What is Tallow?

Chances are, you’ve heard the word tallow quite a bit lately.

It’s showing up in conversations about cooking, skincare, simpler ingredients, and even some restaurants and food brands are bringing beef tallow back into their kitchens. As more people start paying closer attention to what’s in the foods they eat and the products they put on their skin, traditional ingredients like tallow are finding their way back into everyday life.

But despite all the recent attention, tallow is anything but new.

At its simplest, tallow is rendered beef fat. It is made by slowly melting and purifying fat from cattle until what remains is a clean, stable fat with a naturally rich fatty acid profile.

People have used tallow for generations for everything from cooking and soapmaking to candles, salves, and skincare.

So while tallow may be having a moment right now, we’re really just rediscovering something people have valued for a very long time.

Where Does Tallow Come From?

Technically, tallow can be made from fat found in different parts of the animal.

For cooking, tallow is often made using beef fat trimmings, which are the pieces of fat trimmed away during butchering.

But there is another type of beef fat called suet, and there is an important difference between the two.

Suet is the firm, dense fat found around the kidneys and internal organs of cattle. Compared with softer trim fat, suet has a different composition and produces a beautifully rich, stable tallow when rendered.

At Tropical Tallow, suet is the type of beef fat we choose for our balms.

It is one of those sourcing details you might never think to ask about, but when tallow is the foundation of your formula, we think the details matter.

What Does “Rendered” Mean?

Rendering might sound complicated, but the idea behind it is actually pretty simple.

The raw beef fat is slowly heated until the pure fat separates from moisture, connective tissue, and other solids.

The liquid fat is then carefully strained and purified. Depending on the rendering process, this may be repeated to create a cleaner finished tallow.

Once that purified fat cools, it becomes solid again.

That’s tallow.

The type of fat you start with and the way it is rendered can both influence the finished tallow, including its texture, color, consistency, and natural aroma.

What Is Naturally Found in Tallow?

This is where tallow gets especially interesting.

Tallow naturally contains a blend of fatty acids that are commonly used and studied in skincare because of the roles they can play in keeping skin feeling soft, conditioned, and moisturized.

• Oleic acid is an emollient fatty acid that helps soften and condition the skin and gives tallow its smooth, easy-to-spread feel.
• Stearic acid helps support a rich, protective feel on the skin and is commonly used in skincare formulas to help soften and condition dry skin.
• Palmitic acid is naturally present in skin lipids and contributes to tallow’s nourishing, emollient qualities.
• Linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid that plays an important role in the skin barrier and helps the skin form ceramides that are involved in retaining moisture.

Tallow can also contain naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E, and K, although the amounts can vary depending on the animal, its diet, the fat used, and how the tallow is rendered.

So while tallow may look like a very simple ingredient, there is quite a bit going on naturally beneath the surface.

What Does Tallow Have in Common With Our Skin?

And this is where it gets even more interesting.

Several of the fatty acids found in tallow are also found in the lipids of our own skin.

Our skin naturally produces an oily substance called sebum. Sebum is part of the mixture of lipids that coats and helps protect the surface of our skin.

Tallow shares several fatty acids with human skin, including oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids.

That similarity in lipid composition is one of the things that makes tallow such an interesting ingredient for skincare.

An Old Ingredient Being Rediscovered

Tallow might be trending right now, but it certainly isn’t new.

For generations, people made use of what was available to them and wasted as little as possible. Tallow was valuable because it could be transformed into something useful, versatile, and long-lasting.

Today, we’re simply rediscovering it.

At Tropical Tallow, we love using simple ingredients that have a long history, an interesting natural composition, and a reason for being there.

At its core, tallow is carefully rendered beef fat with a naturally rich fatty acid profile and naturally occurring fat-soluble nutrients.

Nothing flashy. Nothing new.

Just a traditional ingredient getting another turn in the sun.