Anyone searching both brands at once is holding a card and one open question: which jar do I buy. Primally Pure has sold tallow skincare since well before the current wave. Craft Tallow started later and narrower. Below is what each site says, and a rule for choosing.
We have not tested their balms against ours in a lab. Everything below came off their live pages on the date noted, and nothing here judges how their products feel on skin.
How we checked
Everything attributed to Primally Pure here came off their own site on September 6, 2026, including the product JSON that carries their list prices. Prices move, recipes get revised and promotions rotate, so read all of it as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.
What their site says
Tallow sits at the top of their balm and cream labels. The Everything Balm is $30 for 1 oz and $56 for 2 oz. The Baby Balm, which is their unscented tallow balm, is $20 at 1 oz and $34 at 2 oz. The Antioxidant Balm runs $42 and $72 across the same two sizes. Their tallow creams come in both sizes too: Soothing at $44 and $82, Clarifying at $42 and $78, Plumping at $40 and $72.
The Everything Balm ingredient list on their page reads: organic tallow from grass-fed cows, organic olive oil, emu oil, unrefined beeswax, essential oils of organic lavender and organic tea tree, organic marshmallow root, organic calendula flower, organic rosemary extract, non-GMO vitamin E. Ten line items, eleven named materials if you count the two essential oils separately, and no water anywhere in the list. The page carries 3,844 reviews at 4.81 stars, which is a bigger body of feedback than anything else in this comparison.
Their Baby Balm carries no scent. Their page says it's intentionally formulated without essential oils for babies and nursing mothers, and its list is six items: tallow, olive oil, emu oil, beeswax, calendula flower, marshmallow root. If you want a plain tallow jar from them, that's the one.
On sourcing, their labels read "Organic Tallow from Grass-Fed Cows". On the pages we read, the site doesn't use the term grass-finished, and it doesn't name the cut of fat the tallow comes from; their tallow FAQ answers why they like tallow, not where in the animal it starts. Products are "handcrafted with love in sunny southern California".
Free US shipping plus a free gift starts at $65 on their site. The guarantee, as written on the Everything Balm page: "If you're not 100% satisfied, we'll give you your money back." No day count appears there or on their returns page, which does say opened and used products may be returned, and that requests are subject to review. A subscription option exists on their storefront, but no discount percentage surfaced in the pages we read, so we're not going to put a number on it. The offer that did show was a newsletter signup at 15% off a first purchase.
What we do
Craft Tallow starts one step earlier than most of this category, at the cut of fat. Every jar is built on 100% suet, the dense fat from around the kidneys, from grass-fed and grass-finished cattle on Montana family ranches. Our render partner buys that suet straight from the ranches, no broker in the middle. Rendering is slow and low, with no bleaching and no deodorizing, which is why an unscented jar smells faintly of what it is. We buy the fat. We don't run the ranch.
Recipes run five to nine ingredients and carry no water, so no preservative system is needed. Vitamin E is in every recipe, rosemary CO2 in some. Jars are 2 oz (56 g): Bare Silk $34, Honey Glow $42, Moonlight Calm $69, Recovery Balm $74, Velvet Face Renewal $89. Tallow is rendered in Montana, balms are blended in small batches in the Mountain West, and orders leave from Cottonwood Heights, Utah.
Our subscription takes 25% off the first delivery and 10% off every renewal after it, always ships free, and runs at 30, 45 or 60 days, your pick. Subscribe to three or more jars and a fourth rides free on that first delivery. The 60-Day Skin Test refunds the product price if your skin disagrees inside sixty days.
Side by side
| Craft Tallow | Primally Pure | |
|---|---|---|
| Fat | Suet | Tallow |
| Cut named | Yes | No |
| Cattle | Grass-finished | Grass-fed |
| Region | Montana | Not named |
| Home base | Mountain West | S. California |
| Water | None | None in the balms |
| Preservative | None | None in the balms |
| Ingredients | 5 to 9 | 6 to 11 |
| Beeswax | No | Yes |
| Emu oil | No | Yes |
| Jar sizes | 2 oz | 1 oz, 2 oz |
| Entry price | $34 | $20 |
| Per ounce | $17.00 to $44.50 | $17.00 to $44.00 |
| Subscription | 25% first, 10% renewals | Offered, rate not published |
| Free shipping | Over $35 | Over $65 |
| Guarantee | 60 days | Money back, no day count |
Every figure in the right-hand column was checked on September 6, 2026 against their published pages.
