My Skin Was Basically a Lizard. Then I Tried This Pear Tallow Balm.

My face felt like it was made of paper. You know that feeling? It’s winter, right, and the air in my apartment is so dry from the heat running all the time. I was sitting there, and I could literally feel my cheeks tightening up if I smiled. It was a weird, pulling sensation. Like my skin was two sizes too small. My knuckles were starting to crack, too. Just classic winter skin stuff. I was scrolling on my phone, probably looking at boots I can’t afford, and I kept rubbing my hands together. They felt like sandpaper. This whole winter skincare situation was getting old.

I’d tried a lot of stuff before. The thick, goopy creams in a tub that just sat on top of my skin and made my pillowcase gross. The fancy serums that cost more than my electric bill and did… nothing, honestly. I’d even tried that slugging thing with petroleum jelly. Woke up feeling like I’d slept in a chip bag. It was all just a band-aid. My skin would drink it up and be thirsty again in an hour. I was about to just give up and accept my lizard-person fate until spring.

Anyway. I kept seeing people talk about tallow balm. Beef fat. For your face. I mean, come on. It sounded like something my great-grandmother would have used, or like a weird TikTok trend. But I was desperate, and my lizard skin was losing the battle. I found this little Etsy shop that makes it, and they had a pear-scented one. That seemed less intimidating than “plain” beef fat, I guess. So I ordered the Whipped Tallow Balm in Pear. Figured if nothing else, it’d be a story.

Why I Even Tried Beef Tallow on My Face

Okay, so the whole idea is kind of out there. I get it. I was skeptical too. But when I got the jar, I read the little card that came with it. This stuff is made from grass-fed beef suet, whipped up in France. The big thing it said was that it mimics human skin sebum. Our own oil. So instead of just coating your skin with some weird synthetic thing, it’s supposed to sink in because it’s similar to what our skin already knows. That made a weird kind of sense to me. Like, if your skin is dry, give it oil it recognizes. Not some alien lab gel.

It’s also supposed to be good for super dry spots, chapped lips, eczema, all that. My skin isn’t super sensitive, but it gets angry and red when it’s dry. I was willing to try anything. The “for dry winter skin” search is what led me down this rabbit hole in the first place.

First impression when the jar arrived? It’s small. Cute, though. Solid little glass jar. I opened it up and poked it. The texture was… interesting. Not what I expected. It’s whipped, so it’s super light and airy, like cool buttercream frosting but firmer. You scoop a tiny bit and it warms up instantly on your fingers. It doesn’t feel greasy. More like… waxy? But in a good way. I don’t know how to describe it. It just melts.

And the smell. Okay, this is where I was worried. I thought “pear” might be some fake, cloying candy smell. It’s not. It’s just a soft, fresh, fruity smell. Not sweet like candy, just like a real pear. It’s gentle. Doesn’t smell like beef at all, which was my biggest fear. It just smells clean and a little bit like fruit. Really subtle. You have to put your nose right in the jar to get it.

What This Pear Tallow Balm Actually Does

So my first night, I washed my face like normal. My skin was tight and squeaky clean, which I now know is bad, but whatever. I took a tiny scoop, maybe half the size of a pea. Rubbed it between my fingers to warm it up and just patted it all over my face. I braced for grease.

But get this—it soaked in. Like, really fast. Within a minute or two, my skin just felt… calm. Not shiny. Not sticky. Not like I had a mask on. It just felt like my skin, but hydrated. The tight papery feeling was gone. Poof. I kept touching my face, which you’re not supposed to do, but I was shocked. It felt soft. Not “product” soft. Just normal-people skin soft.

I started using it every night. Sometimes in the morning too if I was staying in. After about a week, I noticed my foundation wasn’t clinging to dry patches around my nose anymore. That was huge. My knuckles stopped cracking. I started using it on my elbows, which are always a disaster zone. They haven’t been this smooth since… I don’t know when. Maybe high school?

Here’s the unrelated observation: my cat tried to lick my hand after I put it on one morning. He’s weird. I had to shoo him away. Probably the fat content. Anyway.

The real test was a super windy, cold day. I had to walk a bunch of errands, and my face usually gets wrecked by that. Windburn, redness, the whole deal. I put a thin layer of the tallow balm on before I went out as a barrier. My skin was totally fine when I got home. No redness. No tightness. Just… fine. That’s when I was like, okay, this isn’t a fluke. This tallow balm for winter is actually doing the thing.

My Skin After a Few Weeks of This Stuff

I’m probably a month in now. I’m not a skincare guru, I don’t have a ten-step routine. I wash my face and I use this. That’s it. My skin just feels balanced. It doesn’t get that oily midday shine anymore, which is weird because I’m putting fat on it. I guess the “mimics sebum” thing is real—it sort of tells my skin to chill out on producing so much oil because it’s already got what it needs.

I don’t want to say it’s “life-changing” because that’s dramatic. But for my dry winter skin? It’s solved a problem I’ve had every single year. I’m not constantly reapplying lotion. I’m not buying five different products hoping one works. I just have this one little jar on my nightstand. I’m even using it on my cuticles. It’s just… simple. It works.

I told my mom about it. She has eczema on her hands sometimes. She was skeptical too (“You put what on your face?”) but I gave her my jar to try and she texted me two days later asking for the Etsy link. So. Yeah.

Would I Buy This Tallow Balm Again?

Yeah, I already did. I’m on my second jar. The first one lasted me a good while because you need so little. I got mine from this Etsy shop called [Shop Name - you should insert the actual shop name here if you know it, or say "this little French shop on Etsy"]. They just make the stuff and ship it. No fancy packaging, no crazy claims. It’s just a solid product.

Look, if you’re curious about tallow skincare, especially for seasonal skin struggles, I’d say it’s worth a shot. If your skin is freaking out from the cold, dry air, this might calm it down. It’s not magic. It’s just a really good, simple moisturizer that happens to be made from beef fat. I was weirded out too. Now I’m just a person with not-lizard skin in January. That’s a win.

Anyway. My skin’s happy, I’m happy. That’s all I wanted.

Quick Questions I Get Asked

Is beef tallow good for your face? Yeah, surprisingly. The science-y reason is that it’s really similar to the oils our own skin makes. So it absorbs deep instead of sitting on top. It’s like giving your skin something it already knows how to use.

Does tallow balm clog pores? Hasn’t for me. And I can get clogged pores. Because it absorbs and mimics sebum, it doesn’t just block everything up. It feels more like it balances things out. My skin is actually less congested now.

What does the pear tallow balm smell like? Just like a fresh, real pear. Not artificial or super sweet. It’s light and clean. You can barely smell it once it’s on your skin. It’s nice.