A trend emerged in the last few years to use beef fat on your skin. Yes, you heard me beef fat. And with this trend came many small businesses creating their own beef fat, also known as Tallow, skin care line. Most recently the popular talk of the town is Whipped beef tallow. In this blog we will explore what this is and why you will NOT find it in the Marigold Maternity shop.
It's important to start off by saying not all Tallow skin care products are created equal. Some are made with lower quality ingredients than others and some may even include ingredients that you are trying to avoid by switching from, let's call it, standard skin care products. For this reason, I like to be transparent about the products I create, the sourcing of ingredients, the process of creating them etc. When finding the right product for you and your family be sure to do your own research and reach out to companies to make sure it's a good fit!
I have technically only been in business making Tallow lotions for a year. However, the formulation of the products I sell today has taken much longer. There was a lot of trial and error to make sure the product that we sell is, first off, one that I like to use on myself and also for my family and secondly one that I feel is valuable for you. The products that we sell today are not just something that I threw together. These two reasons are big motivators in why I don't sell whipped tallow.
What is Whipped Tallow?
Now I honestly don't know much about whipped tallow. This is because it is not a product I specialize in. But from what I've learned online essentially whipped tallow is Beef tallow, in most cases Grass Fed, in its solid form which is then whipped using a stand mixer to incorporate air and make the product fluffy. Some prefer this consistency for their skin care products and some do not. I fall in the camp of not preferring this fluffy texture but rather a butter like consistency that melts on the skin.
What I've learned is that with the whipping of this product and the incorporation of air you get less tallow in the final product or the product you are buying. I have also learned that the whipping and increased air contact speeds up the oxidization and spoiling of the product making it not last as long as unwhipped products. I have seen many online complaints of customers buying a whipped tallow and during shipment it must melt, filling the container less than if the product were whipped, so then the customer receives what appears to be a third of a jar of unwhipped tallow. When attending my first market I was a little intimidated because there were also two other vendors selling tallow products. However, the other two were only selling whipped tallow with essential oils and not an unwhipped product. I had many customers come to me during this market and specifically asked if I sold tallow that wasn't whipped because of the emerging information on whipped tallow products.
The main thing that turns me off about the Whipped tallow products is that they can run pretty expensive and most are unscented or if they are scented it is by essential oil only. When I began my market research to open my shop, I saw lots and lots of whipped tallow products and I didn't get it. I didn't like whipped tallow, why was it so popular? Why were so many people selling it? When I discovered that the profitability of whipped tallow is a lot higher than say that of an unwhipped balm, salve or lotion, I began to see why many companies went that route instead. The bottom line is unwhipped tallow products give you more for your money.
What's the difference between whipped tallow and what I make?
All the products I created are prayerfully and intentionally crafted using high quality Grass fed and Grass finished beef tallow source from U.S. Wellness meats. This company is known for the high-quality standards of their products as well as regenerative and ethical practices on the farms they source from. You may wonder why I don't source tallow locally, while that would be ideal, most local farms unfortunately don't meet the standards that I desire in the creation of a 100% non-toxic skin care product.
I use a process of immersion to incorporate all of the ingredients in our lotions and a simple hand mixing of salves and balms. Yes, this gives me less product than say a whipping would because immersion does not incorporate air into the mixture. The products that I sell are extremely nourishing and long lasting. This is because they are not full of air, a little goes along way. The jar of product will last you a long time. (I know it's not the best business model, but it is honest business)
Another aspect that sets my products apart is the fact that we don't use essential oils in most of what is sold. I will say I have one face and body cream product that is lightly scented using Lemon and Orange essential oil for those needing some scent. But I am not scenting or making products for people to smell good, I make products mainly for functionality. This is why I use whole herbs and herbal infusions in what I make, so that you get the benefits of the whole plant. I also add an Organic and Pure Vitamin E oil derived solely from Sunflower as a preservative. This gives the already long shelf life of tallow-based products a boost.
This blog was not intended to bash those who make Whipped tallow products but rather give those who come to my shop looking for this product but don't find it more clarity on why it's not here if it is so popular as well as what sets our products apart from others on the market.
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