Primally Pure Tallow vs Amallow: Which Tallow Balm Is Worth It?

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Short answer: For most people, Amallow Unscented is the better buy. It’s a two-ingredient whipped tallow (grass-fed tallow and organic sweet almond oil) in a 4 fl oz jar that absorbs quickly and costs far less per ounce. Primally Pure’s tallow balms, led by the Everything Balm, are well made and richer, with beeswax, emu oil, botanicals, and essential oils, but you pay a large premium for that and for the brand. Choose Primally Pure if you want a dense, botanical-heavy balm or a tallow-based mineral sunscreen; choose Amallow for daily face use, sensitive skin, and value.

Quick Verdict

Primally Pure’s tallow balm is a well-made product with premium branding. But at several times the price per ounce, it does not deliver several times the results. Amallow Unscented matches or beats Primally Pure in absorption, moisture retention, and ingredient simplicity, at a fraction of the cost. Unless you specifically want Primally Pure’s botanical formulas or are loyal to the brand, Amallow is the smarter buy for most people.

Winner: Amallow Unscented. Not because Primally Pure is bad, but because the price gap is enormous and the performance gap is not.

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Head-to-Head Comparison

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Primally Pure Tallow: What the Brand Actually Sells

When people search for “Primally Pure tallow” or “Primally Pure beef tallow,” they usually mean one of these:

• Everything Balm: the flagship all-purpose tallow balm. Tallow, olive oil, emu oil, beeswax, calendula, marshmallow root, lavender and tea tree essential oils. Covered in depth in our Primally Pure Everything Balm review.
• Baby Balm: the same base without essential oils. The brand’s unscented choice.
• Tallow face creams: the Antioxidant Balm, Soothing Cream (blue tansy), Plumping Cream, and Clarifying Cream, each tallow-based with a different botanical blend. These are what “Primally Pure tallow face cream” usually refers to.
• Tallow sunscreens: Sun Cream SPF 30, Sun Stick SPF 25, and a tinted SPF 30. These use mineral sunscreen filters in a tallow base. Tallow on its own provides no meaningful sun protection, so if you want SPF, you need a product like this, not a plain balm.

Amallow’s lineup is simpler: one whipped tallow cream sold unscented or in several scents (Clean Cloud, Vanilla Lavender, Orange Creamsicle, Vanilla Latte, Blue Tansy), plus a handful of other products. The comparison below uses the Everything Balm and Amallow Unscented, the two most common picks.

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Round 1: Ingredients

Primally Pure uses organic grass-fed tallow as its base, then builds a fuller formula around it. The Everything Balm adds olive oil, emu oil, beeswax, calendula, marshmallow root, rosemary extract, vitamin E, and lavender and tea tree essential oils. The ingredient list is clean by conventional skincare standards, but it is longer and more complex than most tallow purists expect.

Amallow keeps things stripped back: grass-fed, grass-finished beef tallow and USDA organic sweet almond oil. That is it. No essential oils, no fragrances, no botanicals. This is the kind of formula that appeals to people who came to tallow skincare specifically to get away from complicated ingredient lists.

The key difference: Primally Pure adds ingredients that serve specific purposes (beeswax for occlusion, botanicals for soothing, essential oils for scent). Amallow trusts the tallow to do the work. If you have sensitive or reactive skin, fewer ingredients means fewer things that can cause a reaction. One caveat: sweet almond oil comes from a tree nut, so anyone with a nut allergy should check with a doctor before using Amallow.

Round 1 winner: Amallow. For a tallow balm, simplicity is a feature, not a limitation.

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Round 2: Texture and Absorption

This is where the two products diverge completely.

Primally Pure is a traditional dense balm. You dig into the jar, warm a small amount between your fingertips, and press it into your skin. It takes time to absorb. I consistently measured 8-12 minutes before the greasy feeling faded on my face. That is fine for a nighttime routine but impractical for morning use.

