Whipped Tallow Balm: Why are you buying air?

Hi, welcome to my blog.  This is Laura typing this out.  No ChatGPT or Gemini here.  Just the casual ongoing, constantly getting off topic, blog about the stuff I do.  Because if I'm going to be a master at something (hour 409/10,000 - for you Gladwell simps out there) it also counts if I'm teaching about it too, right? 

To answer the question in the title - I'm going back to the beginning. I've gotten into rendering tallow since a dear friend (who is a nurse) recommended it to me for my youngest son's eczema.  Maybe something bothered me about throwing multiple jars of synthetic ingredients on his skin, over and over, with some making his rashes worse, and all of them losing me hundreds of dollars.

I found someone local on facebook - who made their own tallow balm.  I tried it, and really liked it!  Not only did it help his poor skin, I felt comfortable knowing I could pronounce everything on the label, it was locally made, and all that jazz. And because if anything can be made, I know I can do it better.  Straight up, I get a little competitive, and also I've just really gotten into the zero waste space recently, but I also want to be frugal - I started making my own.  Guess what?  My journey to why I do what I do, can have many conjectures, and many things can be true.  

I've given away and sold so many balms - I have people still using version 1.0 and I'm on version 2.1 of my tallow balm.  Why do I keep changing the recipe?  Because I keep learning and doing better, and I want that to reflect in my balms.  We want to use quality ingredients - that don't cause grief to African farmers (look up the shea butter industry and how regulation is killing their people) - and also promote our zero waste lifestyle.  

I also stopped whipping air into my balms.  Why?  Well first, I never liked how I artificially made the product ~less~ in the jar.  I wanted my customers to get the full 4oz.  I also wanted to prevent melt-loss.  So if you purchased this and it was transported to a warm area of the country, you weren't losing your product to heat.  If it gets a little melty, it'll pop right back into a firm, long lasting balm.  I also started adding beeswax - which is great for healing the skin barrier.  Castor oil is amazing for wrinkles and the 'slip' feel when you apply it.  Jojoba oil is great at adding moisture and reducing the look of stretch marks.  I can say all of this because of the extensive research and reading I've done.  While breastfeeding my kiddo - because I didn't have much else to do while sitting with him. 

So please, make sure you continue supporting companies that pay attention, care about their ingredients, care about the sourcing, and care about what you put on your skin.