How to Make Homemade Tallow Balm DIY All Natural Ingredients

Have you heard or seen all of the hype about tallow? It seems to be the biggest trend in natural skincare, and guess what? I am totally on board with it! I’ll show you how easy it is to make your own tallow balm with all-natural ingredients in a few simple steps. 

I started buying and using tallow balms on my son’s eczema and dry skin a couple of years ago but decided I could make his skincare products myself much cheaper. The great news is that you can do the same!

The beauty of making DIY tallow balms yourself is that you can customize them. I am constantly trying new blends like a tallow face cream or a tallow balm for boo-boos or bugs. You can use tallow on its own, add essential oils, or even do herbal infusions (this is what I prefer to do).

Want more tallow skincare recipes? Try making Citrus Mint Tallow Lip Balm or learn How to Make Tallow Soap!

All About Tallow

Suet vs Trim

I generally prefer to use kidney beef fat (suet) in my balms. Some people are totally fine with using trim fat (the fat near the skin of the cow) or a combination of the two, but I find that the trim fat is too soft at room temperature.

Trim fat is prone to melting and not keeping a whipped texture (it’s great for soap-making, though), while suet is solid at room temperature, so it holds its shape much better.

When I make my balms, I will mix the tallow with another plant oil to help keep the texture softer. Suet also offers the essential fatty acids your skin craves. By the way, tallow is from a cow or sheep, while lard is from pigs!

Where to Source Tallow

Now, where do you get tallow, especially if you live in the suburbs like me? ! When we get our yearly quarter of beef we ask the processor and local farmer to include the fat. This is a great option because technically you’ve already paid for the hanging weight, fat included, but it does take extra work as you have to chop, render, and store all of the fat. See this post on How to Render Tallow if you want to take on that challenge.

There are also great options for buying pre-rendered tallow. Some cattle farms have started selling their own tallow (check out local farms around you), some cosmetic/soap suppliers have started stocking it, and there are also companies like FATWORKS or EPIC (but those tend to be more trim fat meant for cooking). We also will use deer tallow during hunting season when we can get it!

Grass-fed or Not

Some prefer to exclusively use tallow from grass-fed cows and/or grass-finished cows. I generally like to use grass-fed tallow, but I do not worry about the finishing, especially because we enjoy the taste of grain-finished beef. We know the farmer and their practices, and we are comfortable with what they use for feed.

Tallow Balm or Whipped Tallow

This is completely up to you. A balm will be more like a traditional salve texture, thick and smooth. A whipped tallow balm will have fluffy texture and have a silky and buttery feel when applied. There is no difference in the benefits, so go with what you like.

Benefits of Beef Tallow on Your Skin

Most of this is from personal experience (I am not a doctor and none of this information should be considered medical advice. Please speak with your doctor for any medical needs). Tallow helps keep the moisture in and helps with our skin barrier. It can soothe irritations and redness, or in my son’s case, help his eczema and diaper rash. 

I’ve had countless friends and family fall in love with using tallow. It’s a natural alternative to most of the alcohol-containing products in the store with no toxic ingredients. 

It is said to have anti-inflammatory properties, and don’t worry, if you infuse with herbs or add drops of your favorite essential oil there shouldn’t be any beefy smell. 

Noncomedogenic

What did I just say? I still don’t think I can say that word out loud correctly. Basically, this word tells us something is not likely to clog our pores. There is a comedogenic scale of 0-5, with 0-2 being considered noncomedogenic.

How do you know which ones are or aren’t? Many products will now have labels telling you they are noncomedogenic, but it’s not super regulated. The best thing to do is a quick little search of the ingredients.

It can also be different for each person, depending on their skin type. For example, I cannot use coconut oil on my face, but it’s fine for the rest of my body. But I have friends who swear by using coconut oil on their faces. Always try something new with a patch test on your skin to ensure you don’t react and remember everyone’s skin is unique.

Tallow Balm Add-Ins & Inclusions

Tallow is great all on its own, but sometimes we like to mix it with plant oils, not only for a smooth application, but also for additional benefits to our skin.

My favorite places to buy dried herbs: Mountain Rose Herbs, Frontier Co-op, Starwest Botanicals. Check out our list of Herbs to Grow or Top Flowers to Grow in your own garden!

Step by Step Making Tallow Balm

Prep and Infuse: A day or two before you plan to make your tallow balm, add cleaned and rendered tallow to the crock pot, turn on the warm setting (do not use the low setting, it is too hot), and add herbs of choice right on top and infuse for 24-48 hours.

Alternatively, you can use a double boiler to infuse. If you are using a double boiler, be sure to keep the heat on a very low setting and infuse for 2-6 hours. Keep a close watch so it doesn’t scorch or run out of water.

If you are not infusing your tallow, place tallow in the crock pot, turn on the warm setting and let it melt for a couple of hours.

Making Balm: Once tallow is fully melted and infused, measure and pour plant oil of choice (NOT essential oils) into the tallow and keep on warm heat for about 10-30 minutes. The goal is to get all plant oils and fats to be the same temperature.

Strain: Once thoroughly heated, strain your herbal infusion through a sieve with folded cheesecloth into a mixing bowl. I find plastic (gasp!) or silicone bowls work best for whipping tallow, but you can definitely use stainless steel too.

Decision Time: Now, at this point, you have two options. You can jar your tallow as a traditional solid tallow balm (just add any essential oils, stir well, pour balm in jars to cool before putting on the lid), OR you can continue with a couple of steps for a whipped balm.

Whipped Tallow: You will need to cool your tallow rapidly to get a good, smooth texture. It takes a little patience, but you’ll get there! Check out the freeze and whip method below for the best whipped tallow balm texture.

Freeze-Whip Method for Whipped Tallow Balm

Hang in there with me on this part. Put the strained tallow mixture straight into the freezer for about 10-15 minutes (time will vary between appliances, just takes practice). Remove the bowl from the freezer and beat the cooled tallow from the sides of the bowl back in with any still-liquid tallow.

Place the bowl back into the freezer for another 5-7 minutes. The goal is to quickly cool the tallow mixture down to room temperature, so it doesn’t get grainy. You want all of your oils to cool at the same rate to avoid getting little balls of solidified tallow in your whip.

Remove the bowl from the freezer and whip the cooled tallow with a hand mixer again until it looks like whipped cream (you may have to repeat the freeze-whip step a few more times).

Add any essential oils if desired and whip again.  This whipped version is my favorite because it feels super luxurious, like a body butter.

Lastly, jar your whipped tallow (you can just use a spatula, or you can use a piping tip and bag).

Congrats, you’ve made tallow balm! I hope this will become your new favorite skin care product in your daily routine! Let us know how your skin balm turned out in the comments.

You’ve read about making tallow skincare on the blog, and now you can bring it home! Sometimes life gets busy, and you just don’t have the time to make it yourself. Visit our shop, Rose Hill Harvest, to buy our handcrafted soaps and balms.

Check out our how-to for making Tallow Soap or Tallow Laundry Soap next.

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