The order tells you more than the list does. Ingredients are printed heaviest first, so whatever sits in position one is most of what you are buying. If tallow is not near the top of a tallow balm, you have your answer before you read the rest of it.
Position one
This is the whole trick and it takes two seconds. A balm that leads with tallow is a tallow balm. One that leads with water, or with a cheap carrier oil and tallow down in seventh place, is something else wearing the name. Both exist and only one of them is priced like what it is.
Water, under its other names
Water, aqua, eau. Any of them in the list means you are holding a cream or a lotion, not a balm, and it needs a preservative system to stop things growing in it. That is not an accusation. It is simply a different product with a shorter life and a longer list, and it will not behave the way a balm does on split skin.
Words doing less work than they appear to
- Grass fed and grass finished are different claims. Nearly all cattle are grass fed for part of their lives. Finishing is the part that actually varies, and it is the part usually left unsaid.
- Fragrance or parfum as a single word can stand in for dozens of components that never have to be named. Legal, common, and the first line to look at if you react to scented products.
- Natural has no agreed definition in cosmetics. It is marketing, not information.
- Essential oil free is worth more than it sounds. Essential oils are natural and are also a common cause of contact reactions.
A short list is evidence, not proof
Seven ingredients is not automatically better than fifteen. A long list can be a formulator solving a real problem, and a short one can just be a cheap recipe. What a short list does do is make the claim checkable. You can look at seven things and decide for yourself whether each one has a reason to be there. Here is ours with the reason next to each, which is the format I would want from anybody asking me for $18.
Net weight, not tin size
Tins get sold by the size of the container and filled to whatever the maker chose. The net weight is the number on the label that counts, and it is the one to divide the price by.
Made by hand in small batches in Wakarusa, Indiana. Seven ingredients, and 5% of every sale goes to FreedomSystem, which connects veterans through authentic camaraderie and meaningful programs.
