Can You Use Tallow Balm on Your Beard?

Short answer: yes, on the skin under your beard, and sparingly on the hair itself. Whipped tallow is a rich balm, and a beard is one of the few places where a rich balm can go badly wrong if you use too much. The trick is a very small amount, warmed between your palms, worked down to the skin rather than combed through the hair.

Most men who ask us this are not really asking about their beard. They are asking about the skin underneath it, which is itchy, tight or flaking, and which their usual face routine stopped reaching some time around week three of growing it. The jar we point them to is our Unscented Whipped Tallow, which is grass fed tallow and organic coconut oil and nothing else.

Why the skin under a beard gets dry

A beard changes the conditions on your face in three ways at once.

It blocks your normal routine. Whatever you used to put on your cheeks and jaw now lands on hair. Cream sits on top of the beard and never reaches the skin, so the skin quietly gets skipped.

Washing hits it harder. Beards get washed more often than bare faces, usually with something that lathers, and each wash strips oil from the skin underneath as well as from the hair.

Hair wicks and weather gets in. Coarse hair draws oil along its length and away from the skin, and cold wind moves through a beard more easily than most people expect. That combination is why beard dryness turns up in autumn and stays until spring.

None of that is a fault in your skin. It is a routine problem, and it responds to a routine fix.

What a tallow balm actually does here

A balm made of fat does not add water to your skin. It sits on the surface, slows the water already there from leaving, and leaves the skin feeling softer while it does. For skin that is losing oil to washing and wind, that is the job you want done.

Tallow suits a beard because it is rich without being sticky, and whipping it with organic coconut oil makes it soft enough to press into skin through hair. On the hair itself it behaves like a heavy conditioner: a trace will lie down flyaways and take the scratch off a new beard, and too much will make you look like you slept in it. Less than you think is the whole technique.

What it does not do is make a beard grow. Nothing in a jar does, and we would be wary of anyone selling you one that says otherwise.

The method, step by step

1. Do it on a clean, slightly damp beard. Straight after a shower is ideal. Towel the beard until it is damp rather than wet.

2. Take less than you think. Start with an amount the size of a pea for a short beard, or two for a long one. You can always add a second pass. You cannot take it back out.

3. Warm it between your palms until it turns to oil. This is the step people skip, and it is the step that stops the balm sitting in white flecks on dark hair.

4. Press your palms flat against your cheeks and jaw, then work your fingertips down to the skin. Think of it as moisturizing your face through the beard, not styling the beard. Go along the jawline, under the chin and around the moustache line.

5. Finish with what is left on your hands over the outside of the beard. One light pass, then comb it through. That residue is all the hair needs.

6. Give it five minutes before you get dressed. It absorbs quickly, but a fresh collar will take some of it if you rush.

Will my face smell like beef all day?

It is the first thing everybody asks, and it is a fair question when the thing in question sits directly under your nose for sixteen hours.

Rendered tallow that has been cleaned properly has a faint, mild smell that fades within a few minutes of going on skin. Our unscented jar has no fragrance added to it at all, so what you get is the base itself. Most people stop noticing it almost immediately. Some people never take to it, which is honest to say and worth knowing before you buy. We wrote a longer answer in does tallow skincare smell like beef.

If you would rather have something with a scent, the rest of the whipped tallow range is made on the same base with essential oils added, and the warmer, woodier scents in it tend to suit a beard better than the bright citrus ones. If your skin tends to react to fragrance, start unscented instead, and here is how to choose between scented and unscented.

Balm or oil for a beard?

Both have a place, and they are doing different jobs.

A whipped tallow balm is the better choice when the skin underneath is the problem. It is richer, it stays where you put it, and it is easy to press down to the skin. Use it at night, or in the morning if your beard is short.

A light face oil is the better choice when the hair is the problem. If your beard is long and you mainly want it to look less wiry, an oil spreads further through the length without weighing it down. Our Pure Glow Face Serum is eight organic plant oils with no essential oils in it, and a few drops run through a beard the way a beard oil would.

Plenty of people use both: balm at night for the skin, a few drops of oil in the morning for the hair. There is no rule about it.

Where it goes wrong

Too much product. Nine times out of ten this is the whole problem. A greasy beard, white flecks, a slick forehead by lunchtime: all of it is quantity, not the balm. Halve what you used and try again.

Not warming it first. Solid balm dragged through hair leaves visible bits. Ten seconds between your palms fixes it.

Putting it on a dry, dusty beard. Damp hair takes it up evenly. Dry hair grabs it in patches.

Using it on freshly shaved or broken skin. Do not put any balm on skin that is nicked, raw or weeping. Wait until it has settled.

When the itch is not just dry skin

An itchy beard in the first few weeks of growing one is normal, and it usually settles. Persistent flaking, redness at the skin line, sore or painful bumps around the follicles, or a patch that keeps coming back are a different matter, and a moisturizer is not the answer to any of them. Show them to a doctor or a dermatologist rather than reaching for a bigger jar.

This article is educational and not medical advice. Pure Lifestyle products are cosmetics made to support the look and feel of healthy, comfortable skin. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent eczema, psoriasis, or any medical condition. If you're managing a skin condition, we recommend working with your healthcare provider.

If you also put balm on the hair on your head, the same restraint applies, and we went through that separately in can you use tallow balm on your scalp or hair.

Who is making this

We are Jeremie and Megan. Every batch is rendered and whipped by hand in small runs in Loomis, California, and our name is on the jar. If a jar does not suit you, tell us and we will make it right. That is the whole promise and it is deliberately short.