Who wants vaccines and Vanicream, when you’ve raw 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, considering it’s tallow (it’s not).
The backlash towards industrialized magnificence mirrors anxieties about ultra-processed meals. The same people avoiding seed oils of their diets are actually 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 Again” merch. However in a rush to remove toxins and stick it to large companies, you might have ignored different dangers. I purchased some on the web and smeared it on myself to determine it out.
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A Transient Historical past of Tallow
Cow fats as face cream just 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 method into early-candle-making and medicinal cures. Nineteenth-century ointments relied on them to deal with the whole lot 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 fat and beeswax. Some tattoo artists will nonetheless suggest beef tallow soaps to higher protect ink.
By the Nineteen Nineties, advances in beauty chemistry favored plant-based and artificial options that provided larger stability and consistency. Safety concerns surrounding bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) additionally prompted firms to distance themselves from animal-derived substances. Although byproducts like collagen, hyaluronic acid, and keratin developed with trendy skincare, tallow was (principally) left behind.
However now, beef tallow is again.
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This revival is a part of a cultural obsession with ancestral dwelling. It’s the identical impulse driving the recognition of the carnivore diet, bone broth, and unpasteurized milk. Grand View Research reports 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 assumption that industrialization has corrupted nature and that the previous held purer options. The sweetness trade, with its preservatives, emulsifiers, and laboratory formulations, has grow to be the enemy. Tallow, in contrast, is framed as a return to the untainted.
Beef tallow is rich in triglycerides and likewise comprises important nutritional vitamins A, D, Ok, E, and B12. Some research recommend that tallow can enhance fatty acid focus within the pores and skin, making it a moisturizing agent. Nevertheless, comparative studies have discovered that options like pumpkin seed oil and linoleic acid supply superior hydration. Whereas some would possibly tout its “pure” advantages, that phrase is extra advertising than truth.
