Something unusual is happening with beef tallow right now. It is trending simultaneously in two completely different industries -- food and skincare -- for overlapping but distinct reasons. Understanding why helps explain why both trends have staying power rather than being passing fads.
Why Tallow Is Trending in Food
The return of beef tallow to restaurant kitchens is being driven by three things: flavor, stability, and a growing skepticism of industrial seed oils. Seed oils -- the canola, soybean, and sunflower oils that replaced animal fats in the mid-20th century -- are cheap and have high smoke points in refined form. But they also oxidize under heat, producing compounds that researchers are increasingly scrutinizing. Tallow produces superior flavor, withstands cooking heat without breaking down, and is a single-ingredient product with no industrial processing.
McDonald's famously switched from beef tallow to vegetable oil in 1990 under pressure from health advocacy groups. Many food enthusiasts argue their fries have never been the same. The growing tallow-in-restaurants movement is, in part, a reclamation of what was lost.
Why Tallow Is Trending in Skincare
The skincare tallow trend is being driven by a similar skepticism of seed oils -- specifically the polyunsaturated seed oils (sunflower, safflower, rosehip, grapeseed) that dominate most conventional moisturizers. These oils oxidize when exposed to light, heat, and air. On the skin all day, every day, they generate free radicals that break down collagen and accelerate aging. Combined with the growing awareness of how preservatives in water-based skincare disrupt the skin microbiome, people are looking for something simpler and more compatible.
Tallow is that something. It is stable. It mirrors skin lipids. It requires no preservatives. It contains vitamins A, D, E, and K in bioavailable form. And it has been used on human skin for thousands of years before it was replaced by cheaper alternatives with better marketing.
The Common Thread
Both trends trace back to the same moment: the 1960s and 70s, when a combination of flawed nutritional science and industrial economics drove animal fats out of both kitchens and skincare products. Both industries replaced something that worked with something cheaper that did not work as well. And now, in both industries, people are paying attention to results over marketing and finding their way back.
Tallow is not a trend. It is a return.
The Opulent Facial Elixir and Wagyu Luxe Soap Bar are part of the skincare side of this return -- wagyu tallow held to the highest sourcing standard, for skin that finally gets what it actually needs.
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