I know what you're thinking - beef fat in your hair?

Trust me, I had the same reaction at first! But after using whipped tallow, tallow soap, and tallow lip balm with massive success, I figured I should try it in my hair too. And the results were GREAT!

This handmade hair balm knows exactly how to smooth down those annoying flyaways and bring life back to dry ends. The best part? No greasy residue, just soft, manageable hair that looks like you just stepped out of a salon.

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Jump to:

The Benefits of Tallow for Your Hair
Ingredients You'll Need!
Making Tallow Hair Balm
Tips + Tricks
How To Use Tallow Hair Balm
How Often To Use Hair Balm
Formula
Batch + Storage
Ingredients + Supplies Links
Comments

The Benefits of Tallow for Your Hair

Tallow is a powerhouse of hydration and nourishment, thanks to its unique composition of fatty acids. Tallow made up of mostly monounsaturated (52%) and saturated fats (42%)¹ which makes it a penetrating oil - more on that below!

Fatty Acids in Tallow and Their Benefits:

Oleic Acid
This fatty acid is a conditioning agent that helps to improve shine, smoothness, and manageability. Oleic acid helps to seal moisture into the hair shaft, reducing frizz and dryness. ²
Stearic Acid
Stearic acid is a good hair conditioner, it coats the hair well creating a natural barrier to environmental stressors. It's lightweight and doesn't weigh down your hair. ³

Woman's smooth hair after applying tallow balm. — My color treated hair after washing with my homemade shampoo bar, air drying and using tallow hair balm!

Ingredients You'll Need!

Tallow: Choose a high quality, grass fed tallow that's been purified for beauty product use. This type of tallow is more likely to be scentless. If you're not sure, you can always use my guide to purify the tallow you have!

Carrier Oil: You'll need to choose a carrier oil for your tallow hair balm . I list a few options in the section below. Consider the qualities of your carrier oil when adding to your balm.

BTMS-50: BTMS-50 is a fantastic conditioning agent derived from canola. It's excellent for adding shine, slip, and detangling power to hair products.

Ingredients required for tallow hair balm.

Choosing Your Carrier Oil

Any oil you choose to blend with into your tallow hail balm comes with its own qualities and benefits. Here are a couple of suggestions:

Sealing Oils:

Argan Oil: Oh argan oil, how I love thee. This is the very same oil of Morrocan Oil fame. It's ability to moisturize and lock water into the hair shaft is unmatched. Plus it can improve the resilience of your hair by increasing elasticity. Argan oil is a sealing oil. ⁴

Jojoba Oil: Unrefined, golden jojoba oil has a pleasant, mild scent. Jojoba oil offers protection against breakage, dryness, and split ends. This is a more expensive option, but one I'm fond of. Jojoba is a sealing oil. ⁶

Sweet Almond Oil: This smooth liquid oil has a low scent and is light in color, so it won't discolor your hair balm. Opt for unrefined when purchasing. Studies have shown almond oil to protect against UV damage and fills gaps between cuticles. Choose an alternative oil if you have nut allergies! Sweet almond oil is a sealing oil. ⁴

Penetrating oils:

Castor Oil: This is a great, inexpensive oil to have on hand if you're into DIY skincare and body formulations. It's a mild oil, with a neutral color, little to no scent, and is nourishing to the hair. Castor oil is a penetrating oil. ⁴

Coconut Oil: Coconut oil is an inexpensive ingredient most of us have in the kitchen, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable! It helps to smooth and flatten the hair cuticle, improving health, appearance, and can assist in detangling. This tropical smelling oil can prevent protein loss from the hair. Coconut oil is a penetrating oil. ⁴

Rosehip Oil: Unrefined rosehip oil is made my pressing the seeds of the rosehip plant. This oil absorbs very quickly and leaves a luxurious dry feeling on the hands and hair. Rose hip oil is a penetrating oil. ⁵

Sealing Versus Penetrating Oils

All hair is different, and what works for me may not work the best for you, so it's important to experiment in small batches and choose your ingredients carefully. I've indicated in the section above which oils are penetrating and which are sealing.

Penetrating oils are able to bond with the hair at the molecular level and can result in the benefits of the chosen oil actually impacting the health and quality of your hair. Hair absorbs water during the washing process and the strands can actually swell and damage the cuticle of the hair shaft, this is known as hydro fatigue. Penetrating oils can help to reduce water absorption into the hair shaft. ⁷

Sealing oils can help to reduce friction between strands and improve the silky feeling in your hair. These oils can boost shine and appearance of your mane. ⁸

Tallow is considered a penetrating substance due to its triglyceride composition, so keep that in mind while you're choosing carrier oils!

I have long, straight, fine but thick hair. It tangles as soon as it leaves the brush and windy days are the worst for me! Hair balms higher in sealing oils work better for me because they improve slip and reduce tangling.

If you have dry, rough, or coarse hair, you will likely benefit from a hair balm higher in penetrating oils.

Making Tallow Hair Balm

Heated Phase:

In a heat proof double boiler, add 11g tallow, 10g of your chosen carrier oil, and 8.5g BTMS- 50.
Melt all ingredients, stirring occasionally, over low heat. The water bath barely needs to simmer for these ingredients to melt.
Once completely melted, remove from heat, stir well to ensure everything is completely combined, then set aside to cool.

Adding btms-50 to a glass measuring cup.

Tallow, argan oil, and btms-50 in the glass cup.

