Somewhere between $12 and $25 for a 2 oz tin. Under $12 and something cheap is making up the volume. Over $25 and you are paying for packaging, a brand, or a retail markup, not better fat.
Where the money actually goes
Nothing in a tallow balm is exotic. Good tallow costs what it costs because rendering it properly takes hours and the fat has to come from an animal somebody raised well. Beeswax is the next line down and has gone up every year I have been buying it. Shea, jojoba and castor are real money by the pound, but you are not using much of any of them. The tin is not free and neither is the label on it.
None of that adds up to $40. When a tin costs $40 the difference is sitting somewhere other than the recipe.
Why some of them are $6
Volume has to come from somewhere. Usually it is water, which makes it a cream rather than a balm and brings a preservative system with it, or a cheap filler oil sitting high up the ingredient list. Neither one is a scandal. It is a different product with a different shelf life, and putting the two shelf prices side by side tells you nothing at all. How to tell which you are holding.
Compare days, not dollars
Price per ounce is the first correction. Price per day is the one that settles it. A 2 oz tin runs six to ten weeks at daily use. A 12 oz bottle of lotion at three applications a day does not last anything like as long as the size suggests. Work out what each costs you for a month and the gap narrows hard, and often closes.
What this one costs, and why
$18 for a 2 oz tin, which is 25 to 35 cents a day. Seven ingredients. The tallow comes from a family farm in northern Indiana and the beeswax from a beekeeper in New Paris, about twenty minutes up the road. There is no distributor standing between that and you, and that is most of the reason it is $18 and not $30.
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.
