What is Beef Tallow?
Beef Tallow (INCI name: Bos Taurus Tallow) falls into the oil category — a plant- or seed-derived oil. Rendered beef fat, revived recently as a whole-food moisturiser and heavily promoted on social media. It is a saturated animal triglyceride, chemically closer to lanolin and mink oil than to a plant seed oil. It is named on the CLEARSTEM and AcneClinicNYC pore-clogging ingredient lists, but neither publishes a 0-5 comedogenic score for it and no Fulton-derived table we cite carries one. We therefore leave it unrated rather than invent a number — treat the listing itself as the signal.
You may see it on labels as Beef Tallow, Tallow, Bos Taurus Tallow, Rendered Beef Fat, so it can hide under more than one name in an ingredient list.
Where Beef Tallow shows up
As a plant- or seed-derived oil, Beef Tallow typically appears in facial oils, cleansing balms, moisturisers, hair products, and many products marketed as natural.
Is Beef Tallow bad for acne-prone skin?
Because no reliable comedogenic score exists for Beef Tallow, judge it by how your own skin responds rather than by a number.
Worth flagging: Beef Tallow's rating is disputed. Credible sources land on different numbers, which is why we show a range rather than a single score — and why your own experience is the best tiebreaker.
Note for fungal-acne (malassezia) sufferers: Beef Tallow is commonly avoided in fungal-acne routines, since it falls into the fatty-acid or ester families the yeast can feed on. The evidence there is looser than for comedogenicity — see our fungal-acne checker for context.