The best tallow balms in Australia (and why none of them are sunscreen)

Search "best tallow balm Australia" and you will get lists written by the brands that sell them. This is a list written by a publication whose beat is sunscreen, which gives it one advantage: it can tell you the thing those lists avoid.

None of these products is a sunscreen, including the one that contains zinc oxide. Tallow balms are emollients, some of them good ones. If you are heading outside, put sunscreen on as well, and after what Australia's SPF testing scandal showed, make it a tested one.

With that said plainly, here is how the Australian field looks, judged against the criteria in our guide to choosing a tallow balm: what is in it, where the fat comes from, how it is scented, how it is packaged, and what it costs for what you get.

The honesty flag, again

The clinical evidence for rendered beef fat as a skincare ingredient is thin. The plausible story is barrier support: tallow shares fatty acids with human sebum, and people with dry or reactive skin often find it agreeable. That is a reasonable basis for trying one. It is not a basis for believing a balm will treat eczema, acne or anything else. Read the claims below in that light.

How we picked

We looked at products made or widely sold in Australia that lead with tallow, and we applied the same questions to each: Is tallow first or second on the ingredient list? Does the brand say where the fat comes from, and how it knows? Is it scented, and with what? Is it in a jar, a tube or a pump? And is the price pitched on the tallow being the hero?

We have grouped rather than ranked, because "best" depends on what you want a balm to do. Prices are the brands' own at the time of writing and change; check before you buy.

The pure balms

Tuttofare, Holy Grail Tallow Balm. The brand describes it as an all-over balm for face, neck and décolletage, made in Australia, and cites more than 2,500 five-star reviews. It is the product most people mean when they say "tallow balm" in this country. A traditional, firm balm: if you want the category in its classic form, start here.

Tallo Skin. Tallo's pitch is provenance. The brand says it personally knows its farmers and has walked the land its tallow comes from, which is exactly the kind of answer our guide says to look for when you ask "where does the fat come from, and how do you know?" Grass-finished, Australian, with both balms and creams in the range.

Tassie Tallow. Single-origin Tasmanian tallow is the whole proposition. If provenance matters to you more than texture or scent, this is the most specific sourcing claim in the group.

Cameron's, Original Tallow Balm. A Sydney-made blend of Australian grass-fed and grass-finished tallow with unrefined shea, organic olive oil, organic argan oil and raw beeswax, in a 60 g tin. More ingredients than a pure balm, each with a job; a good example of the "short list you can explain" principle.

The whipped and the budget

Aussie Tallow. Farm-made in Western Australia, and the brand to try if you want a whipped texture rather than a firm balm. Whipping does not change what the product is; it changes how it spreads and how much you use.

Eternal Elixir, Grass-Fed Tallow Balm. Tallow with organic beeswax, coconut oil and raw honey, at A$29.99, which makes it the value pick of the group. The brand also publishes its own comparison of Australian tallow balms, which is worth reading with the obvious caveat about who wrote it.

If you want a cream, not a balm

Koa Shore, Daily Defence. Koa Shore does not make a balm. It makes an emulsified moisturiser, tallow and water whipped into a light cream, with non-nano zinc oxide at 14% of the formula. Grass-fed tallow sourced from New Zealand, made in Ocean Grove, Victoria, fifteen ingredients listed on the label, 150 mL for A$44.99, in a flip-cap bottle rather than a jar. Two scents, Coconut & Lime and Strawberry, using nature-identical fragrance.

Three things to be clear about, because they matter.

First, the zinc. Zinc oxide is the active in most mineral sunscreens, 14% is a concentration in the range those products use, and Koa Shore's label describes a "mineral barrier", so the assumption is easy to make. It is not a registered sunscreen: no SPF, no TGA sunscreen testing, and not to be used as sun protection. The brand says so itself.

Second, the scent. Both variants are fragranced. Our guide's advice stands: if you have fragrance-reactive skin, an unscented product is the lower-risk choice, and this one does not come unscented.

Third, the texture, which is the genuine point of difference. Because it is an emulsion rather than an anhydrous balm, it goes on lighter, absorbs faster and does not carry the beef note that puts some people off pure tallow. That is the honest case for it: a tallow product for people who did not get on with tallow balms, and who want something they can wear on face and body before going outside. The honest case against it is that it is a scented, water-containing cream at a balm price, and if what you want is pure rendered fat, the products above do that more simply. One thing in its favour on price: 150 mL is two to three times the size of a typical balm tin, so per millilitre it costs less than the headline figure suggests, and it is sized for body as well as face.

Choosing

Pick on texture, scent and price, which is what the differences between these products actually are. And whichever one you pick, it goes under your sunscreen, not instead of it.