THE STORY OF
QUEEN OF THE HILL TALLOW BALM
Smear Beef fat on my face??
Are you crazy??
I would have thought the same thing 6 months ago too.
It all started one Saturday night. We live on a small lifestyle farm in the Coromandel Peninsula, North Island of New Zealand. We raise our own cows for beef and had just the day before had one processed to feed our family for the next 6 months.
I had been researching nose to tail existence, that is, using the whole of the beast to minimise any wastage and to honour the life that has been sacrificed to nourish your own.
As I refuse to use vegetable oils to cook our food in I was wanting to make my own tallow, rendered down fat of the cow. The optimal fat to use is suet, or leaf fat, the nutrient dense fat from around the kidneys of grass fed beef.
My husband, who has some butchery training, and I spent a long afternoon and night breaking apart the large mass of yellow fat and then rendering it at low temperatures to create a pure, luxurious, golden liquid we thought we would use just for high temperature cooking.
However, we both couldn’t believe how soft our hands were. Even my tradesman husbands hands were smooth and soft and remained that way the next day even after being washed numerous times. I was intrigued, I rubbed some on my face that night and couldn't believe how moisturised and nourished my skin felt. It had completely absorbed and left my skin glowing with an even texture and tone. It wasnt greasy, like it is with coconut oil and other “natural products” I have tried, which seemed to glide over the surface of the skin, not sinking in at all and just leaving me looking shiny and oily!
After a bit of research I discovered just how valuable this usual waste product of animal agriculture really is. I could rehash some information already online or you could visit Vintage Traditions, a page associated with The Weston A Price Foundation whose principals I try to incorporate into our daily lives.