The Craft Tallow Kit is a box that makes all five of our balms at your own counter: five tallow bases, five sealed botanical vials, a warming plate, a pipette and a recipe deck, for $110. Each jar takes about five minutes and no experience at all. Bought as finished jars, the same five run $308.
One thing to say up front, because fifteen pages on this site link the Kit and almost none of them mention it: the Craft Tallow Kit is sold out and currently on pre-order, with a ship window of about three weeks. If you want a jar this week, buy the finished one for the job and come back for the box.
This entry walks through what's in it, what home blending usually gets wrong and how the Kit removes each of those, the math against buying finished jars, and how the subscription actually works.
What's in the box
Five base jars, 1.5 oz each, of regeneratively farmed grass-fed suet tallow with a touch of organic arrowroot already worked in. Five amber vials, one per recipe, each holding the complete botanical blend for that jar, measured so a 1% dose is an actual 1% (the oil-soluble manuka extract rides in the Honey Glow vial). Then a circle warming plate, a precision pipette, and the recipe deck.
Every card in the deck carries its own full ingredient list, patch-test guidance and safety notes, including which recipes are essential-oil-free and which ones we point to during pregnancy. Nothing is a mystery blend. You are buying measurement and freshness, not secrecy.
What a DIY tallow balm usually gets wrong
Search "diy tallow balm" and you'll find plenty of free recipes, and some of them are good. What they can't hand you is a scale accurate to a hundredth of a gram or a supplier who'll sell you 4 grams of blue tansy. Five failure modes account for nearly every home batch that disappoints, and they're the reason the Kit exists in the shape it does.
- Grain. Fat crystals grow large enough to feel when a melt cools slowly on its own schedule. The warming plate holds a low, steady temperature instead of a stovetop's swings, and every card tells you to set the finished jar fast rather than letting it drift down overnight.
- Dose guessing. "A few drops of bakuchiol" is not 1%, and the published trials are about doses, not gestures. Each vial is pre-measured for one 2 oz jar, so the number you read on the card is the number in the jar.
- Separation. A splash of hydrosol, aloe or raw honey is water, and water beads out of an oil balm and pools at the bottom. Our recipes carry no water at all, which is why the honey arrives as an oil-soluble extract rather than the jar from the pantry.
- Oxidation. Botanical actives start fading the day they're blended, and a home jar of rosehip or blue tansy sits open on a shelf for months. The vials stay sealed in amber glass until the minute you use them, and every recipe carries vitamin E and rosemary CO2 as antioxidants.
- Contamination. Water is what microbes need, so a waterless balm is a hard place to live, but wet fingers and a wet jar undo that in one dip. The method is dry start to finish: warm in the jar, pipette in, cap, done.
If you'd rather build the base yourself, we publish the real recipe by weight and it's free: how to make tallow balm at home has the 80/20 ratio in grams. The Kit exists for the botanical doses, not the base.
How a jar happens: make tallow balm at home in five minutes
Warm the base on the plate until it softens, hands-free, like a candle warmer. Add the vial for the recipe you want, drop by drop with the pipette, and stir it through until the botanicals are evenly worked in. Then set it. Stir it dense the way we pour ours, or beat air into it with a fork if you like a fluffier texture; the trade is that air takes up space you could have filled with balm.
Total hands-on time is about five minutes, most of it spent waiting on the plate. If a batch ever turns gritty, warm it gently and set it faster the second time. Graininess is a texture event and the balm underneath is fine, which is the same story told in why is my tallow balm grainy.
Kit, finished jars, or the Flight
Three paths to the same five recipes, and they suit genuinely different people. Here they are side by side.
| Price | What you do | What you get | Who it's for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Craft Tallow Kit | $110 | Warm, pipette, stir, cap. Five minutes a jar | All five recipes, blended fresh, plus the plate, pipette and deck you keep | People who like process, and anyone buying a gift with something to show for it |
| The Five Jar Flight | $308 | Open the box | All five finished balms, poured dense, 2 oz each | People who want the whole line tonight with zero counter time |
| One finished jar | From $34 | Open the lid | The single jar for the single job | Anyone solving one problem this week |
The honest read on that table: the Kit is not a discount version of the Flight, it's a different product. You're trading five minutes a jar and a little counter space for fresher actives and a lower price, and some people end up liking the blending more than the balm. If you'd rather not blend anything, the Five Jar Flight at $308 is the shelf, done.
The Expansion Kit, and single vials
Once the core five feel like home, the Expansion Kit adds a second flight of vials that opens twenty more recipes from the same deck: seasonal blends, body rituals, and deeper cuts of botanicals you already know. It's $69 one-time, or on subscription with 25% off the first and 10% off every renewal, and it can ride along with any kit delivery. It needs the core kit, since it's vials and cards rather than bases and tools, and it's on pre-order with the same ship window. The Expansion Kit.
When one recipe becomes your recipe, Botanical Boosters are single amber vials at $24, each holding the complete blend for one full 2 oz jar. That's how a favorite gets refilled between deliveries without ordering the whole box again.
The math, and how the subscription works
Five finished jars are $308. The Kit makes all five for $110, so the gap is about $198 and roughly twenty-five minutes of your time. Subscribe and the first kit takes 25% off, the same discount every Craft subscription starts with. Renewals arrive every three months at $99, which is the standing 10% subscriber price, with fresh tallow bases and a full set of vials timed to how fast daily users empty their jars.
Pause, skip and cancel all live in your account, and a reminder email lands before every renewal so nothing arrives as a surprise. Subscriptions always ship free. Every kit carries the same 60-Day Skin Test as the finished jars.
If you take one thing from this: the Kit ($110) is the cheapest way to own all five recipes, and the freshest. It's on pre-order, so plan on about three weeks. Sixty days on your skin once it lands; if it disagrees, we refund it.
Questions we hear
Is the Kit sold out, and when does it ship?
It's sold out and on pre-order right now, with an estimated ship window of about three weeks. Order it and your place is held; if you need a balm sooner, buy the finished jar for the job and let the box arrive behind it.
Can you just give me the tallow balm recipe?
Yes, and it's free. The base recipe by weight is published in full in how to make tallow balm at home. What the Kit sells is the measured botanical doses, the sealed vials and the tools, not a secret.
Do I need any experience or equipment?
None. The warming plate, pipette and step-by-step cards are in the box. If you can warm butter and stir, you can make every recipe in it.
Are these the same recipes as the finished jars?
Yes. Every balm we sell began as a kit recipe, and each vial holds the complete botanical blend for its jar in the same proportions we use at the bench.
What if I ruin a batch?
You almost can't. A grainy or uneven jar re-melts and sets again, and the balm underneath is unchanged. The 60-Day Skin Test covers kits the same way it covers jars.
How does the kit subscription work?
Twenty-five percent off the first kit, then renewals every three months at $99 with fresh bases and a full set of vials. Pause, skip or cancel any time from your account, and every subscription delivery ships free.
Go deeper
The free base recipe, in grams, is in how to make tallow balm at home, and the wider case for the ingredient is in beef tallow for skin: the complete guide. For what each recipe actually does, read meet the five balms, or skip the blending entirely with the Five Jar Flight. The science inside the vials gets its own write-ups: manuka honey and MGO grading, helichrysum italicum, and sea buckthorn. Read a couple before your first blend and the deck gets more interesting.
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.