Finding the right lip combo is one of the more difficult parts of your beauty routine. It certainly doesn’t help that there are more types of lip products than ever. You can choose from countless formulas, including traditional sticks to liquids, balms, glosses, and oils. Each brand touts various ingredients that make their products better than the rest. But one unexpected ingredient is making its way onto the beauty counter: beef tallow.
This ingredient, which is a byproduct of beef fat, has been used as an alternative to seed oils in culinary applications. Despite the fact that it contains higher saturated fat levels, beef tallow fans tout its minimal processing and lack of additives. But beyond its use in the kitchen, proponents also argue that it’s an effective ingredient in skincare and makeup products. It allegedly can do it all—moisturize your skin, prevent signs of aging, reduce inflammation, and even cure acne. (FYI, the jury’s still out on these claims.)
Stone & Spear, which specializes in clean beauty products, uses beef tallow as the base of its hand-crafted lipsticks. It claims that its premium wagyu beef tallow offers a smooth and creamy texture. But just how effective is beef tallow in makeup? I got my hands on a few shades to find out.
I tested three of Stone & Spear’s six colors: Autumn, Merlot, and Red Rock. Each hue is available in peppermint-scented and fragrance-free formulations. I received both varieties to see how the tallow flavor differed between the scented and unscented products.
While the shade range isn’t the reason why I wanted to try these lipsticks, the colors they do have are lovely. When I swatched the product on my hand, the color payoff was fairly sheer. But it’s also very buildable, which is something I prefer in my makeup products.
But before I even applied the lipstick to my lips, I took a sniff. And I’m going to be really honest: It scared me. This lipstick smells like the grease left behind in a skillet after you cook a steak. It’s a great smell in the kitchen, but in a lipstick tube, it’s a bit disconcerting. The peppermint fragrance also did nothing to mask the aroma; if anything, it made the tallow smell even more noticeable.
The alarm bells in my head were ringing, but apparently it was just a drill—because the tallow flavor is far less pronounced once you apply the product. If you don’t think about it too hard, it’s almost imperceptible. The finish is matte without feeling particularly drying, and it doesn’t feather along the edges of your lips. Overall, it’s a nice product with the added bonus of containing only five or fewer ingredients, depending on the lipstick.
If you’re the kind of person who cares a lot about the ingredients in your beauty products and want to avoid consuming seed oils, then I definitely recommend the Stone & Spear lipstick. I’m personally not one of those people (and I typically reach for sheer balms and glosses anyway), so I’ll most likely stick to my current lip combo.
