Lard is rendered pig fat, and tallow is rendered beef or sheep fat, so no, they aren't the same thing. The gap that matters is in the fatty acids. Lard carries less of the firm kind and nearly three times the fragile kind, so it sets softer and should go stale sooner.
On skin, they'll do the same plain job. Every balm we sell starts with beef suet tallow, and the plainest is Bare Silk ($34), five ingredients with no water, priced as of October 5, 2026.
Lard's a good fat with a long record in old pharmacy. There's no loser here. We chose beef suet for two things you'd notice in a jar, a firmer set and a longer shelf life.
In the pan, in four lines
If you came for the kitchen answer: lard is pig fat and tallow is beef fat. Lard is softer and milder and makes the flakier pastry. Tallow is firmer and beefier and takes a hotter pan, which is why it fried the old fast-food potato. Both keep for months in the fridge and longer in the freezer. The rest of this post is about what each one does on skin.
Is beef tallow the same thing as lard?
The Codex standard for named animal fats, kept by the FAO and WHO, draws the line by animal. Pure rendered lard comes from swine, and edible tallow from cattle or sheep. Felter and Lloyd's King's American Dispensatory (1898) told pharmacists to prefer leaf fat for lard, the fat around the hog's kidneys and gut. For cattle, it's suet. That's the dense fat from around the kidneys, and every one of our balms starts with it.
Crisco comes up in this question too, and it's neither one. It's sold as an all-vegetable shortening, and as of October 5, 2026, its maker lists soybean oil and palm oil first, part of the palm fully hydrogenated.
| Trait | Lard | Beef tallow |
|---|---|---|
| Animal | Pig | Cattle |
| Main fatty acids, per 100 g (USDA) | Oleic 41.2 g, palmitic 23.8 g, stearic 13.5 g, linoleic 10.2 g | Oleic 36 g, palmitic 24.9 g, stearic 18.9 g, linoleic 3.1 g |
| Polyunsaturated, per 100 g (USDA) | 11.2 g | 4 g |
| Set (Codex titre) | Softer, 32 to 45 C | Firmer, 40 to 49 C |
| Smell when rendered low | Faint | Nearly scentless from suet |
| In our jars | None | All five balms |
Why does lard set softer than tallow?
Stearic acid is the firm, waxy fatty acid that gives a fat its body, and there's less of it in lard. USDA lists 13.5 g per 100 g of lard and 18.9 g in beef tallow. Lard's saturated total is lower too, 39.2 g against 49.8 g, and more of its fat is the softer monounsaturated kind, 45.1 g against 41.8 g.
The melt follows the chemistry. Codex lists a titre range for each fat, the temperature where its freed fatty acids set in a lab test, and lard's runs 32 to 45 C against 40 to 49 C for edible tallow. King's described good lard as "somewhat of the consistency of butter," melting at 38 to 40 C, about 100 to 104 F. In a jar, that's a softer set and an earlier slump on a warm shelf. Our post on the fatty acids in tallow has the full profile and what each fatty acid does on skin.
Which one keeps longer in a jar?
Tallow should. The reason is the polyunsaturated fat, and USDA lists 11.2 g of it per 100 g of lard against 4 g in beef tallow. That's nearly three times as much. A 2019 review by Domínguez and colleagues notes that a fat's tendency to oxidize rises exponentially with its number of double bonds. Lard also has less of its own vitamin E, 0.6 mg per 100 g against 2.7 mg, and that review describes vitamin E scavenging the radicals that drive oxidation.
Pharmacists knew it in 1898, when King's warned that air would "speedily" spoil lard kept anywhere but a cool, dark place. It also had them stir benzoin into the hot fat to hold off rancidity. With no water in any of our recipes, there's no preservative system, and oxidation is the clock that matters.
Ghee, the third kitchen fat
Ghee is butter with the water and milk solids cooked off, so it is dairy fat rather than the body fat of an animal. Its fatty acids run shorter than tallow's, it sets softer, closer to lard than to suet, and it carries a buttery note that no amount of cooking removes. On skin it has a long record in Ayurvedic practice as a plain emollient, and it does the same covering job the other two do. For a jar it is the softest of the three and a dairy ingredient, which matters to anyone who keeps milk off their skin. For cooking it takes a hot pan happily; for a balm it is the one of the three we would reach for last.
What do lard and tallow do on skin?
Both are fats, so on skin they do the job dermatologists call occlusive. DermNet describes an occlusive as a layer of oil on the skin's surface that cuts evaporative water loss, and that's what eases the feel of dry, tight skin. Neither fat screens UV, so a balm doesn't replace your sunscreen. It's cosmetic care, not a treatment. Your provider's plan comes first.
