Translated material
Beef fat on the face
Beef tallow is commonly used in cooking, but young people in developed countries prefer to smear it on their faces. It's all about a new TikTok trend: now influencers are making cream at home. "Cold" reveals how a homemade skincare product has won hearts and whether it's actually good for your skin.
TikTok people love homemade cream based on “natural ingredients.” Dermatologists warn it could be dangerous
“People all over the world took fat from animals, not almonds. And they mixed it with local herbs to make medicine,” Milo Meldrum, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from New Zealand who sells homemade creams and writes about it on Instagram, told reporters back in the summer of 2024. “This practice is as old as the world, and I am very happy to popularize it.”
Over the past six months, more and more young people around the world are discovering the properties of beef fat, and Meldrum does not have time to prepare the cream - new batches are immediately sold out. In December 2024, she earned 30 thousand dollars (more than three million rubles ) from this. And in January, she hired new employees and began delivering goods to Australia.
Help Kholod tell human stories
We put people at the center of our journalism and talk about people who face injustice, but do not lose spirit and continue to fight for their rights and freedoms. To continue covering people's stories, we need the support of readers - thanks to your donations, we continue to work, despite government pressure.
- Foreign card
- Map of the Russian Federation ↘︎
- Patreon ↘︎
- Translation
- Crypt
Monthly
One-time
5 €
- 10 €
- 20 €
30 €
5 €
- 10 €
- 20 €
- Other
- Bank of the Russian Federation
- Foreign bank
Card number:
5536 9138 6472 8742
Copied!
Recipient:
Taisiya Bekbulatova
Copied!
Recipient:
Projektas Šaltis
Copied!
Account number:
LT613500010016198323
Copied!
SWIFT BIC:
EVIULT2VXXX
Copied!
Bank:
Lietuvos Bankas (Bank of Lithuania)
Copied!
Comment - purpose of payment:
Parama įstatymų numatytais tikslais (be konkretaus tikslo)
Copied!
We ask you to provide a comment so that we can accurately determine the receipt of funds. The phrase is translated as follows: “Support for statutory purposes (without a specific purpose).”
Amount: €
Donate
By making a donation, you accept the privacy policy
Beef fat has gained popularity due to the beneficial properties attributed to it. According to supporters of the new trend, such creams contain antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and vitamins A, D, E and K. Beef fat is supposedly similar to the natural lipids of human skin, and therefore moisturizes , creates a protective barrier and can prevent skin diseases.
@livvcreates I'll be using beef tallow as moisturizer for the rest of my lifeee‼️ GET THIS before it sells out!!! #beeftallowskincare #beeftallow #skincare #acneproneskin #glassskin #glowingskin #TikTokShop ♬ Love Therapy - Glow City
“I will use beef tallow as a cream for the rest of my life.”
Cooked for 24 hours
The technology for preparing the cream is not easy: it takes several days to prepare. Not any fat is suitable, but only the one that covers the internal organs of the cow - preferably the kidneys . Tess Fouquette, a 20-year-old TikTok user from Minnesota, posted her recipe and her videos received several million views.
Fouquette bought two kilograms of suet from a butcher's shop. I put it in a slow cooker, salted it heavily, added a liter of water and cooked over low heat for 24 hours. “My husband is so cute that he can stand the smells coming from the kitchen,” she wrote under the video. Once the fat had melted, Fouquette passed the resulting golden liquid through a sieve to remove impurities and left it in the refrigerator overnight.
@tessfouquette My husband is a sweetheart for putting up with the smells coming from my kitchen😭 #tallow #renderingtallow #homemade #homemaking #homestead #beef #homesteading ♬ original sound — 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Cooking process
From fat to cream
The next day, Fouquette took the hardened, milky fat out of the refrigerator and scraped off the sediment with a knife. Then she melted the mixture again, and then strained it again - through a sieve and a paper napkin (Fouquette sometimes uses coffee filters instead of a napkin). After that, she put the lard in the refrigerator, and on the third day she repeated it all over again.
On the fourth day, Fouquette had to render the lard again—even though the solidified mass was, she said, “super clean” and the color “looked good”: the lard was still slightly soft in the middle, so the lard went into the refrigerator for another night.
The next morning, Fouquette melted the fat for the fifth time and strained it through a napkin. She added jojoba oil and frankincense essential oil to the future cream - according to her, it is good for the skin and also smells pleasant. When the fat once again froze in the refrigerator, Fouquette took it out and beat it with a blender. She packaged the cream, similar to whipped cream, in glass jars using a pastry bag. Fouquette plans to sell some of them.
@tessfouquette DAY 5: Whipped Tallow Tutorial!🐮🐄 thank y'all for all the support💘🥲 *The ratio I use: 4 cups fully rendered tallow (melted) to 1 cup Jojoba oil* #homemaking #homestead #tallow #renderingtallow # whippedtallow #tallowtok #beef #realfood #homesteading ♬ original sound — tessfouquette
Ready cream
Traditional family
The trend for beef fat creams was set by 23-year-old Nara Smith, a model and “traditional wife.” Videos of her preparing complex dishes in evening dresses receive tens of millions of views.
