Is beef tallow a good skincare moisturizer?According to Pew Research Center, 79% of New Year's resolutions are about one thing: health. It's Been a Minute is kicking off 2025 with a little series called "new year, new me." We're getting into some of the big questions and cultural confusion around our health and wellness. For our final installment, we're getting into a new skincare trend: using beef tallow as a moisturizer. That's right – beef fat rendered from suet is one of the trends du jour. Brittany Luse sits down with Marie Claire senior beauty editor Samantha Holender and beauty journalist Jennifer Sullivan to understand why the beef tallow trend has taken off, what it says about what we value in our skin care, and whether we should be using beef tallow at all. Support public media and receive ad-free listening & bonus. Join NPR+ today.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is beef tallow and why is it trending as a moisturizer?
If you can't eat your skincare, you should not be putting it on your face.
Now, I wasn't sure if it was just me seeing this, so I went out on the street to see what the public knows about beef tallow as skincare and whether they try it. Have you heard of this trend of people moisturizing their faces?
Chapter 2: What do people think about using beef tallow on their skin?
with beef tallow.
Oh no!
I have a few friends who use it and they rave about it. I've not used it myself. I'm a vegetarian and I don't use animal product or byproduct.
If it works, the downside of it being an animal fat or whatever, I will still use it. I don't care.
Now, it seems like some of the people who use it love it. And I'm not going to knock that. But one of my guests today just might.
I think my reaction was twofold. I was like, OK, this makes sense. But then I was immediately like, oh, no, please no.
That was Marie Claire, senior beauty editor, Samantha Hollander. I sat down with her and beauty journalist Jennifer Sullivan.
Thank you. It's great to be here.
to understand why the beef tallow trend has taken off, what it says about what we value in our skincare, and whether we should be using beef tallow at all. Okay, so first I want to know, when did you start seeing beef tallow skincare on the rise?
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Chapter 3: Why is there a shift towards simpler skincare routines?
I think there's two reasons for that boomerang. One is skincare and beauty products have sort of gone the way of fashion. So we're used to these boomerang trend cycles with fashion, and we're starting to see that a little bit in beauty because it's following the same way. The other is sort of what you mentioned with the skin barrier.
When everybody was using all these products, they were introducing a lot of foreign substances. Foreign sounds negative, but I just mean things they hadn't used before. So their skin barriers were reacting, whether it was an acid or maybe it's just like okay, you're using three things.
That's introducing so many more ingredients that your skin hasn't been used to that you just might have like an irritation to. So people were, I remember it was like 2019. I wrote this whole story about how people were messing up their skin barriers with all of the 10 step beauty. And I was already starting to see some pushback towards a simpler type of routine that
We were primed to sort of chill out on that. The pandemic threw a wrench in that whole thing because then it was like, well, we're staring at ourselves on Zoom all day. But now that that's settled down, I think that boomerang is really just coming in like you said. It was too complicated and we want it to be simpler.
And we also want to have our skin chill out because maybe it was a little irritated.
Mm-hmm. I see you nodding, Samantha.
I mean, I absolutely agree. I think there's also like this element of the attention economy and we're bombarded with different TikTok trends that we are treating like fast fashion. And are we skin cycling today? Are we double cleansing today? Like, what is the trend of the moment? And it's basically a rebellion of I don't want to hear any of it.
I'm going to stick to my one, one ingredient product that's going to do my face, body, hair, toes and the skin on my elbow. And it's the one and done idea.
It's seductive, you know, to think that you can just go to the store and get one thing. Another thing that I'm seeing here is that there's a real premium on beef tallow being perceived as natural. I saw a couple TikToks where one woman ate some of it and was like, if you can't eat it, you shouldn't put it on your skin, which I just want to do a sidebar.
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Chapter 4: How does social media influence skincare trends?
The other thing I think a little bit is just mistrust in general of corporations and government. I mean, we've seen in like study after study that Americans are less trustful of corporations. And I think part of that reason is because – you know, we don't feel that we always have control over our health care choices. And skin is part of health care.
