It started innocently enough. In 2015, my husband bought me some tallow based skincare while I was pregnant. The products were nice, but didn’t leave much of an impression.
Fast forward a few years, and I had been hearing about the benefits of cooking with tallow. So, when the butcher asked if we wanted the suet from our beef order, I thought, “Why not? I’ll give it a try.” A few YouTube videos, and a couple of days of rendering later I had a quart sized jar of tallow on my hands. We made popcorn. I roasted some potatoes. It was good.
Then, last fall arrived, and with it my boys’ eczema and my daughter’s chapped lips. We tried special (expensive!) lotions, petroleum jelly, and prescription steroid creams. All of them would help, but it always seemed like the red, itchy, painfully dry skin was right there under the surface just waiting for me to slack off and forget an application so it could come roaring back.
Then, one day, I stumbled on a recipe for tallow lip balm. Again, I thought, “Why not?” An Amazon order and two days later, I was making my own lip balm. I knew I liked the texture and feel, but the true test was my daughter and those poor, poor lips. She put some on before bedtime. When she woke up in the morning, I couldn’t believe it. The cracks and redness were gone. Her lips weren’t momentarily soothed. They were healed. Did she go to school that day and chew them raw again? Yes. Did we reapply that night and get the same results the next morning? Also yes.
She asked if she could keep a lip balm in her desk at school. The next thing I knew, I was getting messages from other moms from her class asking about her “special lip balm.” Yes, she was sharing it with friends, and yes, that is disgusting. But it proved to be an excellent marketing strategy. I made lip balms for her friends. They ordered refills.
It didn’t take much after that to convince me I was on to something. I made a balm that cleared up my boys’ eczema, and a salve for my blue collar husband’s weather worn hands. You know them today as Body Butter and Hand + Foot Salve. I made extras and offered them on Facebook, and was taken aback by the response. On October 28, 2025, I named my little side hustle, and started the Tallow & Tend Facebook page.
My friend’s mom, who had tried all three products, suggested I make little sets to sell for Christmas. Yet again, I said, “Why not?” It was fun for me, and hey, who couldn’t use extra cash at Christmas? I figured if I sold 20 gift sets it was worth the effort. I sold 100. Without a website. Without markets. With nothing but a Facebook post and word of mouth.
I wish I could tell you I had some grand vision for what came next. That I had a business plan, a five-year forecast, and a perfectly curated brand waiting in the wings.
I didn’t.
I had a kitchen full of ingredients that I trusted, a growing list of ideas, and a whole lot of curiosity. But somewhere between those first lip balms and a hundred Christmas gift sets, something clicked. I realized I could make things that people genuinely loved, products that earned a place in their everyday routines, and share them with people who were looking for something a little different.
So I kept going.
I learned about new ingredients, tested formulas, designed labels, built a website, and figured out how to turn my kitchen experiments into products I was proud to put my name on. I made mistakes (let’s just say shipping skincare products comes with a steep learning curve). I changed my mind. I went down more than a few ingredient rabbit holes. And I discovered that starting a business involves approximately a million things nobody tells you about when you’re busy dreaming up your first product.
But I loved it. I still do.
A year ago, Tallow & Tend was a handful of homemade products and an idea I wasn’t entirely sure would go anywhere. Today, it’s a growing little business, a collection of products I’m incredibly proud of, and a community of people who have cheered me on in ways I never could have anticipated.
And I don’t take any of that for granted.
To the moms who first asked for my daughter’s special lip balm. To the friend who encouraged me to make those gift sets (you know who you are). To every person who placed an order, shared a post, stopped by a market booth, sent a message, or told a friend about something they’d tried and loved: thank you. You helped turn my little “Why not?” into something real.
I’m still figuring things out as I go. I still have more ideas than hours in the day. And I have a feeling that a couple of years from now, I’ll look back at this version of Tallow & Tend and be amazed at how much has changed.
For now, I’m just really glad I said yes to that bag of suet.
And I’m even more glad I kept asking, “Why not?”
Happy birthday, Tallow & Tend. Here’s to everything still to come.
