smell like much of anything—score! In the 10+ years I’ve been working with tallow I’ve used quite a few different types; stuff I’ve rendered myself, large scale food supply stuff that was professionally/industrially rendered, and small scale grass fed tallow that was professionally rendered. The large scale food supply stuff had the least noticeable smell, but I’m pretty confident that was not grass fed tallow.
The tallow I have now is pre-rendered grass fed tallow from YellowBee and it has a distinct meaty smell. I wouldn’t say the smell is super strong, but I would not call it pleasant. As someone who doesn’t eat meat I know I’m not the most impartial judge, so I asked several meat eaters to smell it, and none of them were a fan, either (though my dog was a lot more interested in my studio than usual when I was working with it!). When used at 5% in an emulsion paired with 0.5% peppermint essential oil, the meaty scent is noticeable—perhaps not immediately identifiable as “meat”, but it’s a noticeable scent note that isn’t great. I asked a meat eater to try that lotion and they didn’t love the scent, either (but Lottie was very interested!).
As with all fragrant ingredients, your options for reducing the smell are:
- Use less of that ingredient in your formulations
- Use a less fragrant version of that ingredient
Some essential/fragrance oil can definitely help mask/disguise undesirable scents from ingredients, but I never recommend trying to drown out the smell of a stinky ingredient with lots of essential oil or fragrance oil (this comes up a lot with unrefined shea butter). Any strong smells will still come through, they’ll just be blended with your essential/fragrance oil, so instead of just meat it’ll be meat + lavender or meat + mint. Additionally, it’s easy to stray into unsafe levels of essential oils when trying to cover up a smelly base formulation.
You can also try working with the smell of a fragrant ingredient. With something like raw cocoa butter I’ll pair it with scents that are lovely with chocolate, like mint or vanilla, making the smell of the cocoa butter an asset rather than something to fight with. When it it comes to tallow, though, I’m having a hard time imagining ways to work with that meaty scent. This might be my non-meat-eater-ness peeking through, but I can’t think of any scents that pair nicely with a beefy/meaty scent that I’d want in my skincare. Botanicals like parsley, onions, black pepper, and garlic are classic food pairings with beef, but I can’t say gravy scented skincare appeals to me!
So, if you really love tallow, I would make getting your hands on a super duper deodorized version your top priority; this is the same advice I give people who hate the smell or raw shea butter. The less your tallow smells like meat, the more versatile it’ll be. Try purchasing it from a variety of suppliers, and check the comments on this post and video—I’m hoping people who have found good sources of deodorized grass fed tallow will share them! If nobody near you sells a suitably deodorized version, you might need to learn how to render it yourself.
Do you have a great source for scent-free, grass fed tallow?
Please share it in the comments!
Troubleshooting: Too soft or too hard
If a formulation is too soft, I’d recommend swapping 1–5% of the liquid oil in a formulation for either stearic acid or C10-18 Triglycerides (aka Butter Pearls, a blend of stearic and palmitic acids) to harden it up.
Stearic and palmitic acids are the primary fatty acids that make tallow solid, and the amount of each can vary a lot. If your tallow is soft, that means it has less of these fatty acids—so you can fix that by adding more.
You could also try 1–3% of a wax, or if it’s only a tiny bit too soft, just use more tallow and less of whatever liquid oil is in your formula.
If a formulation is too hard, incorporate more of one of the liquid oils and reduce solid ingredients.
Sources
In addition to the sources linked throughout this post, I referred to My Review of Modern Cosmetics: Ingredients of Natural Origin heavily for information on the fatty acid composition and vitamin content of plant oils and butters.
Check out the partner video!
Fabulous post, Marie!! Thank you for sharing your investigation & expertise with us. You’re a treasure.
I’m curious if you’ve tried whipped tallow with honey? I tried a two ingredient, anhydrous, whipped tallow balm with honey that was nice. I don’t understand how you make honey emulsify with tallow, or any butter for that matter, without using an emulsifier.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I’ve never mixed honey with tallow, but did something similar eons ago with this DIY. It wasn’t emulsified, but as long as it didn’t melt it was fine—the base was solid enough to keep the honey suspended and dispersed. I’d expect something similar happened with yours 🙂
Thank you, dear!
That was truly an excellent article. I’ve been reading your blog and watching your YouTube videos for years now, and have enjoyed them, and learned a lot over the years. However, I think this article on tallow was super relative and hit all of the right notes, showing great integrity and honesty (as well as amazing research – and thanks for that!). I use tallow (I render it myself and get the fat from a local butcher) in my soaps. People absolutely love them! My husband (biased, though he may be…) thinks they are the best soaps he’s ever used. Just wanted to say, thanks for a really well researched, and interesting article! Best regards and I look forward to continuing to read more in the future!
That was a well-researched, very informative article, Marie! You just answered every question I’ve been asking about tallow since this craze began. I’ve been curious about formulating with it, but sourcing the best is expensive and even those let you know that there is still a smell. So I think I’ll just stick with my beloved mango butter!
I render tallow from my own 100% grassfed cows (no grain ever) and it has a slight pleasant smell that I would not consider beefy. My farming practices and how I render (low heat, dry render) are probably the keys to a low odor, natural tallow.
I use it in anhydrous balms with cold pressed sunflower oil, and it definitely smells like the sunflower oil, and that’s with tallow at 70%. The sunflower smell is quite pleasant and blends well with earthy type fragrance oils.
I also make an emulsified body cream with 12% tallow, and it has no detectable odor. I use any fragrance oil at 1-2% with no issues.
Shameless plug, but you can buy it from my website cattywampusoasis.com
Im not sure I can ship to Canada though since it’s a food/beef product.
Excellent article! Digging down to all the source material was appreciated 🙂
Thanks for digging into the details, especially for debunking the claims that tallow is rich in vitamins or identical to sebum. I just don’t get the hype!!
I suspected the hype may just be….well, hype. Maybe I should start a dairy butter hype, the early adopters reap the benefits until the science catches up and it will fade like everything else. Notwithstanding that, I love experimenting for myself. So I do have a deodorised tallow in the fridge, let me go sniff it….
I’ve been using and rendering tallow for a couple of years know and making tallow balms. I find if I wet render it with water and salt at least 2-3 times it has a very minimal smell. It was good to see a well balanced article on all the aspects, leaving out all the hype. While I was never sure about all the “magic” claims it certainly keeps my skin super soft!
Very interesting article/video. We raise wagyu beef and have just decided to start experimenting with tallow for use other than cooking. My daughter made a batch of whipped butter (anhydrous) and I can get a faint scent of beef on some batches, but found that after I rub it in and it dries all I smell is the fragrance, luckily. We are just learning though, so appreciate any advice/ add ins is appreciated.
Hello I am asking to trained face to face I am in love with tallow
This was so helpful! I’m just getting into formulating my own lotions and skincare, mainly because I wanted to make a tallow lotion that was affordable. Your blog is quickly becoming a go-to reference point for me. Thank you for sharing all of your research!