The best DIY tallow balm recipe hands-down! This nourishing balm leaves your skin soft and supple and is ultra simple to craft. Learn how to make this creamy DIY whipped tallow balm recipe, and customize it so that it’s perfect for you.
Tallow balm is having a heyday, and if you’ve landed here on this page I’m sure you’ve noticed. Everywhere you look, indie skincare brands are pedaling jars of tallow balm, and there are no shortages of DIY tallow balm recipes.
I’ve largely stayed out of the tallow balm trend. Being in the industry as long as I have (since 2001, my friend, nearly a quarter of a century!) I’ve watched plenty of skincare trends come and go. Anyone remember the emu oil craze of the early 2000s?
I figured tallow balm was one of those trends that would burn out quickly. And, truthfully, tallow wasn’t an ingredient I was particularly excited about, so I wasn’t raring to start crafting with it.
Then my sweet neighbor showed me her tallow soaps (gorgeous, hard, white bars) and gifted me two beautiful jars of tallow balm she had made.
And I decided to rethink my stance on tallow balm.
While I don’t think tallow is a miracle cure for all of your skincare ails, I do think it has nice occlusive properties that help keep the skin supple and soft.
After using her tallow balm on my face every night, I was impressed with how plush and soft my skin feels every morning. That gave me the enthusiasm to start working on my own tallow balm recipes because I wanted that same lush experience for my entire body.
After experimenting with tallow balms that turned out hard as a rock, fell sadly flat, or turned grainy after a few days on the counter, I’ve hit on a whipped tallow balm that I especially like. The best part is, it’s so simple to make even if you’ve never made a whipped balm or body butter before.
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Ingredients & Supplies
Let’s get you crafting your own tallow balm, my friend! Here’s what you’ll need:
Tallow (Ideally, Deodorized)
If you didn’t already know, tallow is made from rendered beef fat. This means that most tallow retains at least some smell of beef.
I’ve found the strength of that scent varies widely from brand to brand, from just a hint of beefiness to fat-steaks-on-a-grill. At least in my experience, the premium grass-fed tallow was the rankest of all. It’s probably great for cooking, but NOT for skincare.
The beef smell was impossible to cover, even with copious amounts of fragrance oils. My dogs went absolutely bananas for me after I applied a balm made with a gorgeous grass-fed tallow. And I smelled like lavender-infused hamburger.
So, from here on out it’s only deodorized tallow for me. This still has a hint of beef aroma, but it’s manageable. And I don’t feel like my dogs will eat me in my sleep.
I encourage you to do your own experimentation and discover what works best for you.
Sweet Almond Oil (Or Another Liquid Carrier Oil)
Because tallow alone is fairly hard, we need to add a liquid carrier oil to get that lovely soft, whipped cream texture.
Most DIY tallow balm recipes I’ve seen call for olive oil. That will work, but olive oil doesn’t have the greatest skin feel–it’s quite heavy and greasy.
Instead, I prefer using sweet almond oil for this balm. It’s a medium-weight oil that absorbs well and has great slip. I think it complements the tallow beautifully.
But you can use another carrier oil of your choosing. See the Tips for Customizing Your Tallow Balm section below.
Essential Oils
For a touch of fragrance and added skin benefits, essential oils are a lovely addition. I used peppermint essential oil and eucalyptus essential oil, because these potent oils did a remarkably good job at covering up any lingering beef scent.
If these essential oils aren’t your jam, you can easily swap them out for other scents. Again, see the Tips for Customizing Your Tallow Balm section below for more ideas.
Digital Scale
All of the ingredients in this recipe are measured by weight, so having a good digital scale is necessary. Weighing out your ingredients is much more precise than measuring by volume. It’s important that our measurements are spot on in the recipe, to ensure you end up with the correct finished consistency.
2 Bowls (1 Large, 1 Small)
Your regular kitchen bowls will do, but ideally one will be stainless steel for making a easy double boiler to gently melt the tallow. The second bowl should be large enough to hold the small bowl along with some ice.
Hand Mixer or Stand Mixer
To whip up that dreamy, airy texture, you’ll need a hand mixer. Immersion blenders, like those used for soapmaking or lotion-making won’t do the trick.
Small Jars
The recipe below fits perfectly in a half-pint (8 oz size) mason jar. But feel free to use any wide-mouth jar that you have available.
Tips for Customizing Your Tallow Balm
One of the joys of DIY skincare is making it uniquely yours. Use my tallow balm recipe as a jumping off point to make your own! Some ideas:
- Swap out the carrier oil: Any liquid oil will do. Some ideas include sunflower, meadowfoam seed, hemp, avocado, or apricot. Feel free to use what you already have on hand. Richer oils will create a more emollient balm, while lighter oils make for a less greasy balm.
