Is Tallow Skincare Cruelty-Free? An Honest Answer

This is a fair question and we'd rather answer it directly than avoid it: tallow is rendered animal fat, so tallow-based skincare is not vegan, full stop. "Cruelty-free" is a more specific question with a more nuanced honest answer, and the two terms get conflated more often than they should.

Vegan and Cruelty-Free Aren't the Same Question

Vegan means no animal-derived ingredients, period — by that definition, nothing containing tallow qualifies, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. Cruelty-free is a different claim entirely: it's about whether a product (or the animals involved in it) were subjected to unnecessary harm, most commonly used to mean "not tested on animals." A product can be cruelty-free by that definition without being vegan, the same way leather from a byproduct source is a different ethical conversation than fur from an animal raised solely for its pelt. That distinction matters here specifically: our tallow comes from cattle raised for beef, with the fat as a byproduct of that process rather than animals raised or farmed for the fat itself. Whether that satisfies your own definition of cruelty-free is a personal line each shopper draws differently, and we'd rather lay out exactly where the ingredient comes from than let a vague label answer that question for you.

Where Our Tallow Actually Comes From

Our tallow is sourced from 550 Wagyu in Lafayette, Indiana — cattle raised primarily for beef, the way beef cattle are raised across the country. The fat we use is a byproduct of that industry, not the reason those animals exist. We didn't create demand for cattle to be raised specifically for their fat; we're using part of an animal that would otherwise often go to waste from a supply chain that exists independent of our skincare line. That's a meaningfully different position than, say, an ingredient sourced specifically because an animal was harmed to produce it. You can read more about the sourcing itself in where our tallow comes from.

On testing specifically: nothing we make is tested on animals. We're a small, handmade operation — every formula gets developed and tested by us and by real customers, not in a lab, and never on an animal. We don't currently hold a third-party cruelty-free certification (Leaping Bunny and similar programs involve a formal application and audit process we haven't gone through), so we'd rather tell you plainly what our actual practice is than imply a certification we don't have.

If You're Looking for a Fully Animal-Free Option

We're not going to tell you tallow is right for everyone, and if avoiding all animal-derived ingredients matters to you, that's a completely legitimate line to draw. A few things worth knowing: our Sugar Scrub and Silky Body Schmear don't use tallow in their formulas — though we'd still encourage you to check the full ingredient list on any product page yourself before buying, since ingredients occasionally include things like silk protein or beeswax that aren't tallow but also aren't vegan by a strict definition. We list full ingredients on every product page specifically so you can make that call yourself instead of taking a blanket claim on faith.

Why We Use Tallow At All

Setting the ethics question aside for a moment: the reason tallow shows up across so much of what we make is that its fatty acid profile — oleic, palmitic, and stearic acid — genuinely mirrors human sebum more closely than plant oils do, which is the whole mechanism behind why it works the way it does on skin. That's a real, chemistry-based reason, not a trend we jumped on. Plenty of plant-based alternatives are genuinely good too — we use several plant oils and butters alongside tallow in our own formulas. It's not that one is universally better; it's that they're different tools, and which one is right depends on what matters most to you, whether that's skin compatibility, ingredient sourcing, or both.