Tallow balms bought and weighed: eight jars on the bench, part one (October 2026)

October 06, 2026 Brian

We make tallow balms, so read this page as a competitor's bench notes. The eight jars below are on order at retail with our own money, and the measured columns land on this same page as part two when they arrive. Until then, part one gives you three things you can use today. The first is what each brand's own page said on October 7, 2026. The second is how we'll measure, so anyone can test a jar at home with a kitchen scale and a spoon. The third is what a gram costs on the label today.

We haven't tested anyone's balm against ours yet, and every fact below about another brand came off its own live page that day. Our rows are Bare Silk Unscented ($34) and Honey Glow Classic ($42), dense 2 oz (56 g) jars sold by weight. They sit beside the other eight in the table, with no score and no winner.

The eight jars, and what each brand's page says today

Brand and jar	Price and size as printed	Sold by weight or volume	Ingredients listed	Suet named	Water	Essential oils	Whipped or dense, as the brand describes it
Amallow, Whipped Tallow Cream, Unscented	$38 (marked down from $45), Net 4 Fluid Oz	Volume	2	Not on the product page (the home page says suet)	None listed	None	Whipped
Craft Tallow, Bare Silk Unscented	$34, 2 oz (56 g)	Weight	5	Yes	None	None	Poured dense
Craft Tallow, Honey Glow Classic	$42, 2 oz (56 g)	Weight	8	Yes	None	None	Poured dense
Evil Goods, Whipped Tallow and Manuka Honey Moisturizer, Unscented	$34.99 (marked down from $49.99), no size shown	Not shown on the page we read	Not shown on the page we read	No	Not shown on the page we read	None named	Whipped
Lady May, Unscented Whipped Tallow Moisturizer	$25.00, 2oz (marked sold out)	Weight	1	Yes	None listed	None	Whipped
Primally Pure, Everything Balm	$30.00, 1 oz	Weight	10	No	None listed	Lavender and tea tree	Not shown on the page we read
Summer Solace, Pure Unscented Tallow Balm	$36.00, 60 mL	Volume	3	Yes	None listed	None	Unwhipped
Toups and Co, Tallow Balm, Unscented	$32.00, 2 oz	Weight	2	No	None listed	None	Whipped
VanMan's, Tallow and Honey Balm, Classic	$29.00, 2 oz	Weight	12	No	None listed	Eight	Not shown on the page we read
Vintage Tradition, Totally Unscented Tallow Balm	$22.95, 2 fl. oz. (59 ml)	Volume	2	No	None listed	None	Neither word, "soft, spreadable"

Every price above is one-time, before shipping. Four cells need a line more. Lady May's 2oz jar showed as sold out, so part two will name whichever size reaches us. VanMan's page also showed $21.75 near its subscription terms. Evil Goods names four ingredients in one sentence and says manuka honey goes into some versions, but we couldn't find a full list or a size. Primally Pure lists lavender and tea tree in one line, and we've counted them as two.

Suet named means the word's on the product page, and suet is the dense fat from around the kidneys, the only cut we buy. Four pages call their jar whipped, and Toups puts a "whipped airy texture" in its benefits list. None of the seven lists we could read includes water. Lady May, Amallow, Toups and Vintage Tradition suit a reader who wants a short label. Primally Pure and VanMan's suit a reader who wants botanicals and scent, and Evil Goods one who wants honey in a whipped jar. Summer Solace suits a reader who wants suet named outright.

How we will measure, and how you can test any jar at home

I'll run all ten jars in one afternoon, in one room, under one window's light, with one set of tools. My bench scale reads to 0.01 g, and a 0.1 g kitchen scale works at home.

Weigh the whole jar, lid on, as it arrived, and copy the net weight or volume exactly as the label prints it.
Weigh an empty 15 ml measuring spoon. Scoop balm from the top of the jar without pressing it down, level it with a straight edge and weigh it again, three times from three spots. The average grams of balm, full spoon minus empty, divided by 15 is the density in grams per milliliter.
Divide that density by 0.92 and subtract the answer from one for the air estimate, since a dense balm with no water runs about 0.92 g/ml at room temperature. It's an estimate and a texture fact, never a verdict on a label.
Set a pea of balm, about 0.25 g, on the back of your hand without rubbing it, and time how long it takes to go fully clear. Do it three times and note the room temperature.
Press a pea into a fresh patch on the inside of your forearm and photograph it at 0, 5 and 15 minutes in the same light. Rate the sheen at 15 minutes from 0, matte, to 3, wet.
Smell the open jar, then the arm after five minutes, and rate any beef or kitchen note from 0 to 3 in five words or fewer.
Copy the ingredient list as printed and count it.

