Toups and Co is the pick if you want a two ingredient tallow base in a range of essential oil scents at about $16 an ounce, from the most established name in the category. Craft Tallow is the pick if you want the cut of fat named, one jar per skin job, and actives at doses you can check. Both are grass-fed tallow balms with no water in them. They're built on different ideas about what a jar is for.
Full disclosure first: Craft Tallow is mine. I haven't tested their balms against ours in a lab, and nothing here judges how a Toups jar performs on skin. Everything on their side of this page came off their own live product pages on September 6, 2026, and their site stays the source of truth. Where they do something better than we do, I say so.
Our answer to their $32 unscented balm is Bare Silk Unscented at $34. The rest of this page is why those two jars aren't the same purchase.
What is in the Toups and Co Organics tallow balm?
Toups and Co Organics is a family company that handcrafts its line in coastal Alabama, and they deserve real credit for pulling tallow back into the mainstream conversation. Their balm shelf is short and legible, which I like.
The Tallow Balm Original lists six ingredients: grass-fed tallow, organic olive oil, and organic essential oils of lavender, bergamot, balsam fir and frankincense serrata. It's $32 for 2 oz and $62 for 4 oz. The Tallow Balm Unscented is the same base with the scent removed and lists two, grass-fed tallow and organic olive oil, at the same prices. Above those sits the Frankincense Face Balm, four ingredients, $52 for 2 oz. The Baby Balm carries seven, including five essential oils, at $32 and $62.
One thing worth knowing before you buy the Original: the four oils on the ingredient list are lavender, bergamot, balsam fir and frankincense serrata. Read the list rather than the paragraph, on their site and on ours: the ingredient declaration is the part a rule actually governs, every ingredient in descending order of predominance, while the paragraph above it is marketing copy.
Two facts about the fat. Their pages say the tallow comes from 100% grass-fed and grass-finished cows, a real standard, stated plainly. Their pages don't name the cut; their FAQ defines tallow as rendered animal fat and stops there, so suet versus trim isn't a question their labels answer. And nothing on the Toups pages I read calls their balms whipped, so the whipped versus dense argument doesn't apply to them.
What we do differently
Craft Tallow is five recipes, one job each. Every jar starts on 100% suet, the dense fat from around the kidneys, from grass-fed and grass-finished cattle on Montana family ranches, bought direct. Our Montana render partner renders it low and slow in wet and dry steps, never bleached, never deodorized. The balms are blended in small batches in the Mountain West, and orders ship from Cottonwood Heights, Utah. We buy the fat. We don't run the ranch.
The five: Bare Silk ($34) for reactive skin, pregnancy and babies. Honey Glow ($42) with oil-soluble manuka honey for dry, thirsty skin. Moonlight Calm ($69) with a studied dose of blue tansy for a face that flushes at night. Velvet Face Renewal ($89) with a true 1% bakuchiol, twice the 0.5% used in the published trial, for the look of fine lines. Recovery Balm ($74) for the look of scars and stretch marks, and for hard-worn hands.
Then the piece with no equivalent in this category: the Craft Tallow Kit ($110), five tallow bases, five measured botanical vials, a warming plate, a pipette and the recipe deck, so you blend all five at your own counter. It's sold out at the moment and ships in about three weeks on pre-order.
Side by side
| Toups and Co | Craft Tallow | |
|---|---|---|
| Chosen by | Scent | Skin job |
| Cut of fat named | No | Yes, 100% suet |
| Cattle | Grass-fed and grass-finished | Grass-fed and grass-finished |
| Home base | Coastal Alabama | Mountain West, ships from Cottonwood Heights |
| Water in the jar | None | None |
| Ingredients per balm | 2 to 7 | 5 to 10 |
| Sizes | 2 oz and 4 oz | 2 oz |
| Balm price | $32 and $62 | $34 to $89 |
| Per ounce | $15.50 to $26.00 | $17.00 to $44.50 |
| Face option | Frankincense Face Balm, $52 | Velvet, 1% bakuchiol, $89 |
| Stated active dose | Not published | 1% bakuchiol, a studied dose of blue tansy |
| Subscription | 10% off, ships free | 25% off first, 10% off renewals, ships free |
| Free shipping | Over $100 | Over $35 |
| Guarantee | 30 days, money back | 60 days, product price back |
| Blend-at-home path | None | The Kit, $110 |
Their figures were read on September 6, 2026, and either of us can change a price the week after this publishes. Check the live page before you spend.
Where the money lands
Per ounce they win the low end, and it isn't close. A 4 oz Toups balm is $15.50 an ounce; our cheapest jar is $17.00 an ounce and we don't make anything bigger than 2 oz. If you're moisturizing a whole family head to toe every day, that gap compounds.
Two lines flip it back. Our free shipping starts at $35 against their $100, so a single jar lands cheaper here. And our first subscription delivery takes 25% off against their 10%, which puts a subscribed first Bare Silk at $25.50. On renewals we both take 10%. The face shelf is where the lines stop overlapping altogether: their face option is a four ingredient frankincense balm at $26 an ounce, ours is Velvet at $44.50 with the bakuchiol dose stated on the page. You're not paying more for the same jar. You're paying for actives, and that's only worth it if you want them.
