Taylor's Super Cool Tallow Skin Lotion Recipe

I had a thousand different fantastic experiences and memories attending Washington State University, ranging from great resume-building events to scholastic opportunities that I didn’t even know existed. However, hands down, the two best things that I left college with are a newfound confidence in myself through self-growth and the friends that I met there and have stayed in touch with. Excitingly, one of the friends that I have stayed in touch with is a DIY pro and agreed to make a step-by-step write-up of how she made tallow from my family's cattle into her own skin lotion! Below are the steps and notes that my friend Taylor put together to help you all try it out if you would like!

Tallow is an amazing medium used for thousands of years for skin care, household wax, cooking, and more. I use it as a heavy moisturizer, especially in the wintertime when nothing seems to fix my dry, chapped skin. Growing up with extremely sensitive skin, I couldn't find a lotion that didn't break my skin out with horrible rashes. Had I known about tallow years ago, I could have saved myself so much time and pain by using this simple lotion.

One of the best ways to render tallow is called “dry rendering” which is when you cook down tallow without the use of water.

The reason behind dry rendering is that water movement in food is the main contributor to food spoiling and bacterial growth. If you use water in tallow, you need to make sure it's all cooked/cured out before it's “shelf-stable.” Dry rendering gives beginners one less thing to worry about since they do no need to ensure all the water is cooked out, since it was never used! Of course, try the method that works best for you; a lot of people have a lot of luck with wet rendering.

Steps to Rendering Tallow:

Ingredients needed to make face cream:

• Fresh Palouse River Beef fat/tallow

• Arrowroot powder

Tools needed:

1. Cutting board

2. Knife

3. Crockpot, Instant Pot or Stove top

4. Measuring spoons

5. Mixer

Steps

1. Trim your tallow, to remove as much leftover meat as possible. This will help the rendering. Then, cut all the tallow into 1-inch cubes

   • Not all tallow is uniform so cutting it all into perfect cubes may not be feasible, which is totally fine just be as close as you can.

2. Add your tallow cubes to the pot. Using a crockpot, Instant Pot, or stovetop put it on the lowest heat. Using a low-and-slow method, you will avoid burning the tallow.

   • When I cook mine down on the stove, I do not put a lid on it. This just allows me to have eyes on it at all times.

   • For my batch I used an Instant Pot to slow cook. I left it for five hours, checking on it every couple of hours, stirring it when I checked on it.

3. Once the majority of the tallow is liquid, remove the large chunks and allow it to cool in the pot.

4. Once it cooled solid, take the tallow out of the pot trying to remove it in the largest chunks possible. Once you have it out, flip the bar over and inspect the bottom.

   • The bottom of the solid tallow is where the majority of the “imperfections” will congregate. Using a knife or spoon remove these small chunks of meat/muscle and throw them away.

   • Pitting, brown spots, and little flecks on the bottom are all indications of imperfections and should be removed.

5. Cut the tallow back up into uniform pieces and put it back on the heat. Once it has melted back to a liquid, turn the heat off so that it returns to a solid, and repeat step 4 to continue removing any imperfections left in the tallow

   • I do this three or four times until the tallow comes out without any imperfections. The color of the tallow should be bright white.

6. Once your render comes out clean and without pit marks/brown spots, remove the tallow and place it into a bowl to whisk it in.

   • I use a KitchenAid, but a hand mixer works just as well. The tallow needs to be cooled for this step. I try to do this right after I check it for imperfections and deem it rendered enough.

7. Slowly whip the tallow until it is smooth, adding your arrowroot powder, one teaspoon at a time, to remove the greasy feeling.

8. Once you have it to the consistency that you want, stop mixing and pipe it into a container for storage. I like to store my face tallow in the refrigerator just to ensure that it stays fresh and stable.

While this simple recipe is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with tallow, it is a great starting point. If you have crafty recipes that call for beeswax, olive oil, essential oils, or other variants, tallow can be used as a substitute creating a great way to reduce food waste.