Why Beef Tallow is our Main Ingredient

Yes, we put beef fat in our skincare.
No, we’re not joking.
Yes, it works, and your skin is going to love it.

Welcome to Bear Skincare. We’re a South African brand rooted in one radical idea: Skincare should be made from ingredients your skin actually understands.

That’s why we’ve gone back to one of the most time-tested, skin-loving ingredients on the planet: beef tallow.

What Is Beef Tallow?

Beef tallow is rendered fat from the suet of cattle. When sourced from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows, it’s a nutritional powerhouse, rich in vitamins A, D, E, and K, and packed with fatty acids that deeply nourish the skin.

But this isn’t just another trendy oil. Tallow has been used for centuries in skincare, healing, and protection, long before the beauty industry convinced us we needed 15-step routines, synthetic serums, and creams filled with lab-made emulsifiers and stabilisers.

Unlike most oils, beef tallow closely resembles the structure of our skin’s own sebum, which means it’s easily absorbed and readily utilised by the skin. This results in deep hydration and improved skin barrier function, without clogging pores or disrupting your microbiome.

What Went Wrong With Skincare?

At some point, we swapped ancestral knowledge for artificial complexity. Skincare became sterile, heavily fragranced, and filled with cheap fillers. We were told to strip, exfoliate, and smother our skin daily with “miracle” products that did more harm than good.

Sound familiar?

The modern beauty aisle is a overflowing with synthetic skincare products. While not every product is horrible, many are made to feel good short-term, not to truly support your skin’s long-term health.

Most commercial products contain:

Water as the first ingredient (which requires heavy preservatives)
Artificial fragrance (a top skin irritant)
Petroleum-based derivatives
Harsh emulsifiers and stabilisers

Why We Chose Tallow

We didn’t choose beef tallow because it’s trendy. We chose it because it works, and because it connects us back to something real. It’s a return to the kind of skincare our ancestors relied on: simple, whole, and uncompromising.

Here’s why tallow deserves a spot in your skincare ritual:

It mimics human skin oils: Tallow’s lipid profile is almost identical to our own, meaning it soaks in effortlessly and supports your skin's natural barrier.
It’s naturally vitamin-rich: Especially when grass-fed, tallow is loaded with vitamins A, D, E, and K2, each playing a role in skin regeneration and healing.
It’s non-comedogenic: Unlike coconut oil or heavy creams, tallow won’t clog pores. It calms irritation, supports acne-prone skin, and soothes inflammation.
It’s incredibly stable: Unlike plant oils that oxidise easily, tallow is shelf-stable and doesn’t require preservatives or additives.
It’s 100% natural: No chemicals. No synthetics. No greenwashing.

Pair all of that with African botanicals like marula, baobab, mafura, and Kalahari melon seed oil, and you’ve got a product that’s deeply rooted in nature, powered by tradition, and tailored for real skin in real climates.

Back to Basics.

At Bear Skincare, we don’t just make tallow balms, we render our own tallow by hand, in small batches, from South African grass-fed beef. We source our oils locally, create without preservatives, and keep our ingredient lists short, intentional, and transparent.

Skincare doesn’t need to be complicated to be effective.