- Lighten it up: Want your balm to be a bit fluffier, with a softer consistency? Incorporate up to 0.8 ounce additional carrier oil to your recipe. Keep in mind using more carrier oil means a lower melting point, so to keep your whipped balm from falling flat, store in a cool place.
- Switch up the scent: Lavender, geranium, and chamomile essential oils give calming notes. Tanergine and rosemary are energizing. Play with different scent profiles, even fragrance oils work in this recipe. Just keep within IFRA guidelines for whatever EO or FO you choose.
Whenever you’re making changes to a recipe, or coming up with your own custom skincare creations, always take good notes! It’s easy to forget the changes you’ve made, and you don’t want to lose an amazing product because you can’t remember how you crafted it.
I’m a big proponent of keeping a formulating journal for that very purpose. Check out this post for all the details on how to set up your formulating journal: The Secret to Perfecting Your DIY Skincare Recipes. You can also take a look inside my Handmade Skincare Formulating Journal.
How to Use Whipped Tallow Balm the Right Way
Did you know that there’s actually a correct way to use balms and body butters? It’s true!
Use your balm incorrectly and it won’t moisturize your skin at all, and may actually make your skin more dry. Use your balm correctly, though, and it helps improve moisture levels and keeps your skin supple.
Balms and body butters are anhydrous, or water-free, products. This is unlike your typical moisturizing lotions and creams, which are mostly water.
In the natural skincare world, this fact has been distorted to mean that lotions are “watered down” and therefore not as effective as balms and body butters, which are entirely made of oils and butters.
Nothing could be further than the truth!
Water is not a filler ingredient in skincare; it is an important piece of the skin hydration puzzle.
Water hydrates the skin. Oils and butters seal in water.
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But oil-based products, like our tallow balm here, can’t hydrate the skin. It contains occlusive ingredients so it can seal in moisture, but it contains no hydrating ingredients so it can’t hydrate on its own.
By using only waterless balms and butters, you are not hydrating your skin. So your skin remains parched even as you’re using balms.
Balms and butters prevent trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL) by sealing in moisture delivered to the skin via hydrating products.
So, consider lotion and balms a one-two punch for fighting dry skin. They work in tandem.
To get the absolute best results from any body balm or body butter, including this tallow balm, there are two ways you can use it:
- Apply lotion or moisturizing cream over the body first. Massage in until absorbed. Apply your tallow balm to seal in moisture.
- Apply tallow balm directly after showering or bathing, while your skin is still damp. I lightly towel off first, so I’m not dripping wet but my skin is still noticeably damp. This helps seal in moisture as well.
If you want to dive even deeper, this article will take you there: Body Butter Vs Lotion.
The Best Whipped Tallow Balm Recipe
This recipe makes 4 oz of tallow by weight, but fills an 8 oz jar by volume as it doubles in size during the whipping process. Ingredients are measured by weight.
With the addition of peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils, this isn’t ideal for the face, but feels lovely on the body. If you would like to use this as a facial balm either swap the essential oils for more face-friendly options or leave them out entirely.
Ingredients:
- 3.2 oz deodorized tallow
- 0.8 oz sweet almond oil
- 16 drops eucalyptus essential oil (optional)
- 8 drops peppermint essential oil (optional)
Needed Supplies:
- Digital scale
- Small metal bowl
- Small saucepan
- Slightly larger bowl filled halfway with ice
- Hand mixer
Step 1: Weigh out tallow and place in the metal bowl. Set this into a small saucepan that has been partially filled with water. Heat over low until the tallow is melted. Remove from heat (it goes without saying, the bowl will be hot so please take care!)
Step 2: Stir sweet almond oil into the melted tallow.
Step 3: Nestle the bowl of oils into the larger bowl partially filled with ice. This helps rapidly cool the balm, preventing the tallow from turning grainy. We want a nice, smooth balm!
Step 4: Once the oil mixture is fairly well set (about the consistency of petroleum jelly) start whipping with the hand mixer. I like to keep the bowl inside the ice as I whip, to continue to speed cooling, but if it’s fussy for you it’s OK to remove the bowl from the ice at this point. Whip on medium speed for at least 2 minutes, or until the balm doubles in size and stiff peaks form.
Step 5: Add the essential oils now, and whip again until the essential oils are fully incorporated.
Step 6: Gently scoop the whipped balm into a jar. Your balm will continue to harden over the next 24 hours.
To Use: Massage over the entire body as needed for soft, supple skin.
Shelf Life: About 8 months
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