Amallow is whipped. It comes out of the jar light and fluffy, almost like frosting. It melts on contact with skin and absorbs in 3-5 minutes. I could apply it in the morning, wait a few minutes, and layer sunscreen on top without any issues.

The texture difference also affects how much product you use. Dense balms make it easy to over-apply. With Amallow’s whipped formula, it is much easier to use just the right amount. This matters when you are tracking cost per use, not just cost per ounce.

Round 2 winner: Amallow. Whipped tallow is easier to apply, absorbs faster, and wastes less product. Our whipped tallow guide explains why.

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Round 3: Moisture and Performance

I tested both products for two weeks each, alternating weekly between them. Same routine: cleanse, apply tallow, check skin at the 4-hour and 8-hour marks.

4-hour check: Both products kept my skin moisturized with no noticeable dryness. Primally Pure left a slightly more noticeable sheen, which some people interpret as “more moisturizing” but is actually just slower absorption. Amallow’s moisture was fully integrated into my skin by this point.

8-hour check: Still no major difference. My forehead showed the first signs of dryness with both products around the same time. Neither dramatically outperformed the other in raw moisture retention.

Overnight test: This is where dense balms are supposed to shine. Primally Pure’s thicker, beeswax-based formula did create a slightly heavier occlusive barrier. I woke up with marginally softer skin on the mornings after using it compared to Amallow. But the difference was slight, not something most people would notice without looking for it.

Round 3 winner: Draw. Both perform well. Primally Pure has a small edge for overnight use, but it is not enough to justify the price difference.

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Round 4: Scent

The Everything Balm has a noticeable lavender and tea tree scent that some users love and others find medicinal. The essential oils fade after application, but the initial hit is undeniable. If you want Primally Pure without scent, you have to switch to the Baby Balm.

Amallow Unscented smells like almost nothing. There is a faint, clean tallow-and-almond scent that disappears within a minute. If you want zero fragrance interference with perfume, cologne, or other products, Amallow is the obvious choice. And if you do want scent, Amallow offers options like Clean Cloud that add a light fragrance.

Round 4 winner: Amallow. Having the option to choose between truly unscented and lightly scented in the same formula gives Amallow more flexibility.

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Round 5: Price and Value

This is the round that decides everything.

Primally Pure sells the Everything Balm in 1 oz and 2 oz jars at a premium price tier. Amallow sells a 4 fl oz jar at a mid-range price. Per ounce, Primally Pure costs several times more. For the price of one small Primally Pure jar, you can buy an Amallow jar holding roughly twice as much product or more. Check current prices on both sites, since sales and bundles move the numbers.

Over a year of daily use, that price gap adds up to a meaningful amount of money. If you are buying tallow balm as your primary moisturizer, it is not a trivial difference.

What does Primally Pure’s premium price buy you? Better packaging. A more curated brand experience. A richer botanical formula. In-house production tied to the founder’s family farm. A glass jar. These are real things, and some people value them. But they are not large skincare performance advantages.

Round 5 winner: Amallow, decisively. The value gap is too wide to ignore.

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How Many Jars You’d Buy in a Year

With daily face use:

• Primally Pure (2 oz): roughly one jar every 5-7 weeks, or about 8-10 jars a year. The 1 oz jar goes twice as fast.
• Amallow Unscented (4 fl oz): roughly one jar every 6-10 weeks, or about 5-9 jars a year.

Combine the jar count with the per-ounce price gap and Amallow costs a fraction of Primally Pure over a year. If you also use tallow on your hands and body, the gap grows with every jar.

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Who Should Buy Primally Pure

Primally Pure makes sense for a specific type of buyer:

• You want a botanical-rich balm. If calendula, marshmallow root, emu oil, and essential oil blends appeal to you, Primally Pure has done the formulation work.
• You value premium packaging. The glass jar and brand presentation are genuinely nicer. If that matters as a gift or a vanity-shelf item, Primally Pure delivers.
• You have used it before and love it. Brand loyalty is valid. If Primally Pure works for your skin and you can afford it, there is no reason to switch.
• You want a tallow-based sunscreen. Primally Pure sells mineral SPF products in a tallow base. Amallow’s plain tallow cream offers no sun protection, and neither does any plain tallow balm.

