{"id":849113,"date":"2025-05-17T22:12:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T03:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/17\/beef-tallow-is-the-latest-skin-care-and-health-craze-on-tiktok-experts-arent-sure-why\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T22:12:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T03:12:56","slug":"beef-tallow-is-the-latest-skin-care-and-health-craze-on-tiktok-experts-arent-sure-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/17\/beef-tallow-is-the-latest-skin-care-and-health-craze-on-tiktok-experts-arent-sure-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Beef tallow is the latest skin care and health craze on TikTok. Experts aren’t sure why."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It\u2019s creamy. It\u2019s a type of saturated fat. And according to a slew of lifestyle and wellness influencers, it\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d for your body and skin.<\/p>\n

Beef tallow, the fat that remains after meat is boiled, has become the latest craze to gain momentum online, with some creators touting it as a skin care product and others calling it the healthier alternative to \u201cseed oils\u201d like canola and safflower oil.<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also promoted tallow<\/a>. While eating fries and a burger at a Steak \u2019n Shake during a Fox News interview last week, he praised the restaurant chain for cooking with the fat rather than with vegetable oil. (HHS and the White House did not respond to NBC News\u2019 request for comment.)<\/p>\n

Both the diet and skin care worlds are popular social media niches that can quickly cycle through trendy ideas that range from reasonably effective to bizarre. The infatuation with tallow appears to be one of the few times their content focuses on the same product.<\/p>\n

But some dermatologists and nutrition experts said they do not recommend incorporating high levels of beef tallow into diet or skin care regimens. On skin, one dermatologist said, tallow could cause acne rather than eliminate it. For cooking, some nutritionists said beef tallow may even be worse than seed oils.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeef tallow deserves neither a health halo nor devil\u2019s horns,\u201d Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts University\u2019s Food is Medicine Institute, said in an email.<\/p>\n

Tallow touted as an oil alternative<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In mid-January, Steak \u2019n Shake announced it would pivot to cooking french fries with beef tallow.<\/p>\n

In his interview at one of the chain\u2019s locations, Kennedy said Americans \u201care poisoning ourselves, and it\u2019s coming principally from these ultraprocessed foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump wants us to have radical transparency and incentivize companies like this one to switch traditional ingredients for beef tallow,\u201d he added, before biting into a double cheeseburger and french fries.<\/p>\n

He has also previously praised cooking with tallow, sharing an Instagram post in November<\/a> of him making \u201ctallow turkey\u201d for Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s belief that using tallow could help \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d echoes a claim that has spread on social media about seed oils. Many believe because seed oils are often found in processed foods, like chips and packaged desserts, animal fats like tallow and butter are healthier. TikTok videos\u00a0discussing users\u2019 reasons for avoiding seed oils<\/a> have amassed\u00a0hundreds of thousands of views<\/a>. (A spokesperson for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

But Lisa Young, a nutritionist and an adjunct professor at NYU, said the oil itself is not necessarily the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are blaming the seed oils when that\u2019s not what\u2019s toxic,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the sugar and salt in the junk food that they\u2019re using.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to tallow, seed oils are thought to be \u201cbetter fats,\u201d according to Young, because they are unsaturated<\/a>. Saturated fats, by contrast, generally come from animal products and have been shown to raise cholesterol, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease.<\/p>\n

Tallow is \u201cprobably healthier than ultraprocessed foods high in starch, sugar and salt \u2014 but it\u2019s less healthy than olive oil, soybean oil, canola oil or fats from nuts or avocados,\u201d Mozaffarian said.<\/p>\n

Many seed oil skeptics point to a ratio of two types of fatty acids in the oils \u2014\u00a0omega-6 and omega-3 \u2014 which they say is linked to inflammation. But Christopher Gardner, the director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, previously told NBC News<\/a> that levels of particular types of unsaturated fats are a trivial concern when it comes to evaluating how healthy a food item is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an important issue. This is not killing anyone. The french fries might be. The fast food might be,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cBut the oil that you fry the french fries in is not the top concern in the country right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young similarly cautioned against thinking of any fat source as healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that if you have a little bit of either beef tallow or a little bit of seed oils, it\u2019s not going to be a problem,\u201d she said. \u201cThe problem is when you do it in excess, and when people think something is good for you, they think more is better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The risks of rubbing tallow on skin<\/strong><\/h2>\n

TikTok videos about using beef tallow on skin \u2014 which have been circulating on the platform since as early as last year \u2014 often show users applying the product as a moisturizer and acne treatment, and touting the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin two weeks, my acne was gone. My skin was just looking so much younger, bouncier and more glowy,\u201d said one user <\/a>in a video<\/a> posted in May that has since been viewed over 1 million times.<\/p>\n

Some influencers say in their videos that they make beef tallow from scratch. Others say they bought it premade or promote products in which beef tallow is an ingredient.<\/p>\n

However, a 2024 review of about 150 published papers<\/a> on beef tallow as a cosmetic product did not definitively find benefits for skin. The review found that using beef tallow irritated some people\u2019s skin but had no negative effect on others.<\/p>\n

Sophie Greenberg, a dermatologist at Tribeca Skin Center in New York City, said beef tallow functions similarly to vaseline or coconut oil \u2014 its fatty properties hold in moisture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be greasy on your skin, but it will lock in whatever else is underneath,\u201d Greenberg said. \u201cBest-case scenario, if you have really dry skin and your skin barrier needs something to occlude it, it would be helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she suggested using one of the other products instead and said beef tallow \u201ccould cause some acne breakouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something that I\u2019m recommending in my practice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For those who want to experiment with beef tallow, Greenberg recommended sticking to products that include it as an ingredient alongside traditional skin care products like beeswax, jojoba oil, glycerin and hyaluronic acid.<\/p>\n

Connie Yang, a dermatologist at the P Frank MD practice in New York City, said some people are drawn to tallow because they see it as more natural than some other ingredients found in skin care products.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural is not always better,\u201d she said. \u201cThings like poison ivy are natural \u2014 does not mean it\u2019s good for your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n

Randi Richardson<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Randi Richardson is a health intern with NBC News Digital based in New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Randi Richardson
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s creamy. It\u2019s a type of saturated fat. And according to a slew of lifestyle and wellness influencers, it\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d for your body and skin. Beef tallow, the fat that remains after meat is boiled, has become the latest craze to gain momentum online, with some creators touting it as a skin care product and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":849114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[518,143127],"tags":[5215,143126],"class_list":{"0":"post-849113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest","8":"category-tallow","9":"tag-latest","10":"tag-tallow"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}