IQ, UA: The Return to Tallow
If you ask Richmond-based entrepreneur Teresa Justis, beef tallow is more than a trend.
I'm Chris, head of creative and story here at Artemis Ward. Every month I bring IQ, UA to The So What, where I chat with somebody who has a finger on the pulse of a cultural moment unfolding in front of us — and together, in five questions + five answers, we try to understand what that cultural moment really means.
Maybe the last time we had a serious cultural conversation about beef tallow was back in 1990, when McDonald’s announced it was swapping out tallow for vegetable oil in its French fries. For the several decades after that, things were pretty quiet on the tallow front — outside of butcheries, scratch kitchens, and boutique maker spaces, that is. But in recent months, tallow has exploded back onto the scene, a reemergence sparked by beauty brands, wellness influencers, chefs, and regenerative food advocates who are searching for alternatives to the five-syllable, synthetic-sounding names that populate so many ingredient lists these days.
Tallow's reintroduction to fast food French fries (at Steak and Shake, at least) is one thing, but perhaps more attention-getting is the way tallow — which is, in short, rendered beef fat — has established itself as a natural alternative in the products we use to wash, moisturize, and heal ourselves. It's trending, it seems, because consumers — from old-school holistic purists to new-school MAHA moms — are rejecting synthetic, sterile, mass-market products in favor of options that feel elemental, ancestral, and paradoxically luxurious. And it's riding the wave of the booming wellness and longevity industries that are establishing themselves as economic powerhouses as they tap into millennial and Gen Z desires to steer clear of the unhealthy traps that have snared the generations before them.
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In other words, beef tallow is here. And while it may not retain the TikTok spotlight it currently enjoys, it seems a safe bet that we'll be talking about tallow for a while as it gets rediscovered, recontextualized, and reabsorbed into the cultural zeitgeist. It's this resurgence that offers us a useful reminder: as we're reading the cultural tea leaves, sometimes it helps to stop scanning for what's new and start paying attention to what's being revived. That's where the next big thing often begins.
To better understand why beef tallow may be more than just the next wellness trend, I visited the Richmond-based studio of entrepreneur Teresa Justis. Teresa's career in health, beauty, and wellness stretches over a few decades — and has recently taken a hard turn into tallow. Working with regional tallow producers like JM Stock Provisions, Kinloch Farms, and John Brown General and Butchery, Teresa creates and white labels tallow-based products ranging from candles and soap to body butter and sunscreen. And, if you ask her, this is just the beginning.
Let’s start simple. Why beef tallow, and why now?
Why not? It has so many purposeful uses from food to skincare that it deserves this moment. It’s time for it to shine.
You’re selling a beauty and wellness product that’s also a butcher byproduct. That’s kind of a weird sentence to stitch together, and maybe not something we’re used to hearing. How do you frame that story for audiences in a way that resonates?
First, we’re not reinventing the wheel. Tallow has been used for centuries, from indigenous healing practices to Egyptian moisturizers. People are turning to tallow because we’re increasingly skeptical of what’s being sold to us. I think tallow is honest, and you know exactly what you’re going to get with it. There’s no guesswork.
That leads us into our next question perfectly. What do you think beef tallow says about where we are culturally — what are people really looking for when they reach for this instead of, say, Cetaphil or another product that used to sit on their shelf?
People want things to be more transparent. We have so much information coming at us, and we’ve been told that certain things are okay to take, ingest, and have in our worlds. But so much of that information is contradictory. One day, this product could be harmful, and then the next, this product can’t possibly be harmful. And I think that makes people want to know: What am I putting in my body? Where is it coming from? Who is it coming from? That shift, like so many other things, started during Covid, when we all saw how capable we were of doing things ourselves, whether it was growing food, starting trades, or picking up new hobbies. Remember the sourdough starters? Tallow fits into that mindset. People want to understand what they’re using and how it can benefit them.
Behind the scenes with the team
Some people might say tallow skincare is just the next wellness fad. What would you say back?
I hope it’s not a fad! It should be the norm to care about what you’re putting on (and in) your body. But, you know, if you think back to a few years ago, people were bathing in coconut oil, so I get how this could seem similar. Ultimately, I think you can’t really call tallow a fad when it has such a rich history. So, it may be trending on TikTok now, but for those of us who’ve been using it for years, tallow is tried and true. It might lose its potency on social media, but the people who are using it love it. It might not be for everyone, and that’s fine. But its popularity is sparking conversations that get people thinking more deeply about ingredients, sourcing, and sustainability.
What do you think brands — especially in beauty and wellness — can learn from tallow’s rise?
Keep things simple. Be transparent about where a product comes from and how it’s made. And don’t overproduce. Tallow supports small businesses, local butchers, and farms, honoring the source of the whole animal — nose to tail, as we say. Since everything is so chaotic, overwhelming, and prone to waste, we need to recognize that people want to feel centered and in control. And while we can’t control everything, we can control being present with the things that are in front of us — and that includes what we put on our skin.
🐮 Follow Teresa to stay updated on her forthcoming brand, Two Birds, launching this summer — plus her upcoming tallow-based sunscreen.
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