Benefits of Beef Tallow

I don’t know if you’ve seen the major surge in skincare hype online recently… but teens especially are getting very into it - seems like younger and younger these days, right?! A lot of the popular skincare brands that are gaining popularity with teens have ingredients like retinol in them that they just simply don’t need yet.

I was inspired to create some skincare for the girls that is really good for them but doesn’t have a lot of ingredients… just pure and simple stuff. Turns out I’m going to use it too :) I’ve spent the last week in the kitchen (pretty much non-stop, honestly) making beef tallow moisturizer from our very own Five Marys Pastured Natural Beef Tallow.

It’s about a 3+ day process to render it down… but it’s pretty incredible to get it so pure and clear. That’s from well-raised ‘clean’ animals! After the second render, you cool the tallow and then pop it out of the pot - any impurities or water is left on the bottom. Then after two renderings to clean and ‘wash’ the tallow, you’re left with a ‘tallow cake’ that is perfectly pure. I chopped it up before the third and final render. It’s quite the process but the end result is soooo worth it.

I added organic cold-pressed jojoba oil, which is an excellent moisturizer to keep skin hydrated and it doesn’t clog pores. I also added some organic rosehip oil in some of them. It’s a great oil to hydrate and repair the skin. It also helps with sun spots or scars.

After the oils were added it was time for my favorite part… whipping! I love how flully it got. I used a piping tip to add it to the jars. The swirls you see below are a mix of tallow, jojoba, rosehip oil, lavender, and beet root powder. The lavender is great for stress relief and overall just really nice on the skin! There isn’t enough color in there to tint the skin at all - it just makes it fun and hopefully keeps teens using this instead of the other stuff! It’s so silky smooth, weightless and moisturizing.

There are so many benefits of pure beef tallow for your skin. Nourishing vitamins A, B12, D, E and K… the perfect combo for skin and only found in animal products. It replenishes palmitoleic acid, which is a base building block for our skin that decreases with age.

It’s antibaterial, microbial and contains omega acids that mimic the structure and barrier function of our skin. It also has stearic acid, which repairs and regenerates and penetrates skin (our largest organ!) naturally and deeply.

The options to use tallow are… endless! Truly. It can be used as a body moisturizer, face cream, baby lotion, sunburn relief, diaper rash relief, deep conditioning hair treatment, eczema relief or just a relaxing treatment to nourish your skin (I’m excited to use mine in the dead of winter next year!)

I can’t wait for you to try this stuff! I’ll be adding to the website soon :)

Our Process

1. We start with a package of our Five Marys Pasture Raised Natural Beef Tallow and render it in a large cast-iron pot for about 4-8 hours.

2. After it has rendered, we add in about 4-6 cups of water and 1 tablespoon for every pound of fat. Watch it carefully on the stove so it doesn’t burn!

3. Let it cool, remove fat disk and scrape the bits from the bottom of the pot.

4. Render again for about 2-4 hours.

5. Let it cool again, remove fat disk and scrape the bits from the bottom of the pot.

6. Melt everything in a large pot and add in jojoba oil (3:1 tallow to oil ratio).

7. Add in your favorite essential oil (we love lavender!)

8. Let it cool.

9. Whip with beaters while it is still hard (our favorite part!)

10. Add it to the jar and label :)