My Skin Was a Disaster. Then I Tried This Bourbon Vanilla Tallow Balm.

Look, my face was a mess. This was back in, I don't know, late November maybe. The kind of dry where you can feel your skin just… sitting there. Tight. Unhappy. Like it was mad at me for existing. I’d wake up and it felt like I’d slept in a room made of chalk. I was using that fancy La Mer cream my sister gave me for my birthday—the tiny jar that costs more than my car payment—and it did nothing. Zero. My skin drank it and asked for more, like a weird, expensive shot of water. So I’m scrolling on my phone one night, it’s like 11:30, and I see this thing about tallow balm. Beef fat. For your face. I laughed. Out loud. My cat looked at me. But my skin was so bad I was putting olive oil on it before bed, so. The bar was low.

I ordered the Bourbon Vanilla one from this little Etsy shop. It arrived in a plain box. I opened it up and just stared at the jar. Here we go.

How Beef Fat Ended Up on My Nightstand

Okay so the whole tallow thing. It sounds gross, right? I thought so. But then I read a bit while waiting for it to ship. It’s basically rendered fat from grass-fed cows. They whip it up. The idea is it’s super similar to the oils our own skin makes. So instead of sitting on top like a plastic wrap (looking at you, petroleum jelly), it sort of… gets in there. My brain went: “Huh. That kind of makes sense.” My other brain went: “You’re about to smear cow on your cheeks.”

I was desperate. I’d tried everything. That CeraVe stuff in the big tub everyone loves? Made my face feel like it was covered in film. The Ordinary’s “Buffet” serum? Felt like sticky water. I even bought that Drunk Elephant protini cream because an influencer said it was life-changing. Life-changingly expensive. It was fine. Just fine. For a hundred bucks, I wanted more than fine. I wanted my skin to not feel like the Sahara by 2 PM.

Anyway. The tallow balm showed up. I unscrewed the lid.

First Impressions of the Bourbon Vanilla Stuff

It didn’t look like beef fat. It looked like… whipped butter? Or really thick frosting. The smell hit me. Not beefy. At all. It smelled like vanilla. But not like a candle or cheap extract. Like, a real vanilla bean had a complicated cousin who drank bourbon. It was warm. Cozy. It smelled like a bakery at midnight, after everything’s been cleaned. Is that a thing? I don’t know. It just smelled good. Good in a way that made me less stressed about the whole cow-on-face plan.

The texture was weird. In a good way. I scooped a tiny bit—it’s firm in the jar—and rubbed it between my fingers. It melted immediately. Like, instantly. Into this silky oil. Not greasy. Just… rich. I put it on my cheeks, my forehead, this dry patch by my mouth that had been there since Halloween.

It soaked in. Fast. My skin felt… calm. For the first time in months, it didn’t feel tight. It felt like my skin, but hydrated. Not shiny. Not sticky. Just normal. I went to bed expecting to wake up a greaseball.

I woke up and my face was soft. Actually soft. The dry patch was quieter. Not gone, but less angry. I was shocked. Honestly.

What Happened After a Few Weeks of This

I kept using it. Morning and night. Just a tiny dab. The jar lasts forever. My skin just… stopped freaking out. The constant tightness went away. That desert feeling vanished. My foundation, which used to cling to every flake, actually looked okay. Not perfect, but okay. That’s a win.

Here’s the random tangent. Using this stuff made me think of my grandpa. He had this old tin of something he’d put on his hands in winter. Smelled like leather and pine. This tallow balm isn’t that, but it has that same vibe. Simple. Does one thing really well. No fancy marketing, just… works. We’ve made skincare so complicated. Fifteen steps, acids, retinols, peptides. Sometimes your skin just wants something it recognizes. Maybe that’s beef fat. Who knew.

My elbows were a disaster too. Like, sandpaper. I started putting the balm on them. Game changer. They’re smooth now. I’m not kidding. I got my mom a jar for her eczema on her hands. She texted me last week: “What is in this magic cow butter?” She loves it.

Would I Buy This Tallow Balm Again?

Yeah. I already did. I’m on my second jar. The first one lasted me almost three months, using it twice a day on my face and sometimes on my hands and elbows. For the price, it’s stupidly good value. That La Mer jar is sitting in my cabinet, collecting dust. A monument to my former desperation.

It’s not a miracle. I still get a pimple sometimes. My skin isn’t suddenly airbrushed. But it’s healthy. It’s comfortable. It doesn’t hurt. In the middle of winter, that feels like a miracle.

If you’re curious about natural skincare and you’ve tried all the usual stuff for dry skin with no luck, this might be worth a shot. I was super skeptical. Now I’m just… a person with a jar of tallow on the bathroom counter. My skin’s happy. I’m happy. That’s the whole story.

Quick Questions I Get Asked

Is beef tallow good for your face? Weirdly, yes. Because it’s so close to the sebum our skin already makes, it absorbs deep instead of sitting on top. It’s like giving your skin something it actually knows how to use.

Does tallow balm clog pores? Hasn’t for me. And I clog easy. It melts right in. My theory is because it’s so similar to our own oils, our skin knows what to do with it. It doesn’t just block everything up.

What does the Bourbon Vanilla tallow balm smell like? It smells like vanilla, but not the sweet, ice cream kind. It’s deeper. Warmer. Like vanilla extract mixed with a little bit of caramel and maybe a drop of whiskey. It’s comforting. Not overpowering at all. Just nice.

Anyway. If your skin is being difficult, maybe give the cow fat a chance. I got mine from a shop on Etsy, just searched for “whipped tallow balm.” Can’t hurt, right?