My Honest Take on Bourbon Vanilla Tallow Balm

Okay. So my skin is a disaster. Like, a real disaster. It’s winter, right? And the air is just… mean. It’s like 4:47 PM and already dark, and my face feels like it’s made of old paper. The kind that cracks if you look at it wrong. I have this skin type that’s somehow both greasy and flaky at the same time. It’s the worst of both worlds. My forehead gets shiny but my cheeks and jawline? They peel. They actually peel. I’ve tried everything. The expensive stuff in the frosted glass jars that smells like a spa and costs more than my electric bill. The drugstore lotions that come in giant pumps and just sit on top of my skin, feeling sticky. The “clean beauty” oils that made me break out in little bumps. Nothing worked. It was either a slick mess or it did absolutely nothing. My skin just drank it up and asked for more, still thirsty. Still cracking. Especially around my nose and mouth. It was embarrassing. I’d put on makeup and an hour later it would be clinging to every dry patch, highlighting the problem. I was just… over it.

Anyway. I kept seeing people talk about tallow balm. Beef tallow. For your face. I thought it was a joke at first. Like, beef fat? Really? I pictured something from a horror movie. Greasy. Smelly. Weird. But I was desperate. And my hands were so dry from washing them all the time that they were starting to split at the knuckles. It hurt to make a fist. So I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? I found this little Etsy shop—I’ll just say it, it’s Malti Skincare—that had a whipped tallow balm. They had a Bourbon Vanilla scent. I like vanilla. It sounded less intimidating than “unscented.” I ordered it. I didn’t expect much. Honestly, I expected to hate it.

How I Started Using Tallow on My Face

The jar showed up on a Tuesday. It was small. Cute, actually. I opened it sitting at my kitchen counter. The chair was cold. My phone was buzzing with a text I ignored. First thing: smell. I braced myself for lard. But it wasn’t that. It was like… vanilla. But not fake, sweet vanilla. Deeper. Warmer. Like vanilla extract your grandma would use, with that kind of sharp, almost boozy note at the very beginning. Bourbon vanilla, I guess. That’s what they called it. It was comforting. Not perfume-y. Just a simple, cozy smell. The texture was the real surprise. I was expecting a hard chunk of fat. It wasn’t that. It was whipped. Like really thick, airy butter. I scooped a tiny bit with my finger. It was solid but soft. Cold. I rubbed it between my fingers and it melted immediately. Like, instantly. Into this silky oil. Not greasy. Just… oil. My brain short-circuited for a second. This was not what I pictured.

I was still skeptical. But my hands were killing me. So I just rubbed what was on my fingers into the back of my left hand. The dry, cracked part. It soaked in. Fast. Like, within a minute it was gone. My skin just ate it. And it felt… calm. Not sticky. Not shiny. Just normal skin, but softer. Less tight. I stared at it. Huh.

So that night, I washed my face. Did my usual thing. And I took a pea-sized amount of the tallow balm. Rubbed it between my palms to warm it up. And just… patted it all over my face. I held my breath. Waiting for the grease-monster feeling. It never came. It felt rich going on, but then it sort of vanished. My face felt hydrated. Not moisturized in that surface-level way. It felt like the moisture went down into the skin, not just sat on top. I went to bed expecting to wake up a zit farm.

I didn’t.

Why Beef Tallow for Skin Actually Makes Sense

I woke up and my face wasn’t an oil slick. It also wasn’t tight and screaming for water. It was just… balanced. Weird. I had to look this up. Because it made no sense that beef fat worked better than the 50-dollar cream.

Turns out, it kind of does make sense. This is the part where I sound like I know things, but I just read a bunch of stuff online when I was confused. So, beef tallow—the good stuff, from grass-fed cows—is basically a fat. But its structure is really close to the oils our own skin makes. Our sebum. So when you put it on, your skin recognizes it. It doesn’t see it as a foreign, weird chemical it needs to fight or just let sit there. It absorbs it. Like, really absorbs it. It’s a natural moisturizer that works with your skin, not against it. It’s packed with vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are all supposed to be good for skin repair. The one I got is whipped, which just makes it easier to scoop and spread. And it’s made in France, which feels fancy but I don’t know if that matters.

All I know is the science-y explanation matched what I felt. It wasn’t just coating my dry skin. It was fixing the barrier. Or something. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person whose face hurt.

My Skin After a Few Weeks

Fast forward a few weeks. Maybe a month. I’ve been using the Bourbon Vanilla tallow balm every night. Sometimes in the morning if it’s really cold and windy. The change is stupid. My skin isn’t perfect. I still get the occasional weird spot. But the chronic dryness? Gone. The flaky patches around my mouth and nose? Completely smoothed out. My makeup goes on evenly now. It doesn’t cake up. My face just feels… resilient. Like it can handle the dry winter air and the heat blasting indoors without freaking out.

The best part, honestly, is my hands. I keep the jar by my sink. After I wash dishes or my hands, I dab a little on the back. The cracks healed. They’re just gone. My knuckles aren’t red and angry anymore. I used it on my elbows too, which were always rough. They’re smooth now. It’s kind of wild.

I told my sister about it. She has eczema on her arms. Really bad in the winter. I was like, “look, I know it sounds gross, but just try it.” She was skeptical too. But she tried it. She texted me last week: “what is this wizardry.” Her patches are calmer. Less red. Less itchy. She’s using it now.

So yeah. For my specific skin type—that combo, dehydrated-but-prone-to-clogging mess—this tallow balm has been a game-changer. It’s the best tallow for that deep, winter dryness that nothing else seems to touch. A natural moisturizer that doesn’t play games.

Would I Buy It Again?

I’m on my second jar. I ordered it before I even finished the first one because I got paranoid about running out. That’s my answer. I’ve spent more on a single fancy serum that did nothing. This little jar lasts forever because you need so little. A pea-size for your whole face.

It’s not magic. It’s not going to make you look 20 again. But if your skin is stressed, dry, irritated from the weather or just from life… it just helps. It feels like a reset. A really simple, no-nonsense reset. The bourbon vanilla scent is just a nice bonus. It’s not strong. It’s just a warm, comforting smell that fades quickly. It’s not like you walk around smelling like dessert.

Anyway. If you’re curious about tallow skincare, if your skin is being difficult and nothing else is working, this might be worth a shot. I got mine from Malti Skincare on Etsy. No one’s paying me to say this. I just found something that actually works for my stupid, difficult skin and I’m weirdly excited about it. My skin’s happy. I’m happy. That’s all I wanted.

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Quick Questions I Get Asked

Is beef tallow good for your face? Yeah, surprisingly. The good, grass-fed kind. It’s similar to the oils our skin already makes, so it absorbs really well and helps repair the skin barrier. It’s not greasy like you’d think. It just… works.

Does tallow balm clog pores? It hasn’t for me, and my skin clogs easily. Because it’s so similar to our sebum, it seems to balance things out instead of clogging them. It’s non-comedogenic. But everyone’s different, I guess. Patch test if you’re worried.

What does Bourbon Vanilla tallow balm smell like? It’s a warm, cozy vanilla. Not sugary or fake. It has a tiny bit of a deeper, almost sharp note to it at first—that’s the “bourbon” part—but it mellows out fast. It just smells nice and simple. Not perfumey.