Who wants vaccines and Vanicream, when you’ve got uncooked milk and beef tallow? That’s what the web thinks, anyway. TikTok (or TallowTok) is presently slathered with devotees hailing beef tallow (sure, the rendered fats from a cow) as a miracle moisturizer. As of March 2025, there have been greater than 68.5 million posts on tallow. Manufacturers money in, whereas influencers flaunt before-and-after transformations, render tallow from suet, or smear beef lard on their pores and skin, pondering it’s tallow (it’s not).
The backlash in opposition to industrialized magnificence mirrors anxieties about ultra-processed meals. The identical folks avoiding seed oils of their diets at the moment are in search of beef-fat balms for his or her faces—it’s not a coincidence that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promoting “Making Frying Oil Tallow Once more” merch. However in a rush to remove toxins and stick it to massive firms, you will have neglected different dangers. I purchased some on the web and smeared it on myself to determine it out.
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A Temporary Historical past of Tallow
Cow fats as face cream isn’t as far out as you would possibly suppose. For hundreds of years, terrestrial animal fat—beef tallow, lard, and lanolin—had been staples in skincare. The Babylonians used ash and rendered fats to craft cleaning soap. Over time, tallow discovered its manner into early-candle-making and medicinal treatments. Nineteenth-century ointments relied on them to deal with all the pieces from burns and chapped pores and skin to wounds and ingrown nails. Conventional cleaning soap was a mixture of tallow and coconut oil, and early lipsticks blended animal fats and beeswax. Some tattoo artists will nonetheless advocate beef tallow soaps to higher protect ink.
By the Nineties, advances in beauty chemistry favored plant-based and artificial options that provided larger stability and consistency. Security issues surrounding bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow illness) additionally prompted firms to distance themselves from animal-derived components. Although byproducts like collagen, hyaluronic acid, and keratin developed with fashionable skincare, tallow was (largely) left behind.
However now, beef tallow is again.
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This revival is a part of a cultural obsession with ancestral residing. It’s the identical impulse driving the recognition of the carnivore food regimen, bone broth, and unpasteurized milk. Grand View Analysis reviews that the U.S. tallow market introduced in $627.9 million in 2023 and is projected to surpass $1 billion by 2030. At its core is the rejection of modernity, the idea that industrialization has corrupted nature and that the previous held purer options. The sweetness business, with its preservatives, emulsifiers, and laboratory formulations, has turn into the enemy. Tallow, in contrast, is framed as a return to the untainted.
Beef tallow is wealthy in triglycerides and likewise incorporates important nutritional vitamins A, D, Ok, E, and B12. Some research counsel that tallow can improve fatty acid focus within the pores and skin, making it a moisturizing agent. Nevertheless, comparative research have discovered that options like pumpkin seed oil and linoleic acid provide superior hydration. Whereas some would possibly tout its “pure” advantages, that phrase is extra advertising and marketing than truth.
