What to Look For in a Moisturizer for Eczema-Prone Skin

If your skin flares easily, you've probably learned to read the back of the bottle before the front. That's the right instinct, and it's most of what this page is about.

Eczema-prone skin usually reacts to what gets added to a product rather than to moisture itself. So the useful question isn't which balm works hardest. It's what's in the jar, and what isn't. Ours is grass-fed tallow, raw and unfiltered Texas honey, and vitamin E, and this page explains why each one earns its place.
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Thick tallow body butter for eczema-prone skin, holding a peak on a spatula.

Where to start

Read the Label Before You Read the Promise

The ingredients that most often bother reactive skin are the same handful, over and over: synthetic fragrance, preservatives, emulsifiers, and harsh sulfate cleansers. Fragrance is the one dermatologists flag first, and it counts whether it's synthetic or botanical.

Here's the part most people don't know. Those ingredients are usually in the bottle because the product is mostly water. Water and oil won't stay mixed on their own, so it needs an emulsifier. Water grows things, so it needs a preservative. Take the water out and most of the reason for the rest of the list goes with it.

Why the Moisturizer Itself Can Be the Problem

It's a frustrating pattern and a common one. You moisturize, your skin settles for an hour, then it's tight and angry again by evening. So you try the next jar.

If that's been your experience, it's worth considering that the product is doing two things at once. The oils and humectants are helping. The fragrance and preservatives may be working against them. You can't tell which is which while both are in the same jar, and the shorter the list, the fewer variables you're dealing with.

Ours has no synthetic fragrance, no parabens, no preservatives and no emulsifiers. There's no water in it, so it never needed them. That's a shorter list to argue with.
Whipped tallow body butter for eczema-prone skin, a woman's hands on her forearm.

Why Tallow, Specifically

Grass-fed beef tallow is roughly half saturated fat and about 46% oleic acid, which puts it closer to the composition of human sebum than most common plant oils. It also carries vitamins A, D, E and K2, naturally present in the fat because of how the animal was raised rather than added afterward.

What that means in the jar: it melts at body heat, absorbs instead of sitting on top, and a pea-sized amount covers more than you'd expect. People use it on faces, hands, elbows, knees, and the cracked knuckles that show up every February. Carrie keeps a jar by the kitchen sink from November onward.

Apply it to slightly damp skin, straight out of the shower or after washing your hands, and it has water to work with.

What the Honey Is Doing

Raw and unfiltered Texas honey is a humectant, which means it draws moisture toward the skin and holds it there rather than sitting on the surface. It's been used on skin for thousands of years and it's traditionally been used to soothe.

Paired with tallow, the two work on different halves of the same problem. The honey pulls moisture in. The tallow helps hold it there. For skin that drinks up product and still feels tight a few hours later, that pairing is the whole idea.
beef tallow skincare whipped body butter

Hide & Honey

Fewer Things to React To

Blanco is our fragrance-free balm: grass-fed tallow, raw and unfiltered Texas honey, and vitamin E. If you can't read a label without looking something up, it doesn't go in the jar.
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Common Questions

Is tallow good for eczema-prone skin?
It's one of the main reasons people come to tallow in the first place. Its fatty acid profile is close to the composition of your skin's own oil, so it absorbs rather than sitting on top, and it leaves out the things reactive skin most often objects to. There's no water in it, so it needs no preservatives and no emulsifiers, and we add no fragrance to Blanco at all. Short list, nothing hiding in it, and you can use it as often as your skin is comfortable with.
What should I avoid in a moisturizer if my skin flares?
The usual short list: synthetic fragrance, drying alcohols, harsh sulfate cleansers, and preservatives like parabens and phenoxyethanol. Fragrance is the one worth taking most seriously, and natural fragrance counts. Essential oils are fragrance too, which is exactly why we make a fragrance-free option.
Is Hide & Honey suitable for eczema-prone skin?
Blanco is our fragrance-free one: grass-fed tallow, raw and unfiltered Texas honey, vitamin E. Nothing added for scent. If your skin reacts easily, that's the one to start with rather than The Alamo, which is scented with frankincense. Patch-test on your inner forearm and give it a day before you use it anywhere that matters. Any ingredient can bother somebody, and we'd rather you find that out on a small patch.
How often can I use it?
As often as your skin wants it. Most people land on once or twice a day and reach for it more on the rough spots: knuckles, elbows, heels, the patch on your shin that never quite settles. There's nothing in it that builds up or wears out its welcome, and because there's no water there's nothing that spoils on the shelf either. If your skin has bigger causes behind it, that's a conversation for your doctor, and a good moisturizer is worth having either way.
Is fragrance-free the same as unscented?
Not quite, and the difference matters here. Fragrance-free means nothing was added to make it smell like anything. Unscented often means a masking fragrance was added to cover a base odour, so unscented products can and frequently do contain fragrance. Blanco is fragrance-free. It isn't odourless, it smells faintly of tallow and honey, because that's what's in it. We just didn't add anything to change that.
How do I patch-test properly?
Put a small amount on the inside of your forearm, leave it alone for 24 hours, and look at it before you put it anywhere else. If your skin is very reactive, do it twice. It's a slow way to start and it's saved a lot of people a bad week.