What a —/5 rating means
Because no dependable rating exists, judge Beef Tallow by how your own skin responds rather than by a number. The absence of a score is not the same as a zero — it simply means the ingredient has not been reliably tested on the classic comedogenic scale.
About Beef Tallow
It is a plant- or seed-derived oil, valued for the emollient, conditioning feel it gives a formula. 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.
On a label it can read as Beef Tallow, Tallow, Bos Taurus Tallow, Rendered Beef Fat — worth knowing when you scan an ingredient deck.
Beef Tallow in makeup and skincare
In makeup it turns up in cream blushes, tinted balms, and hydrating foundations; in skincare, in face oils and cleansing balms.
If you deal with fungal acne (malassezia folliculitis) rather than ordinary clogged pores, note that Beef Tallow is among the fatty-acid or ester-type ingredients that community sources commonly avoid — a separate concern from its comedogenic score, and one with weaker evidence behind it.