Where the difference shows up
Per ounce the two lines cross over each other in the middle, which surprises people who assume one of us is simply the expensive one. Bare Silk works out to $17.00 an ounce and Honey Glow to $21.00, against $28.00 for their 2 oz Everything Balm and $36.00 for the 2 oz Antioxidant Balm. Our expensive end runs the other way: Velvet Face Renewal is $44.50 an ounce, just above their $44.00 Soothing Cream at 1 oz. Subscribed, a Bare Silk renewal drops to $15.30 an ounce. For the smallest ticket into tallow, their 1 oz jars start at $20 and we don't make anything under 2 oz.
Two ingredient decisions separate the jars more than price does. Beeswax and emu oil appear across their balms and in none of ours at any price. Beeswax changes how a balm drags and sets; emu oil is a second animal fat, a feature to some readers and a dealbreaker to others. Scent is the other fork: most of their line carries essential oils, with the Baby Balm as the unscented option. Ours is Bare Silk Unscented.
Which one to pick
Pick Primally Pure if a 1 oz jar is the size of experiment you want. Their case gets stronger if beeswax and emu oil read as a plus, or if you'd rather buy deodorant and the rest of a bath shelf in one order. Their labels are short and published in full, their review base is deep, and the unscented baby option is a real one.
Pick us if the cut of fat is the part you care about. Grass-finished cattle from a named state beat grass-fed as a general description, at least if that distinction matters to you. Daily whole-body use is better math at $17 to $21 an ounce. A standing 10% off every renewal, plus 25% off the first delivery and free shipping from $35, may suit you more than a code. Buy from whichever set of answers sounds like your own reasoning. It's cosmetic care either way, not a treatment, and your provider's plan comes first.
Where to start
Honey Glow ($42) is the jar to set against a rich balm you already like. Manuka honey holds water against the skin, oat oil softens the feel of tight, dry patches, and squalane keeps it from dragging. Dry winter skin is where it earns its keep. If you'd rather start plain, Bare Silk ($34) is five ingredients and nothing else, and the Starter Pair ($69) holds both.
The jar for this job is Honey Glow ($42). Subscribe to three jars and a fourth rides free, and every subscription takes 25% off the first delivery. Every jar carries the 60-Day Skin Test, and the two-minute quiz will sort you if you'd rather not choose alone.
Questions we hear
Is Craft Tallow a Primally Pure dupe?
No. What's genuinely similar: both are waterless tallow balms with no preservative system, both publish full ingredient lists, both are family-run, both sell an unscented jar for babies and reactive skin, and per ounce the two lines land in nearly the same range. What isn't: their balms carry beeswax and emu oil and ours carry neither; they name the species of fat and we name the cut, which is suet only; their sizes start at 1 oz and ours are all 2 oz; and our face jar is built around a printed 1% bakuchiol rather than a botanical blend. Different jars, different jobs, not a copy in either direction.
Is there a good Primally Pure alternative if I react to essential oils?
Their Baby Balm is the unscented option inside their own line, and it's the honest first answer. If you want a jar with no essential oils and no beeswax, Bare Silk Unscented ($34) is five ingredients: suet tallow, meadowfoam, jojoba, arrowroot and vitamin E. Patch test either one on your inner arm for a few days.
Does Craft Tallow make a sunscreen like the Primally Pure one?
No. We make five balms and nothing else. Worth saying plainly whichever brand you buy: tallow is a barrier fat, it doesn't screen UV, and an SPF still belongs over any balm in the morning.
Which of the two is better for eczema-prone skin?
Neither of us can answer that for your face, and any brand that claims otherwise is overreaching. People with eczema-prone skin often reach for a plain fat, because a short label leaves fewer suspects to sort through when something stings. Patch test on your inner arm for a few days, and keep any jar off broken skin.
Do you use beeswax or emu oil?
Neither one. Beeswax sets firm and changes the drag of a balm, and we wanted the dense, melt-on-contact texture instead. Emu oil is a good emollient by most accounts, and leaving it out keeps our sourcing to one animal and one set of ranches.
Is grass-finished different from grass-fed?
Yes, and the difference is the last few months of the animal's life. Grass-fed describes part of a life; grass-finished means the animal never moved to grain before slaughter, which shows up in the fat. Our post on grass-fed versus grass-finished walks through the fatty acid data.
Go deeper
The wider case for the whole category is in beef tallow for skin: the complete guide. The same exercise runs against another brand in Craft Tallow vs Toups and Co, and if you want those two measured against each other rather than against us, "Toups and Co vs Primally Pure tallow balm: which one, for whom" publishes here on September 17, 2026. The sourcing argument is unpacked at length in suet, not trim, the reason none of these jars carry water sits in why there is no water in our balms, and eight brands get ranked together in the best tallow balm in 2026.
Brian is the founder of Craft Tallow, a small-batch tallow skincare line shipped from Cottonwood Heights, Utah, built on 100% grass-fed suet. Questions? Reply to any email from us; it lands with him.