Don't press or warm a balm before the scoop, and if a jar arrives soft, photograph it as it came, then let it rest 24 hours before its test.

What a gram costs on the label today

Grams are the fair unit, because air weighs next to nothing: on a jar sold by weight, every gram on the label is balm, whipped or dense. Where a page prints oz without fl, we've read it as weight, since that's what the unit means. Here's the sticker price over the printed size, with 1 oz at 28.35 g and 2 oz at 56.70 g:

Lady May, 2oz: $25.00 ÷ 56.70 g = $0.44 a gram
Primally Pure, 1 oz: $30.00 ÷ 28.35 g = $1.06 a gram
Toups and Co, 2 oz: $32.00 ÷ 56.70 g = $0.56 a gram
VanMan's, 2 oz: $29.00 ÷ 56.70 g = $0.51 a gram

Our two jars take the same arithmetic from the 56 g our labels print. Bare Silk's $34 ÷ 56 g = $0.61 a gram, and Honey Glow's $42 ÷ 56 g = $0.75 a gram.

Four jars can't be priced per gram yet. Amallow and Vintage Tradition sell by volume, as does Summer Solace in its 60 mL jar, and the grams in any volume depend on density, so their figures wait until the balm is weighed. Evil Goods' page didn't show a size, and none of these figures includes shipping.

What part two will add, and what it will not

Part two fills the columns a page can't: weight as received, density and the air estimate, seconds to clear and sheen at 15 minutes. It adds the scent notes, the labels as the jars print them, the photos and how long each brand took to arrive. Prices become what we paid, shipping split across each order. If you're after a beef tallow shampoo and conditioner pair, the conditioner's the half that smooths, and the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) says to use it after washing.

What a balm does for skin isn't tested here. There's no wear test, no before-and-after, no score and no winner, and a density figure is our measurement, never a verdict on another brand's label. It's cosmetic care, not a treatment, and your provider's plan comes first.

If you're choosing before part two lands, Bare Silk Unscented ($34) is the jar I'd hand you, suet plus four ingredients and no essential oils. For honey, Honey Glow ($42) carries an oil-soluble manuka honey extract, and both come with our 60-Day Skin Test: sixty days with any jar, and if your skin disagrees, we refund it. If tallow on skin is new to you, the beef tallow for skin guide starts at the fat itself.

Start with Bare Silk ($34), five ingredients and sixty days to disagree.

Questions we hear

Why buy competitors' jars?

A brand's page tells you what the brand chose to print, and a jar on a scale tells you the rest. We make tallow balms, so we've ordered eight other brands' jars at retail, with our own money, to set their labels and price per gram beside ours.

Is this sponsored or gifted?

No, every jar on this page is on order at retail, paid for with our own money, and no brand sent us anything. We make tallow balms ourselves, and that's the conflict to weigh while you read. It's why every fact about another brand comes off its own page, dated, and why the method is printed for you to repeat.

Why sell by weight rather than volume?

Weight counts the balm you're buying, and volume counts the room a jar holds. Air weighs next to nothing, so a whipped jar sold by the fluid ounce can hold fewer grams of balm than a dense jar the same size. That's why every Craft jar is sold by weight, 2 oz (56 g), poured dense.

Is a whipped tallow balm worth it?

It's worth it if you like the feel, since whipping folds air into the fat so the jar scoops soft from cold and spreads fast. Up to half of a whipped jar can be air. On a jar sold by weight, that air costs nothing, because every gram on the label is balm. On a jar sold by volume, work out the price per gram first.

Can I test my own jar at home?

Yes, and all you'll need is a kitchen scale and a 15 ml measuring spoon. Weigh the empty spoon, then scoop balm from the top of the jar without pressing it down, level it and weigh it again. Repeat from three spots and divide the average grams of balm by 15. A dense balm with no water sits around 0.92 g/ml at room temperature, so the gap below 0.92 is a rough estimate of the air.

When does part two land?

Part two lands on this same page once the last jar arrives and the bench has one clear afternoon to run them all. We expect the jars in mid-October 2026. It'll date the test day, say how long each brand took to arrive and set the measured columns beside the October 7 reads, which stay as read.

Go deeper

Best tallow balm sets eight brands against six label checks. How to read a tallow label turns those checks into a habit, and whipped tallow 101 covers what whipping does to a jar. Tallow body butter vs tallow balm sorts out the two words. If Primally Pure or Toups is the jar you're weighing, Primally Pure and Toups alternatives sets both beside other brands. Craft Tallow vs Amallow is the head-to-head with the jar that sits last on this list, read off their pages the same week. Nine more tallow balms compared covers Summer Solace, Lady May, Sego Lily and six more off their live pages.

Sources

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.

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