Is beef tallow good for sunscreen or just hype?

If you've been spending any time on wellness TikTok or browsing natural health forums lately, you've probably seen people asking is beef tallow good for sunscreen while slathering what looks like whipped butter all over their faces before heading to the beach. It's a polarizing topic, to say the least. On one side, you have the "ancestral living" crowd claiming that our great-great-grandparents didn't have tubes of SPF 50 and did just fine. On the other side, dermatologists are practically pulling their hair out at the thought of people using cooking fat as their only line of defense against the sun. ...

May 1, 2026 · 7 min · Petra Krysten