Five balms, five jobs, and the choosing takes about a minute once you know which job is yours. If your skin reacts to everything, it's Bare Silk at $34. If it's dry and thirsty, Honey Glow at $42. Everything below is that answer with the reasoning attached.
All five share the same spine: 100% grass-fed suet tallow and whole botanicals at doses we state on the product page, with no water and no synthetic preservatives. They're poured dense and sold by weight, 2 oz of balm in each jar, so what changes between them is what's dissolved in the fat.
It's cosmetic care, not a treatment. Your provider's plan comes first.
Which tallow balm: the five jobs, in order
Take the first line that's true of your skin and stop reading. An ordered ladder gives you one answer; a menu gives you five and a headache.
- Everything stings, or there's a whole family sharing one jar. Bare Silk, $34. Five ingredients, no essential oils in the Unscented original.
- Otherwise, skin that's dry and thirsty and drinks lotion without ever staying soft. Honey Glow, $42.
- Otherwise, a face that looks warm and reactive by evening. Moonlight Calm, $69, as the last step of the night.
- Otherwise, the look of fine lines and dull, tired-looking skin. Velvet Face Renewal, $89.
- Otherwise, the look of scars, stretch marks, settled ink or hard-worn elbows and heels. Recovery Balm, $74.
- Still stuck? The two-minute quiz at find your balm asks five questions and names one jar.
The five at a glance, by scent and price
Scent is the objection that ruins a jar fastest, and it's the one nobody publishes. A balm you don't want to smell twice a day is a balm you won't finish, so here's the whole line by what it actually smells like.
| Jar | The job | What it smells like | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bare Silk | One quiet jar for the whole family | Nothing at all, or soft lavender in the Lavender Edition | $34 |
| Honey Glow | Dry, thirsty, barrier-stressed skin | A soft, warm sweetness; vanilla in the Vanilla Edition | $42 |
| Moonlight Calm | Redness-prone skin, last step of the night | Green and herbal, a blue-meadow botanical | $69 |
| Recovery Balm | The look of scars, stretch marks, hard-worn skin | Herbal and slightly resinous, from the helichrysum | $74 |
| Velvet Face Renewal | The look of fine lines and dull skin | Resin, or rose in the Bulgarian Rose Edition | $89 |
Why the spread from $34 to $89?
Because of what's dissolved in the fat, not the fat. Bare Silk is five ingredients and the tallow is the costly part. Velvet carries a true 1% bakuchiol, oil-soluble vitamin C, organic rosehip CO2 and CoQ10, all of which cost far more per gram than suet. Moonlight is $69 because a true 3% Moroccan blue tansy is among the priciest essential oils by weight in the world. Price follows the recipe, not how much your skin needs, and $34 is the right answer for a lot of people.
The five, one at a time
Bare Silk, $34
Built by leaving things out: suet tallow, meadowfoam, cold-pressed jojoba, organic arrowroot and vitamin E. That's the whole list, and it's why this is the jar for ultra-sensitive skin, for a nursery, and for pregnancy in the Unscented version. Jessica Smith's review is the shortest useful description of it we have: "Goes on so smooth and absorbs quickly."
Honey Glow, $42
For skin that drinks lotion and stays thirsty. Manuka honey extract, oil-soluble so it stays put in a waterless balm, folded through the tallow with cold-pressed oat oil and squalane. Winter cheeks and working hands are its territory. More on the honey in what honey actually does in a waterless balm.
Moonlight Calm, $69
The evening jar for redness-prone, easily flushed skin. Moroccan blue tansy at a true 3% and blue chamomile tint it pale sapphire on their own; the color is chamazulene, and a batch that sets blue is a batch that kept its actives. No menthol, no tingle. The chemistry is in why blue tansy is blue.
Velvet Face Renewal, $89
The face jar for the look of fine lines and tired-looking skin. A true 1% bakuchiol, twice the 0.5% used in the published bakuchiol-versus-retinol trial (Dhaliwal and colleagues, British Journal of Dermatology, 2019), alongside oil-soluble vitamin C, organic rosehip CO2 and CoQ10. Alison Harris, six weeks in: "There is a visibly noticeable difference, especially on the wrinkles on my forehead."
Recovery Balm, $74
The densest botanical stack we pour: helichrysum, rosehip CO2, sea buckthorn and tamanu, for the look of scars, stretch marks, settled tattoos and hard-worn spots. The gold color is the sea buckthorn. It contains tree nuts, from the tamanu, which matters if that's you.
Sets, and when a set beats singles
Four sets exist, and I'd rather tell you plainly which ones save money and which ones just save decisions.
| Set | What's in it | Price | When it wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Starter Pair | Bare Silk + Honey Glow | $69 | The only set that costs less than buying apart, by $7. The gentle way in |
| The Premium Pair | Velvet + Recovery | $163 | Face and body, one box. Same price as buying the two singly |
| The Premium Trio | Moonlight + Velvet + Recovery | $232 | Same price as three singles, and three jars is where the subscription math turns |
| The Five Jar Flight | All five | $308 | The whole shelf, and the honest gift |
So: a set beats singles when you want the decision made for you, when you're gifting, or when you're going on subscription, where the discount lands rather than in the bundle price. If you'd rather blend the same five recipes yourself, the Craft Tallow Kit at $110 does that, though it's sold out and on pre-order with a ship window of about three weeks.
The jar for most people is Bare Silk ($34). Subscribe to three jars and a fourth rides free, and every subscription takes 25% off the first delivery.
Questions we hear
Which tallow balm should I start with?
Bare Silk at $34, unless you already know your skin is chronically dry, in which case Honey Glow at $42. Both are gentle enough to tell you whether you like tallow at all, which is the real question in month one.
Can I use two balms together?
Yes, and most people who own two use them by time of day rather than by layer. Bare Silk or Honey Glow in the morning, Moonlight or Velvet at night. Layering two balms at once is mostly wasted balm, since the first one has already sealed the skin.
Bare Silk or Velvet for my face?
Bare Silk if your face is reactive, if you're pregnant, or if you want the shortest possible ingredient list. Velvet if your reason for buying is the look of fine lines and dull skin, and your skin tolerates actives. If you're unsure, start with Bare Silk and add Velvet later; that order is much easier to troubleshoot than the reverse.
Is one of them safe during pregnancy?
Bare Silk Unscented is the jar we point to during pregnancy, and it's the one we use on our own newest baby. Check with your provider first, as you would with anything new.
Which jar do I use on my body?
Any of them, but Honey Glow for general dryness and Recovery for the rough, hard-worn patches. A quarter-sized amount covers a whole arm or leg, applied straight out of the shower while the skin's still damp. The method is in how to use a tallow balm.
Go deeper
The wider case for the ingredient is in beef tallow for skin: the complete guide. To check a jar that isn't ours, read how to read a tallow label, and to see how we sit against eight other brands, the best tallow balm in 2026 has the table. Two of the five have full ingredient tours in inside Honey Glow and inside Moonlight Calm, and the jobs Recovery gets reached for are covered in tallow for stretch marks and scars.
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.