Why Tallow Is the Best Lip Balm Ingredient (And What Makes It Different)

You reach for your lip balm. Twenty minutes later, you're reaching for it again.

If you've ever wondered why your lips still feel dry despite having approximately 47 lip balms scattered between your purse, car, nightstand, and every coat pocket you own, you're not alone.

Lip balm seems simple. But what's actually inside your tube can vary wildly.

Our ingredient of choice? Beef tallow.

Yes, beef fat. Stay with us.

Tallow is an old-school skincare ingredient that's having a very modern comeback, thanks to its unique fatty acid profile, rich texture, and ability to condition and protect dry skin.

Here's why we think tallow makes one seriously good lip balm.

What Is Tallow?

Tallow is rendered animal fat, most commonly made from beef fat or suet.

While tallow skincare might feel like the latest wellness trend, using animal fats on skin is anything but new. Animal-derived fats have a long history of use in traditional skincare, soaps, salves, and balms.

Today, tallow is showing up again in everything from face creams to body butters to, you guessed it, tallow lip balm.

And there's a reason it works so well in a balm.

Tallow is rich in fatty acids including oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid. Fatty acids and other lipids play an important role in the skin's protective barrier, helping keep moisture in and the outside world out.

In other words: fat and skin get along pretty well.

Is Tallow Good for Lips?

We think so.

Your lips are particularly prone to dryness because the skin there is thin and doesn't have the same protective characteristics as much of the skin on the rest of your body.

A good lip balm helps compensate by creating a protective layer that reduces moisture loss while conditioning and softening the lips.

That's where tallow for lips gets interesting.

Tallow naturally contains several fatty acids commonly used in skincare:

Stearic acid helps give tallow its rich texture and acts as an emollient, helping skin feel softer and smoother.

Oleic acid contributes to tallow's spreadability and skin-conditioning properties.

Palmitic acid is another emollient fatty acid and is also naturally found among human skin lipids.

Does Tallow Match Your Skin's Natural Oils?

You've probably heard the claim that tallow is "identical to human sebum."

That's not quite true.

Human skin lipids are actually incredibly complex, containing fatty acids, triglycerides, wax esters, squalene, cholesterol, ceramides, and more.

What is true is that tallow contains several fatty acids that are also relevant to the lipid environment of human skin.

That's one of the reasons we're interested in tallow as a skincare ingredient: its fatty-acid composition makes it a rich, effective emollient without requiring a complicated ingredient list.

No need to give it magical powers. It's pretty impressive as-is.

What About Petroleum Jelly?

Let's clear something up: petroleum jelly isn't useless.

Petrolatum is an occlusive, which means it forms a protective layer over skin that slows water loss. That's why dermatologists have recommended petroleum jelly for dry skin and chapped lips for decades.

Our issue with petroleum isn't that it "doesn't work."

We just think using a petroleum-derived by-product of oil refining is...gross. Call us crazy, but we can't understand why anyone would be cool putting that on their lips.

Petrolatum is derived from petroleum, and when we created Butterface, we wanted to see if we could make an effective petroleum-free lip balm using a short list of ingredients we actually wanted on our lips.

So we built ours around tallow instead.

Different ingredient philosophy. Same very important goal: happy lips.

Is Tallow Better Than Petroleum Jelly for Lips?

There isn't enough research to scientifically declare one the winner.

Petrolatum is an extremely effective occlusive. Tallow is a lipid-rich emollient with a very different texture and fatty-acid composition.

For us, the choice comes down to what we want from a lip balm.

We wanted something rich and buttery that conditions the lips while helping protect them from moisture loss. We wanted a short ingredient list. And we wanted to do it without petroleum.

Tallow checked the boxes.

What About Seed Oils in Lip Balm?

The internet has gotten very dramatic about seed oils.

For the record, not all seed oils are created equal, and when this term is used as a blanket statement, it typically refers to highly refined industrial seed oils. The ones that people are trying to avoid in their food? Ya, we're also trying to avoid them in our lip balm.

That being said, different plant oils have very different fatty-acid profiles and properties, and some have evidence supporting their use in skincare. "Seed oil" isn't one single ingredient category where everything behaves the same way.

Butterface is seed oil-free because that was the formula we wanted to make, not because every seed oil on earth is secretly plotting against your lips.

Instead, we pair tallow with golden jojoba oil.

Fun fact: despite the name, jojoba oil isn't technically an oil in the traditional sense. It's primarily made up of liquid wax esters, which give it its silky texture and make it a popular emollient in skincare.

What's Actually in Butterface Tallow Lip Balm?

Very little. On purpose.

Our Peppermint Tallow Butter Lip Balm is made with:

100% grass-fed beef tallow for rich, buttery conditioning.

Organic beeswax to give the balm structure and help create a protective layer on the lips.

Organic golden jojoba oil for glide and softness.

Lanolin for an extra-rich, conditioning feel.

Non-GMO vitamin E to help protect the oils in the formula from oxidation.

Peppermint essential oil for that fresh peppermint finish.

That's it.

No petroleum. No seed oils. No giant ingredient list that requires a chemistry degree to decipher.

Just good fat for good faces.

Is Tallow Lip Balm Good for Dry Lips?

Tallow's rich, emollient texture makes it particularly well suited to a balm designed to soften and condition dry-feeling lips.

But there's an important distinction here.

Lip balms don't literally pour water into your skin. Their job is largely to help reduce moisture loss, soften the skin, and support the protective barrier on your lips.

And tallow isn't doing that job alone in Butterface.

We formulated it with beeswax, jojoba, and lanolin to create a balm that glides, conditions, and stays put.

Because sometimes the answer isn't another complicated "lip treatment."

It's just a really good lip balm.

Why We Put Tallow Lip Balm in a Paper Tube

If we were rethinking what goes inside a lip balm tube, it seemed a little silly not to rethink the tube itself.

Most conventional lip balm comes packaged in plastic.

Butterface doesn't.

Our plastic-free lip balm tubes are made from paper, so you get the convenience of a tube without another little piece of plastic hanging around for the next few hundred years.

Old-school ingredients. Less plastic. Very cute tube.

Everybody wins.

So, Is Tallow the Best Lip Balm Ingredient?

"Best" depends on what you're looking for.

If you want a petroleum-based occlusive that kind of just...sits there, petrolatum is very good at what it does.

But if you're looking for a petroleum-free, seed oil-free lip balm made with a short ingredient list and a rich animal fat that naturally contains skin-conditioning fatty acids?

We're extremely partial to tallow.

It's simple. It's effective. It's been around a lot longer than your 14-step skincare routine.

Sometimes skincare doesn't need to get more complicated.

Sometimes it needs to get a little more analog.

Ready to try tallow for your lips?

Try the Butterface Peppermint Tallow Butter Lip Balm and see what all the fuss is about.

Everything looks good, especially your face.