Tallow vs. Coconut Oil: Why We Don't Use Coconut Oil in Our Balms

Coconut oil has become something of a default in natural skincare — it's cheap, widely available, and smells pleasant. So it's a fair question why our balms are built around tallow instead.

The main reason comes down to comedogenicity — how likely an ingredient is to clog pores. Coconut oil sits high on the standard comedogenic scale, generally cited around 4 out of 5, which is one of the reasons people with acne-prone or oily skin are often advised to avoid it on the face even though it feels pleasant to apply. Tallow, by contrast, sits much lower, around a 2 — a meaningful difference if breakouts are something you're trying to avoid rather than trigger.

There's also a compositional argument. Coconut oil is almost entirely lauric acid, a fatty acid that isn't naturally present in human skin in any significant amount. Tallow's fatty acid profile, on the other hand, more closely resembles human sebum — the oil your skin already produces — which is part of why it tends to absorb differently and why people with sensitive or reactive skin often find it easier to tolerate.

To be clear, this isn't a case of one ingredient being "bad" — coconut oil works well for plenty of people and plenty of uses, especially on hair or as a cooking fat. It's simply not the ingredient we'd choose for a facial or body balm meant for daily use, and it's a big part of why our balms don't include it, even as a minor supporting ingredient.