Pick Toups and Co if
You want a proven, scent-led everyday balm from the most established maker in tallow, with a big review base behind it (their Original and Unscented share a pool of about 1,500 ratings at 4.84 stars). You want a 4 oz jar, because 4 oz is what makes daily whole-body use cheap. You like their scent work, which is what their customers talk about most. Or you want tallow-based makeup riding along in the same order, which we don't sell. Their unscented two ingredient balm is also the simplest tallow-based thing you can buy from a company that size, and that is a real strength.
Where a Toups and Co alternative makes sense
Pick us if the cut of fat is the part you care about. Suet renders cleaner and firmer than trim, and the cut is the part we name on the label; the argument sits in suet, not trim.
Pick us if you choose skincare by job rather than scent: a fragrance-free jar plain enough for a newborn's cheeks, a blue tansy balm for an evening face, or a face balm with a stated 1% bakuchiol you can check against the trial in bakuchiol vs retinol. Pick us if sixty days to change your mind beats thirty. And pick us if the tallow balm kit is the draw, because blending your own balm from measured vials is a different thing than buying a finished one. It's cosmetic care, not a treatment. Your provider's plan comes first.
What we'd both tell you: a short-label balm on grass-fed fat beats a thirty ingredient lotion for a lot of skins, and the category is better with more makers doing it seriously. Still deciding whether tallow belongs in your ritual at all? Start with beef tallow for skin: the complete guide.
If you take one thing from this: start with Bare Silk Unscented ($34). Sixty days on your skin; if it disagrees, we refund the product price.
Questions we hear
Is Craft Tallow a Toups and Co dupe?
No. The jars do different jobs at different doses on a different grade of fat. What's similar: both are waterless grass-fed tallow balms with no preservative system, both publish full ingredient lists, both sell an unscented option at about the same entry price, and both are family-run. What isn't: they name the species and stop, we name the cut and buy only suet; their balms are chosen by scent, ours by concern; their actives are essential oils, ours include a true 1% bakuchiol and a studied dose of blue tansy.
Is Craft Tallow cheaper than Toups and Co?
Not per ounce. A 4 oz Toups balm is $15.50 an ounce against $17.00 for our cheapest 2 oz jar. Per order it can go the other way, since our free shipping starts at $35 rather than $100 and our first subscription delivery is 25% off rather than 10%.
Do both brands use grass-fed tallow?
Both say grass-fed and grass-finished on their product pages. The distinction is worth something: grass-fed beef fat runs higher in stearic acid, omega-3s and conjugated linoleic acid, and carries more vitamin E and beta-carotene (Daley and colleagues, Nutrition Journal, 2010), which makes it the better fat to start a balm from. We additionally commit to suet, the kidney fat specifically, and say so on every label. Their pages don't name a cut.
Which is better for sensitive skin?
Their Unscented balm is their sensitive-skin pick and it's a good one: two ingredients, no essential oils. Bare Silk Unscented is ours: five ingredients, no fragrance, and the 60-Day Skin Test on it. Patch test either on your inner arm for a few days first.
Is "tallow and co" the same company as Toups and Co?
Yes. "Tallow and co", "tallow co" and "toups tallow balm" all land on Toups and Co Organics of coastal Alabama. There's no separate brand by those names in this comparison.
What's the guarantee at each?
Theirs is a 30-day money-back guarantee per their published policy, store credit after that window, with exclusions on samples, tools and sets. Ours is the 60-Day Skin Test: use the jar for up to sixty days, and if your skin disagrees, email us and we refund the product price.
What is a good Toups and Co alternative?
The Craft jar closest to Toups Unscented is Bare Silk Unscented, $34 for 2 oz: five ingredients with suet named on the label, no essential oils, poured dense and sixty days to try it. What you'd give up is their range of essential oil scents and a review pool bigger than ours. For a two ingredient label at a lower price, the alternatives guide names Vintage Tradition's Totally Unscented and Gentle Tallow's Daily Relief.
Go deeper
The same exercise runs against a different brand in Craft Tallow vs Primally Pure, and if you'd rather see the two of them measured against each other than against us, "Toups and Co vs Primally Pure tallow balm: which one, for whom" publishes here on September 17, 2026. Eight brands get ranked side by side in the best tallow balm in 2026, and the comparison page lines up 12 brands in a single grid. The label reading skills are in how to read a tallow label, and the sourcing question gets its own piece in grass-fed vs grass-finished tallow. Toups and Co vs Primally Pure sets the two biggest names against each other.
Sources
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 21 CFR 701.3, Designation of ingredients. eCFR.
- Dhaliwal S et al. (2019). Prospective, randomized, double-blind assessment of topical bakuchiol and retinol for facial photoageing. British Journal of Dermatology 180:289-296.
- Daley CA, Abbott A, Doyle PS, Nader GA, Larson S (2010). A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef. Nutrition Journal 9:10.