Will Tallow Clog Your Pores?

Search “is tallow comedogenic” and you’ll find eight or nine tallow companies answering it, and every one of them says no. I sell tallow lotion, so read this knowing I have the same stake they do. I’ve left the caveats in.

What the number is worth

Beef tallow sits at about 2 on the comedogenic scale, which runs from 0 to 5. Zero is considered non-clogging and five is considered highly clogging, so 2 is at the low end.

The number is real, but it says less than it seems to.

The scale rates single ingredients on their own. Nobody rates finished products, because a finished product is a mix, and how a mix behaves depends on what else is in it, how much you use, and whose skin it’s going on.

So “tallow is a 2” is true, and it tells you almost nothing about whether a particular jar will suit you. It’s where you start.

Why tallow suits skin

The stronger case for tallow has nothing to do with the chart.

Your skin makes its own oil, called sebum, and sebum is mostly a mix of fatty acids. Tallow is also mostly a mix of fatty acids, and the proportions are close. Oleic, palmitic and stearic in both, in roughly similar shares.

That’s why tallow tends to soak in instead of sitting on the surface, and why it feels less like a coating than a plant butter of the same richness does.

It isn’t magic and it doesn’t treat anything. It’s a fat that happens to look a lot like the fat you already make.

If you want an opinion from somebody with nothing to sell, dermatology practices have started writing about this as more people ask. Franklin Dermatology has a plain summary that’s neither a sales page nor a takedown.

The rest of the jar matters more than the tallow

Most of the other pages skip this part, so this is what’s in mine and how each piece behaves.

Grass fed tallow, rendered twice. Most of the jar. Covered above.

Organic jojoba oil. Technically a liquid wax, not an oil, and it’s closer to human sebum than almost anything else you can buy. It’s light and soaks in fast.

Organic castor oil. The heavy one. Castor is thick and occlusive, which means it forms a barrier and holds moisture in. That barrier is why the lotion works on cracked heels and the backs of hands. It’s also the ingredient most likely to feel like too much on an oily face.

A little of our own beeswax. It firms the lotion up and adds to the barrier. The 2 oz tube has more of it than the 4 oz jar, because a tube needs the lotion to hold its shape.

Organic arrowroot powder, added last. This is the one people ask about. It’s in there so the castor oil doesn’t leave a greasy finish. It takes up some of the surface oil and changes how the lotion sits once it’s on.

Organic vanilla bean and calendula, both steeped into the tallow rather than added as oils.

No essential oils. Not one. I used to make scented tallow and stopped, and the reasons are in Why I Stopped Making Scented Tallow.

So the tallow is the mild part, the castor is the rich part, and the arrowroot pulls back against it. I put it together that way on purpose, and why each thing is in there is in What’s Actually in the Lotion.

What actually blocks a pore

A pore blocks when dead skin cells and your skin’s own oil build up in it and form a plug. The bacteria that live on everybody’s skin then have somewhere warm and sealed to multiply, and that’s what turns a blocked pore into an inflamed one.

The oil in that description is your own. What you put on top adds to it. It isn’t the cause.

So an ingredient rating answers a narrower question than people think. It asks whether one substance, on its own, tends to help that plug form. It can’t tell you how much you used, whether you washed your face first, whether you slept in makeup, or what your skin was already doing.

Three things follow from that.

How much you use matters more than the rating. A thin layer of a rich balm behaves very differently from a thick one. Most people who decide tallow broke them out used far too much of it.

Clean skin first. Any occlusive product seals in whatever’s already there. Putting a barrier over a day of dust and old makeup is worse than the barrier itself.

Give it time, then judge. Skin takes a couple of weeks to settle into any new routine. A few spots in week one aren’t a verdict.

How to patch test

Everybody says patch test and almost nobody says how.

Pick a spot that’s like the place you actually want to use it, and somewhere you’ll notice. The jaw or the side of the neck beats the inside of a wrist, because wrist skin isn’t face skin and will put up with things a face won’t.

Use a small amount, once a day, for at least five days. One application tells you about irritation. It tells you nothing about clogging, because a plug takes longer than that to form.

Watch for two different things. Redness, itching or stinging within a day is a reaction, and you should stop. Small bumps showing up after a week or so in the spot you’ve been using it is congestion, which is what the comedogenic question is really about.

Change one thing at a time. If you start a new balm, a new cleanser and a new serum in the same week, whatever happens next tells you nothing.

Who it tends to suit

Dry skin. Anything cracked, chapped or weather beaten. Hands that are in and out of water all day. The patches that come back every winter no matter what you put on them.

Sensitive skin that reacts to fragrance, because there isn’t any in it. That’s the reason I stopped scenting it.

Normal skin that wants one thing instead of seven.

The uses I hear about most are the face, over or under makeup, the whole body after a shower, a baby’s bottom, the backs of hands, and cracked heels.

Who should go slowly

I’d rather lose a sale than have somebody buy a jar they don’t end up using.

If your skin is very oily, a rich balm on your face may be more than it needs. Try it on your hands first and see how you feel about the finish.

If you’re breaking out right now, go slowly. Patch test on your jaw for a few days before you put it across your whole face. Some people with acne prone skin do well on tallow and some don’t, and anyone who says they know which you’ll be is guessing.

If you’re looking for plant based skincare, this isn’t it and it never will be. It’s rendered beef fat.

And if you use too much, almost anyone’s skin will complain. This is a concentrated product. A pea sized amount covers a whole face. The most common mistake is treating it like drugstore lotion and using a fingerful.

How to try it

Take the 2 oz tube at $15 instead of the 4 oz jar at $25.

It’s the same lotion with a little more beeswax so it firms up in the tube, and it’s the cheap way to find out if your skin likes it before you commit to the jar. If it suits you, the jar is better value and easier to get a proper amount out of.

Warm it between your fingers first. It’s firm in the container and turns to oil the moment it touches skin, and people who scoop it out cold end up using far too much.

Put it on damp skin, straight out of the shower, if you want the most out of it. Fats do a better job sealing water in than they do on skin that’s already dried.

Give it two weeks before you decide. Skin adjusts to a change in routine and the first three days of anything aren’t a fair test.

Text me if you’re not sure which to start with. It’s local pickup in the Treasure Valley, nothing ships, and you pay by Venmo when you pick it up.