Lard has a paper trail on skin that runs back through old American pharmacy. King's called it emollient and a convenient base for ointments and plasters, and it noted that lard boiled with a caustic alkali turns to soap. Tallow went into soap too, and a 2024 scoping review by Russell and colleagues counts soap among its well-documented uses. On human skin, the review found significant research gaps. Lard doesn't come up in it, and modern skin research on lard is thin.
Why did we choose beef suet?
We source 100% suet, the dense fat from around the kidneys, from grass-fed and grass-finished cattle on Montana family ranches, bought direct. We buy the fat. We do not run the ranch. Our Montana render partner renders it low, and Codex even gives that kind of fat its own name: premier jus is fresh fat from around the kidneys and other organs, rendered at low heat. Edible tallow can include trimming and cutting fats, and that's where our post on suet, not trim picks up.
The set is the other reason. Tallow's stearic share lets suet set a jar on its own, so we pour it dense with no beeswax, and it's sold by weight. For sheep fat, read mutton tallow vs beef tallow.
If you're weighing a pork lard balm against a tallow one, I'd start with Bare Silk Unscented. It smells like nothing. It's grass-fed suet tallow with meadowfoam seed oil and jojoba oil, plus vitamin E and arrowroot, and there's no essential oil or fragrance in it. If a lard balm already suits your skin, it'll keep doing the same plain job, and that's fine by us.
Start with Bare Silk ($34), five ingredients and sixty days to disagree.
Questions we hear
Are beef tallow and lard the same thing?
No. Lard is rendered pig fat, and tallow is rendered beef fat, or sheep fat under the international Codex standard. They're built from the same main fatty acids in different amounts. Lard carries less stearic acid and nearly three times the polyunsaturated fat, by USDA's numbers, so it sets softer and should go stale sooner.
Is lard good for your skin?
Lard is a fat, so on skin it sits on the surface and slows water loss, which eases the feel of dry skin. King's American Dispensatory, an 1898 pharmacy reference, called it emollient and a convenient ointment base. Modern research on lard for skin is thin. If you'd like to try it, look for leaf lard rendered low, which comes out white and mild.
Which keeps longer in a jar, lard or tallow?
Tallow should. USDA lists 11.2 g of polyunsaturated fat per 100 g of lard against 4 g in beef tallow, and a 2019 review of lipid oxidation notes that oxidation rises exponentially with a fat's double bonds. Lard also carries less of its own vitamin E. Whichever you keep, store it cool and dark with the lid on, and it'll last longer.
Does lard smell like pork?
Good lard barely smells, as long as it's rendered gently and kept fresh. King's American Dispensatory, an 1898 pharmacy reference, described it as white with "a faint, but not rancid, odor," made by warming leaf fat in a water bath to 130 F. Beef suet's nearly scentless when it's rendered low, and our unscented balm smells like nothing.
Go deeper
The beef tallow for skin guide covers what tallow does once it's on, and will it smell like beef answers the smell question for suet. For the render, read how tallow is rendered for skin. If you've got a kitchen jar of either fat, kitchen tallow isn't face balm explains why it should stay by the stove. The other animal fat we get asked about is in mutton tallow vs beef tallow, and the fatty acids both fats are made of are in plain English here. The rest of the field, bison, buffalo, goat and deer, is in bison, buffalo, goat and deer tallow.
Sources
- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (2019). Lard. FoodData Central database, SR Legacy release, FDC ID 171401, last updated April 2019.
- Domínguez R and colleagues (2019). A comprehensive review on lipid oxidation in meat and meat products. Antioxidants 8(10):429.
- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (2019). Fat, beef tallow. FoodData Central database, SR Legacy release, FDC ID 171400, last updated April 2019.
- Russell MF and colleagues (2024). Tallow, rendered animal fat, and its biocompatibility with skin: a scoping review. Cureus 16(5):e60981.
- Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd (1898). Adeps (USP), lard. King's American Dispensatory, transcribed by Henriette's Herbal Homepage.
- Codex Alimentarius (1999). Standard for named animal fats, CXS 211-1999, amended through 2024. FAO and WHO.
- Whittaker L and Oakley A, for DermNet (2022). Emollients and moisturisers. DermNet, the online dermatology reference, updated October 2024.
- Crisco (2026). All-Vegetable Shortening (product page, read October 5, 2026). Crisco brand website.
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.