What's Actually in the Lotion

The label on our jars is handwritten and lists five things, because that’s what fits. The full tallow lotion ingredients list is seven, and I can tell you why each one is in there. Here they are in the order they matter.

Grass-fed tallow, rendered twice

This is the base. Everything else on the list is there to help it.

The fat comes from grass-fed farms around the Treasure Valley. There isn’t one ranch behind it and I’m not going to make one up. “Sourced from one small family ranch” is on a lot of tallow labels, and it can’t be true on all of them.

I render it twice. Most makers do four or five. The material that carries the beef smell is also the most nutrient-dense part of the fat, so the passes that take out one take out the other. The long version, and what it costs me, is in Why We Render the Tallow Twice.

Organic vanilla bean

After the second render the tallow sits in organic vanilla beans. This is what the lotion smells like.

It’s an infusion, not something I add at the end. The beans sit in the fat and give it up slowly, so the strength moves a little from batch to batch, and I can’t make it stronger on request the way you can with a fragrance.

People say it smells like cake. On skin it fades in a few minutes.

Vanilla is doing this job because there are no essential oils in here. I used to make scented tallow and stopped. That’s in Why I Stopped Making Scented Tallow.

Calendula

Calendula gets steeped into the tallow too, separately from the vanilla. It’s in there for the plant, not the smell.

Calendula is the marigold that’s gone into salves for about as long as people have made salves, and it’s the most common plant in anything sold for irritated skin. I’m not going to tell you it treats anything, because I keep bees and I’m not a doctor. I put it in on purpose, and it’s one reason this jar ends up on eczema and diaper rash more than anywhere else.

Organic jojoba oil

Jojoba is a liquid wax, not really an oil, and that’s what makes it useful. It’s close to what skin already makes, so it absorbs instead of sitting on top.

It also doesn’t go rancid the way a seed oil does. That matters in a product with no preservative that’s going to live on a bathroom shelf for months.

In the lotion it thins the tallow enough to spread without warming it first.

Organic castor oil

Castor is what makes the lotion hold on. It’s thick, a little tacky, and it stays where you put it. That’s why it shows up in lip balms and in anything meant to last on hands that get washed.

On its own it would ruin the product. Castor oil is greasy in a way people notice, and greasy is a real problem in something you’re putting on your face before makeup. The last ingredient fixes that.

A little of our own beeswax

It’s our wax, off our own combs, and it’s the filtered grade. Anything going on skin gets the filtered grade.

Its job is firmness. Tallow on its own is soft and gets softer in a warm room. The wax gives the lotion enough body to still be a lotion in July.

The 2 oz tube has more wax in it than the 4 oz jar. A tube needs the contents to hold their shape and push up instead of slumping, so the tube gets extra wax and is otherwise the same recipe. If you want to know the difference between the two grades of wax for your own recipes, that’s Filtered or Unfiltered Beeswax?.

Organic arrowroot powder, added last

This one took me the longest to figure out.

Arrowroot is a fine white starch. Stirred in at the end, after everything else is combined, it takes the greasy finish off the castor oil without taking the castor oil out. You keep the hold and lose the slick.

The order matters. Added early it disappears into the melt and does almost nothing. Added at the end, into a mix that’s already cooling and thickening, it stays in the surface layer where the greasy feel actually is.

Tallow, vanilla bean, calendula, jojoba, castor, beeswax, arrowroot. Seven things. No essential oils, no fragrance, no preservative, no filler.

What’s not in it

No essential oils. No synthetic fragrance. No preservative. No color. No glycerin, no petrolatum, no dimethicone.

I list those because what’s in a product tells you less than people think. Most of the difference between a good tallow lotion and a padded one is what didn’t get added to make it cheaper or last longer on a shelf.

How to use it, and how much

Less than you think. That’s the correction I make most at the tent, and it’s why a 4 oz jar lasts most people months.

It’s a fat, and fat spreads. A pea-sized piece covers two hands. A pea-sized piece also covers a face. If it feels heavy, you used three times what you needed.

Warm it between your fingers first. It takes a second and turns a firm scoop into something that goes on thin.

Damp skin helps. Right after a bath or shower, towel used but skin not fully dry, is when it goes furthest and soaks in best. That’s true of any fat-based moisturizer and it’s very true of this one.

The uses people tell me about: face, over makeup or under it. Whole body after a bath. A baby’s bottom. The backs of your hands in February. Cracked heels, which want a thicker layer and a sock over the top overnight.

Keep it somewhere reasonable. It softens in a hot room and firms up in a cold one, and neither hurts it. A jar left in a car in July will pour instead of scoop when you find it.

Same seven things every batch

The recipe doesn’t change. Not by season, not by batch size, not because something was hard to get that month.

That’s why I wrote the list down. If it worked on your hands in winter, the jar you buy in August is the same lotion. If it didn’t work, it won’t work next time either, and I’d rather you knew that than bought a second one hoping.

The two sizes are the same mix with a little more wax in the tube. Both are here. If you’re trying to figure out whether you want this or a firmer balm, that’s in Whipped Tallow or Tallow Balm?.