How Long Does a 50g Jar of Tallow Balm Last?

How long does a 50g jar of tallow balm last?

A pea-sized amount, which is roughly a quarter of a gram, does the whole face. A 50g jar is therefore about 200 face applications. Used once a day on the face, that is around six months. Face and hands twice a day is closer to two or three months. Whole body after every shower is a few weeks. Unopened, it keeps for two years, and every jar has a best-by date printed on it.

The arithmetic, so you can check it

People do not believe the six-month figure because a 50g jar looks small next to a 200ml pump bottle. The comparison is misleading, and the reason is water.

Most moisturisers are somewhere between 60 and 80 per cent water. That is not a criticism, it is just what a cream is: oil and water held together with an emulsifier, plus a preservative so the water does not grow anything. When you rub in a pump of cream, most of what you applied evaporates in the first few minutes. You have to use a lot because most of it leaves.

A tallow balm contains no water at all. Fifty grams of balm is fifty grams of fat and wax, and none of it evaporates. So the dose is tiny. A pea covers a face. A blueberry-sized amount does both hands. Anyone who has used a whole fingertip's worth and found it greasy has used about four times too much, which is the single most common mistake with a balm.

• Face only, once a day: about 200 applications, roughly six months
• Face and hands, twice a day: two to three months
• Face, hands, elbows and heels at night: six to ten weeks
• Whole body after every shower: three to four weeks

These are estimates, not promises. Skin, climate and how much you like to slather all move the number. But if a jar is disappearing in a fortnight on face use alone, you are using too much, and the greasy feel you are probably noticing is the tell.

What makes it run out faster

Scooping it cold. When the balm is firm in winter people gouge out a chunk with a fingertip, and a chunk is a lot. Scrape the surface with a fingernail or the back of a teaspoon instead, then warm what you have between your fingers until it turns to oil. It will be more than you expected.

Applying to dry skin. Slightly damp skin, straight out of the shower, spreads a balm much further than bone-dry skin does. You are sealing water in rather than trying to cover a dry surface.

Body use. Shins, backs of arms and torsos are large areas. Body use is a perfectly good way to use it, but it is where a jar goes. If you want it for both, most people keep a jar for the face and buy the bundle for the rest.

Shelf life once it is open

The two-year figure is for an unopened jar stored sensibly. Once it is open the practical answer is: comfortably a year, and almost certainly longer than it takes you to finish it.

The reason a water-free balm lasts so well is that bacteria, mould and yeast all need water, and there is none. That is why it needs no preservative. The only thing that ages a pure fat product is oxidation, which is slow in tallow because it is mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat, and slowed further by the beeswax. Extra-virgin olive oil is the most oxidation-prone of the three ingredients, which is one reason we keep it to the amount the texture needs and no more.

To help it along: keep the lid on, use clean dry fingers or a small spatula, and keep the jar in a cupboard rather than on a sunny windowsill or in a hot car. If it ever smells sharp, waxy or like old cooking oil rather than faintly of beeswax, it has oxidised and should be retired. In two years of making it we have not had a jar come back for that reason, but that is what it would smell like.

Cost per use

At A$49.99 for 50g and around 200 face applications, a single jar works out to about 25 cents per application. Buying the four-jar bundle, where the fourth jar is free, brings that to roughly 19 cents. It is worth doing that sum against whatever is currently on your shelf, because a 200ml bottle at A$30 that lasts six weeks is not the bargain it looks like.

AusTallow is a cosmetic moisturiser. It is not a therapeutic good and it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or skin condition. Information on this page is general in nature. If you have a diagnosed skin condition, speak to your GP or dermatologist.