What Exactly is Tallow?
Simply put, tallow is beef fat. Before you run away thinking "ew!", hear us out. Properly rendered tallow comes only from suet which is the very hard fat surrounding organs. It does not come from fat surrounding muscles which is softer and goes rancid more quickly. It is then rendered and purified through an extensive process to produce a clean, white, hard tallow. Our tallow is strictly from grass-fed and grass-finished cows raised on regenerative farms and only made from suet fat.
Why is Grass-Fed and Grass-Finished Important?
Not only are grass-fed cows on regenerative farms beneficial for the environment and reducing climate change (1) but they also provide an abundance of nutrients not found in grain-fed cows, specifically in their levels of fatty acids. Tallow contains: palmitic acid, stearic acid, myristic acid, oleic acid, palmitoleic acid, and linolenic acid. According to a study by the USDA Department of Agriculture, cows raised on permanent pasture had about 500% more CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) than cows raised on grass and grain (2). For the most healing tallow, only choose grass fed and grass finished.
What's in Tallow Anyway?
Tallow from grass-fed cows has a ton of natural, nourishing benefits. It contains heavy concentrations of vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are all vital for skin health!
Vitamin A: Encourages healthy skin by increasing cell turnover and boosts collagen which can minimizes fine lines, acne and hyperpigmentation. It helps prevent UV damage which can slow the signs of aging and be very nourishing for skin that has been in the sun!
Vitamin D: Calms inflammation, protects the skin, and improves cell turnover. It can help soothe skin conditions like dry skin, psoriasis, and eczema.
Vitamin K: Strengthens the skin's natural barrier function, enabling it to grow stronger and to retain hydration for longer. It inhibits the inflammation typical of autoimmune skin conditions or any kind of skin inflammation.
Vitamin E: Promotes cell turnover and regeneration bringing new cells to the surface faster, smoothing skin and providing deep hydration where you need it.
Those fatty acids mentioned earlier also play a major role in the healing aspect of tallow!
Steric acid exerts "many effects on skin barrier function, such as eicosanoid production, membrane fluidity, and cell signaling, improving skin repair, and permeability, playing important role for therapeutic benefits" (3).
Both oleic acid and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), have been show in studies to be healing for atopic dermatitis, like those associated with eczema and psoriasis (4,5). With such high levels of CLA, grass fed, grass finished tallow is nourishing for the skin barrier and healing towards irritation.
Antioxidants! Unlike seed oils or vegetable oils that are widely used in skincare, tallow is full of living antioxidants. During the refining process of a vegetable/seed oil, the antioxidants are stripped and the oil is so highly heated that it can oxidize the oil. Oxidation is one of the major causes of inflammation and cell death. Furthermore, vegetable/seed oils are high in polyunsaturated fats that are very unstable in the presence of heat, light, and oxygen. No thank you! I'll take tallow as a very stable lipid coming from another mammal. The fat is tallow is also much closer to our own human sebum making it a wonderful choice for deep hydration and skin nourishment.
Explore our tallow-based products today to nourish and bring natural healing to your skin!
(1) https://rodaleinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/rodale-white-paper.pdf
(2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10531600/
(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5849435/
(4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6874865/
(5) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33206422/