Cool-Down Phase:

Using an infrared thermometer, check the temperature of your mixture. Once it is below 140f or 60c, you can add the fragrance oil.
Add 0.5g fragrance oil to the mixture. Stir with a small silicone spatula until completely combined.
Transfer to a short, stout container. I use 2oz salve pots or 4 oz mason jars.

Checking the temperature of the tallow hair balm.

Tips + Tricks

I always weigh my ingredients for formulas like this. Not only is a hard oil like tallow easier to measure when using weights, but it also ensures consistent results each time I make the recipe.
I've included the option for fragrance oil in your hair balm, but if you're using it, ensure that you check the IFRA limit for your fragrance. This is usually available on your supplier's website. For example: This scent is allowed up to 8% in category 7B (leave in hair conditioners.)
The batch size seems small, and truly it is, but you'e not using a lot of this product to receive the benefits, so a small batch size is actually a benefit!
I have not tested this formula with alternative ingredients to BTMS-50, so I can't answer to substitutions. I have tested with all of the listed carrier oils above and all worked beautifully.
This hair balm is anhydrous, which means it contains no water, and therefore does not require any broad spectrum preservative.

How To Use Tallow Hair Balm

I prefer to use my hair balm when my hair is dry - I have tried it at all stages, and dry is where it's at! It can be applied to wet strands, but I found that the balm feels draggy once it hits wet hair.

Using the pad of your finger rub the surface of the balm to pick up some balm. You almost want to feel it and not see it. Rub the balm between your palms before applying.
Evenly distribute through your hair, starting about ear height, focussing on the ends in particular. You can rub your hands through your hair, or sandwich your strands between both hands and pull down.
Brush through.

Rubbing the tallow balm with the pads of fingers.

Showing the product picked up on fingers

This is an oil based product, so if you use too much, your hair will look slicked! It's always best to start with a small amount then add more if required. I have purposely formulated this hair balm with a high amount of BTMS-50 to keep it nice and thick - this way you're less likely to pick up too much balm!

Woman sandwiching hair between her hands.

How Often To Use Hair Balm

During the warm months, I find that I only need to apply once every other day or so. I prefer to use it first thing in the morning to protect my hair from the day's stressors.

In the winter months, my poor hair suffers in our dry continental climate. Between forever running furnaces, icy air, cold winds, and hoodies, my hair takes a beating. I tend to use a larger amount in the evening, prior to braiding my hair before bed, this allows the goodness to soak into my strands while I'm sleeping!

Formula

Here is the formula for the recipe. You can use this to scale up or down the batch size, BUT, I recommend sticking to the 30g batch size (or even smaller if you're testing!) because a little bit of this balm goes a LONG way.

Ingredient	Percentage	30G Batch
Tallow	37%	11g
Carrier Oil	33%	10g
BTMS - 50	28%	8.5g
Fragrance Oil	2%	.5g

More Tallow Goodness!

Batch + Storage

Batch:

Although the ingredients seem like they are in small quantities this recipe gives about 30g of tallow hair balm. I like working with this quantity because I'm not making these to sell, I just like to have it around for my own use (and my teenaged daughter's!).

That said, if you love the recipe, feel free to scale it up - the results will stay consistent across batch sizes because I have developed this recipe by weights versus volume.

Storage:

Because of the small batch size, you'll use up all of this hair balm long before it has a chance to go bad. I find the shelf life of but it should last about a year, so keep that in mind while you're making it - I try to only make up what I can use or gift within a reasonable timeframe.

I store mine in a closed tin in the bathroom, where it is free from direct sunlight and temperature swings.

Ingredients + Supplies Links

Tallow Hair Balm Recipe

Make a nourishing 4-ingredient tallow hair balm to smooth frizz, prevent tangles, and add shine. This easy DIY recipe uses tallow, argan oil, an emulsifying conditioner and fragrance oil to deeply condition hair without a greasy feel. Perfect for natural hair care!

Active Time10

Resting Time10

Total Time20

Yield: 30 g

Author: Allyson Letal - Boreal Bloom Homestead

Materials

11 g tallow
10 g carrier oil
8.5 g BTMS -50
.5 g fragrance oil optional

Instructions

Melt The Heated Phase Ingredients:

In a heat proof double boiler, add 11g tallow, 10g of your chosen carrier oil, and 8.5g BTMS- 50. Melt all ingredients, stirring occasionally, over low heat. The water bath barely needs to simmer for these ingredients to melt.
Once completely melted, remove from heat, stir well to ensure everything is completely combined, then set aside to cool.

Add The Cool-Down Phase Ingredients:

Using an infrared thermometer, check the temperature of your mixture. Once it is below 140f or 60c, you can add the fragrance oil.
If desired, add 0.5g fragrance oil to the mixture. Stir with a small silicone spatula until completely combined.
Transfer to a short, stout container. I use 2 oz salve pots or 4 oz mason jars.

How To Use Tallow Hair Balm:

Using the pad of your finger, rub the surface of the balm to pick up a small amount, rub it between your palms. Start with less, because it's easier to add more than to use too much and have oily strands.
Evenly distribute through your hair, starting about ear height, focussing on the ends in particular.
You can run your hands through your hair, or sandwich your strands between both hands and pull down. Smooth the top layer with whatever is left on your hands. Brush through.

Notes

How Often To Use Hair Balm

During the warm months, I find that I only need to apply once every other day or so. I prefer to use it first thing in the morning to protect my hair from the day's stressors.

Batch:

Although the ingredients seem like they are in small quantities this recipe gives 30g of tallow hair balm.

That said, if you love the recipe, feel free to scale it up - the results will stay consistent across batch sizes because I have developed this recipe by weights versus volume.