Miracle balm or cow pie? What's behind the beef tallow skincare trend

Images from Unsplash and AD Vintage/ Illustration Andrea Daquino for NPR

Rubbing rendered animal fat into your tegument mightiness sound gross, but beef tallow has go a trendy tegument attraction merchandise that immoderate declare tin clear up acne, is awesome for barren skin, and moreover makes you look younger.

Tallow is fat that has been slow melted, strained and past hardened into a waxy paste. Often utilized successful cooking, each sorts of animal fats — goat, swan, moreover lion — person besides been utilized arsenic a cosmetics constituent since antiquity, says historiographer Susan Stewart.

Now, successful 2025, immoderate group are embracing beef tallow arsenic a "natural" skincare choice. On TikTok, hundreds of videos pinch millions of views talk aliases beforehand tallow products. Brands for illustration Good Ol' Days Tallow Co., Evil Goods!, Betr4you and HolyCow look again and again, from a raft of creators who gain committee for each jar of tallow they person personification other to buy.

In 1 TikTik from nan relationship @ItsColleensShop, a female drips her digit into a jar of nan marque Good Ol' Days Tallow Co. and past licks it earlier telling nan camera, "If you can't eat your tegument care, past you shouldn't beryllium putting it connected your face."

Videos from different accounts trading different brands of tallow opportunity nan same, almost verbatim.

Though Good O' Days Tallow says it comes from grass-fed cows, not everything edible is bully for nan skin, dermatologists warn.

The claim: Beef tallow is simply a superior, earthy tegument lotion that tin springiness you clear, glowing and youthful skin.

The evidence: Tallow's not full snake oil. Your tegument whitethorn look plump and dewy aft applying it, says Marisa Plescia, vice president of nan Society of Cosmetic Chemists and laminitis FemChem Beauty. That's because, arsenic a saturated fat, tallow has a precocious lipid contented and these fatty compounds create a benignant of obstruction that locks successful moisture.

However, different products, including shea food and oliva oil, besides incorporate lipids that create nan aforesaid effect.

"Beef tallow is not immoderate different, really, than immoderate different works lipid that's retired there," says Plescia.

And location are measurement amended options for moisturizing your tegument than cooking oils, Plescia says. The lotions that chemists formulate see humectants, specified arsenic glycerine and hyaluronic acid, which pull and hindrance to h2o to support your tegument moist. Plain fats don't person those.

The risks: While some TikTok creators declare that tallow has cleared up their complexion, beef fat tin really make acne worse, warns Dr. Delila Foulad, a board-certified dermatologist astatine UCLA Health, who specializes successful treating tegument and scalp disorders

"Beef tallow is fundamentally a lipid, aliases an oil. Putting that connected your tegument could clog your pores," she tells NPR.

There's besides a chance of an allergic reaction, akin to really immoderate people's tegument reacts to jewelry that contains nickel. Those with psoriasis aliases eczema should beryllium other cautious of tallow since their tegument obstruction is already compromised, says Foulad.

Things that you use connected nan tegument "can origin a secondary allergic interaction dermatitis, which is fundamentally a tegument allergy," Foulad says.

For group who still want to effort it, she recommends they commencement pinch a spot test: Put tallow connected conscionable a mini area of nan tegument and hold a mates of weeks earlier slathering everywhere.

"If you are going to person a reaction, it's not thing that usually happens correct away," she says.

Also, this animal fat tin spell fishy complete time, particularly successful basking weather. So support it successful nan fridge.

Unlike tallow, traditionally formulated lotions and moisturizers incorporate antioxidants that forestall decomposition, aliases spoilage, explains Plescia.

What's down nan trend: Tallow tin look for illustration a much axenic action compared to lab-made beauty products that incorporate ingredients pinch chemically-sounding names, specified arsenic phenoxyethanol and C13-14 isoparaffin.

And nan U.S. is having a taste infinitesimal wherever group are skeptical of synthetic ingredients, says Jennifer Reich, a sociologist astatine nan University of Colorado Denver who researches really group make wellness and wellness decisions.

"That is simply a backswing, to firm developments of things for illustration nutrient and family products that person often had ingredients that person not been peculiarly safe aliases person biology impacts," she says.

NPR has previously reported that definite substances recovered successful immoderate gels, lotions and creams tin beryllium harmful to reproductive health, aliases incorporate carcinogens. And, successful March, nan Food and Drug Administration announced a voluntary callback of acne products for imaginable benzene contamination, which is simply a carcinogen

As a benignant of shortcut to healthier choices, Reich says group opt for things for illustration beef tallow that look earthy because it ostensibly comes from a workplace alternatively of an opaque proviso concatenation of overseas factories.

Tallow seems to person a typical entreaty for men, notes Jordan Foster, a sociologist astatine Alberta's MacEwan University.

Red nutrient has long-standing associations pinch masculinity: cowboys, cavemen, Ron Swanson. So erstwhile men usage beef tallow, Foster says they're aligning pinch those comparatively constrictive gender scripts, while still participating successful a traditionally feminine domain of skincare.

One TikToker @mercercaiden said that he uses a whipped tallow pick arsenic an aftershave and to moisturize his knuckles.

"I consciousness younger already," he said arsenic he rubbed what looked for illustration a tablespoon's worthy of fat into his face.

The bottommost line: Tallow balm astir apt won't wounded you overmuch (though acne and eczema sufferers beware), but watch retired for claims that it's amended conscionable because it's natural.

Though understandable, Reich says this feeds into a larger inclination of rejecting subject and warns that accusation connected societal media tin deficiency nuance aliases consequence successful vulnerable choices, specified arsenic drinking unpasteurized beverage aliases trying unproven aesculapian treatments.

Not each constituent pinch a agelong sanction is needfully vulnerable but if you want to debar those that are linked to imaginable wellness problems, here are a fistful that scientists are particularly concerned about.

But Reich says this systemic problem of lax regulations cannot beryllium solved connected nan individual level, sloppy of really difficult a personification useful to fig retired which products are safe: "These are really taxing decisions to make each day. They exhaust people."

The champion people of action, says Foulad, is to consult pinch a dermatologist who should beryllium up to day connected nan latest investigation and tin thief you prime products that will activity good for your skin.