“Traditional wives”, or tradwife (short for traditional wife) is another trend on social networks. Women who take a conservative approach to relationships imitate American housewives of the 1950s and make TikToks and Reels about it. In the video, they are doing their hair, makeup and in beautiful outfits, cooking, cleaning, taking care of their children and husband.
Zoomers "reinvented" patriarchy 22-year-old TikTok star and mother of three children Nara Smith became famous thanks to her cooking videos. She is accused of promoting “traditional values” Society 10 minute read
In May 2024, Smith posted a TikTok of her husband, 26-year-old actor and model Lucky Blue Smith, making his own cream. “This morning my husband ran out of moisturizer that he usually used and didn’t like enough to buy again. So he decided to make it himself,” Nara said in a pleasant voice-over. Smith slowly stirred the melting fat and beeswax with a wooden spoon. He added jojoba oil, squalene (an unsaturated hydrocarbon), glycerin, hyaluronic acid and a few drops of vitamin E to the finished liquid, and then carefully transferred the mass into a glass jar. That evening the couple tried the cream. The video was watched by 29.9 million people.
The idea was picked up by other influencers - on TikTok, videos using the hashtag #beeftallow (beef fat) received almost 700 million views. However, not everyone prepares the cream for themselves: enterprising people have found how to make money on its popularity.
"Light lavender scent"
46-year-old Mary Heffernan from California has been selling premium beef from her own Five Marys ranch for 10 years - almost 350 thousand people follow her on Instagram. She used to throw away beef fat - and only in January 2024 did she realize that she could make more money from it than from other parts of the animal.
“Thank you to TikTok and other social networks for making fat fashionable,” Heffernan told The New York Times. “When we posted it on our website, we raised $42,000 overnight. Everything was sold out."
Now Heffernan also sells fat cream. A 30-milliliter jar of airy and loose cream can be purchased for $16 (about 1,600 rubles ). The description says that beef fat is a “miracle anti-aging agent.” It supposedly stimulates collagen production and speeds up skin cell turnover, and is “great” for teenagers too. Those who have tried applying such creams to their skin have complained of an unpleasant odor and high greasy content - but Heffernan claims that her product has only a “light lavender scent” and has a silk-like texture.
According to Heffernan, the profit from the cream is so great that her husband Brian jokes that there is no point in selling beef anymore. According to prices on the ranch's website, the average jar of custard is nearly three times more expensive, per gram, than a medium-sized filet mignon used in gourmet dishes.
Opposite effect
But dermatologists are not happy about the new trend. Experts note that face creams should contain more linoleic acid than oleic acid. Beef fat, on the contrary, contains more than 40% oleic acid, while linoleic acid is only 3%.
Due to excess oleic acid, such a cream can destroy the skin barrier, which leads to dryness, irritation and reduced protection from harmful substances from the environment. Other problems include clogged pores and acne.
Daisy Jones, a journalist for the British edition of Vogue, conducted an experiment and used the trending cream for a week. “On the fifth day, I started getting rashes on my cheeks, chin and temples,” Jones said . “My skin, which was generally clear with just a little acne scarring, has now started to break out again.”
Jones, however, decided not to give up and continued the experiment. The next day, the skin condition worsened even more. “I developed comedones that I hadn’t had since I was 20, and my cheeks actually started to become inflamed,” Jones said . “Whenever I tried to treat one pimple, a new one would appear, like that horrible game where you have to whack a mole with a hammer.” When the experiment ended, Jones was “relieved” to throw the cream in the trash.
@thrivingwitheczema Replying to @Malayka💫 this cream has been repairing my skin barrier and im so happy🥰 #beeftallow #eczema #eczemahealing #beeftallowfacecream #recipe #beeftallowskincare ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono - moshimo sound design
“This cream has restored my skin barrier and I am so happy.”
Some users claim that beef fat is good for moisturizing skin with eczema. This may be true, but there is a caveat: “It may provide some hydration to the skin. It may even restore it if your protective layer is slightly damaged. But if you have a disorder, I would be more wary of foreign bacteria coming into contact with your skin,” explains dermatologist Joanna Fleming.
Such creams are not prepared in a sterile environment, which increases the risk of infections. In addition, beef fat, unlike conventional cosmetics, is not designed for long-term storage.
In addition, the composition of the creams differs from what proponents of their use say. Fat contains only fatty acids, vitamins D and E, but does not contain vitamin A. There is also not enough vitamin K in fat - it is contained, but in an amount of 0.02 milligrams, which is 200 times less than, for example, in avocados.
“Beef fat lipids have very little in common with human skin lipids,” says dermatologist Tiina Meder. “It just doesn’t make sense to put beef tallow on your skin when there are so many alternatives.”
In order not to miss the main materials of “Cold”, subscribe to our social networks!
Kholod needs your help to continue working
We continue to work, resisting bans and repression, to preserve independent journalism for the Russia of the future. How do we do this? Thanks to the support of thousands of caring people.
What do we dream about?
About the simple and at the same time complex - the opportunity to work further. Life will change beyond recognition many times, but we, the editors of Kholod, want to stay close to you, our readers.
Support Kholod today so we can continue to do what we do best - be independent media. Thank you!
Author: Daria Voloshina Cover photo @livvcreates / Tiktok