So it feels nice to think of something as natural. That said, there's also studies showing like certain ingredients that have historically been used in cosmetic products are not great for your skin. You know, the FDA bans, I believe, about a dozen now in the EU. It's about 1,200. And say what you will about these lists, and experts will say a lot because...
Some of these ingredients aren't even used in skincare. But that makes people scared. Like when you hear there's a list of 1,200 things in the EU that people aren't allowed to use in cosmetics, you're like, what are they?
Samantha, any thoughts you want to add?
Yeah, I think one important call out is that like the word – natural or, in Beef Tallow's case, grass-fed or all of these buzzwords, there's no regulation. Anyone can slap that on a label. Really? Tallow that you're buying from TikTok shop is not going through the FDA. They can write whatever they want on this label.
Oh.
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Chapter 5: What are the pros and cons of natural skincare products?
It's kind of like the greenwashing movement from a few years back. There's no real definition for clean. When we say natural, yes, it's coming from a cow, but it's almost the same logic of, would you put poison ivy on your face? Would you put poison oak on your face? That's natural. That's from the ground. Does it belong on your face? Probably not. I'm certainly not doing it.
So I think that the idea of something coming from the ground is very appealing. There's safety in knowing that I know exactly what is going on my face. But I think that there's a lot of confusion in the ether when everyone with a microphone can be considered an expert.
And just because it has 5 million views on TikTok or 700,000 likes on Instagram, that doesn't mean that this is a trustworthy source.
Okay. So I wonder, are there legitimate reasons to be skeptical of commercial skincare products?
Historically, yes. I mean, there's things like talc that might have asbestos contamination that we no longer use in certain ways, triclosan, certain formaldehydes in hair relaxers, for example.
Mm-hmm.
Over the course of like the last hundred years of modern cosmetics, we found a couple of things that are really bad. But generally speaking, most of the ingredients used in cosmetic products have a huge safety record. They've been around for a while. And it's true. Our FDA here in the U.S. does not test products. I don't know if people know this, but...
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Chapter 6: Is it safe to use beef tallow for skincare?
They don't test products before they come to market. There's no like, hey, we gave this to FDA. They said it's safe. Now we're selling it to you. It's just not how our government is set up. I didn't know that. Okay. No, you are free to sell a product. You have to show that it's safe, but you don't have to show it to the government. You just have to have that information should something happen.
Drugs are different, obviously, and some acne products over-the-counter are considered over-the-counter drugs, so that would be different. But with cosmetic skincare, no.
Yeah, to your point, I mean, there are some ingredients that have been in skincare or beauty products that have led to some scary headlines. I mean, you know, some dry shampoo was recently voluntarily recalled over potential cancer risk. Phthalates are in some skincare products and Those can disrupt the endocrine system.
And so I can understand how then, you know, if you're coming across a lot of this news and also thinking about how to keep yourself healthy and safe, it could potentially feel like there's so much harm out there in the skincare industry that, you know, I just need to go into my kitchen and render this beef tallow down. Coming up, what do we know about beef tallow and should we use it?
The ingredients are there. It is going to moisturize your skin. That being said, stick around.
I see similar mistrust in our consumer products in other areas, like in the Make America Healthy Again movement, which if you didn't know, RFK Jr. has beef tallow merch on his website, which I find very interesting. We also see it in the growing movement against ultra-processed foods.
I think like there's so much fear around what we're putting in and on our bodies right now. And there's constantly a recall or should we be doing this? Should we not be doing this? We're just left with so many questions about what's best for us, quote unquote.
OK, so let's get into it. What are the possible benefits and possible harms of beef tallow as skin care? Like what do we know and what do we not know?
I mean, on its face, beef tallow has lipids. It has vitamins. The ingredients are there. It is going to moisturize your skin. That being said, A, it stinks. Has anyone smelled beef tallow?
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