Shop Primally Pure

Who Should Buy Amallow

Amallow is the better choice for most people:

• You want maximum value. More product for less money, period.
• You have sensitive or reactive skin. Fewer ingredients means less chance of irritation.
• You prefer whipped texture. Faster absorption, easier application, better for daytime use.
• You are new to tallow skincare. Amallow is a low-risk entry point that performs well. Start here and upgrade later if you want to.
• You use tallow on your whole body. Using Primally Pure as a full-body moisturizer is not realistic for most budgets.

Read the full Amallow tallow review for more detail.

Check Amallow Unscented on Amazon

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Marketing vs. Results

Primally Pure has built a strong brand. Its social media presence is polished, its packaging is beautiful, and its messaging is consistent. It has done an excellent job positioning itself as a premium tallow skincare company.

But premium branding does not always equal premium performance. The tallow market has matured significantly. Brands like Amallow, Terra Lotus, and Vanman’s deliver comparable formulas at a fraction of the price. The ingredient transparency gap has closed. What remains is mostly a branding gap, and you pay for that gap every time you choose Primally Pure.

Primally Pure helped bring tallow skincare into the mainstream, and it deserves credit for that. But the market has caught up, and the premium price no longer reflects a large performance advantage.

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Final Winner

Amallow Unscented wins this comparison. It matches Primally Pure’s moisture performance, beats it on absorption speed and texture, offers a simpler ingredient list, and costs a fraction as much per ounce.

Primally Pure is not a bad product. It is a good product at a price that is hard to justify given the alternatives. If you are choosing between these two specifically, Amallow gives you more for less.

If you are building a tallow skincare routine from scratch, start with Amallow and put the money you save toward trying other quality balms to find what your skin responds to best.

Check Amallow Unscented on Amazon

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FAQ

Is Primally Pure tallow balm worth the price?

Primally Pure makes a quality product, but the per-ounce premium over competitors like Amallow is not justified by performance differences. You are paying for brand, packaging, and a more elaborate botanical formula. The base tallow performance is comparable to products that cost far less.

Is Amallow as good as Primally Pure for skincare?

In my testing, Amallow matched or exceeded Primally Pure in absorption speed, moisture retention, ingredient simplicity, and value. Primally Pure has the edge in packaging, overnight richness, and product range.

Does Primally Pure make a tallow face cream?

Yes. Besides the Everything Balm, Primally Pure sells several tallow-based face creams (Soothing, Plumping, Clarifying) and an Antioxidant Balm, each with a different botanical blend. All are sold on primallypure.com.

Is Primally Pure tallow sunscreen a real sunscreen?

Primally Pure’s Sun Cream, Sun Stick, and tinted Sun Serum carry SPF ratings because they contain mineral sunscreen filters, not because of the tallow. Plain tallow balms, including Amallow and the Everything Balm, are not sunscreens.

Can I use Amallow on my face?

Yes. The Amallow Unscented formula is designed for face and body use. The whipped texture absorbs quickly and the minimal ingredient list reduces the risk of irritation. Start with a small amount and increase as needed.

Does grass-fed tallow really matter for skincare?

Grass-fed tallow tends to contain more fat-soluble vitamins and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than grain-fed tallow. Both Primally Pure and Amallow use grass-fed sources, so this is not a differentiator between them.

Which tallow balm is best for sensitive skin?

Amallow Unscented is the safer choice for most sensitive skin. Its two-ingredient formula minimizes the chance of reactions, while the Everything Balm’s lavender and tea tree oils are common irritants. If you want to stay with Primally Pure, choose its unscented Baby Balm.

How long does a jar of each last?

A 4 fl oz jar of Amallow lasts most people 6-10 weeks with daily face-and-neck use. A 2 oz Primally Pure jar lasts roughly 5-7 weeks with the same use, and the 1 oz jar about half that.