Raw Honey for Skin: What It Is and Why We Use It

Honey pulls moisture toward skin and holds it there. That's what a humectant does, and it's the reason honey has been going on skin for about as long as people have been keeping bees.

The word that matters on the label is raw. Most honey on a supermarket shelf has been heated and filtered, which makes it clear and pourable and takes the pollen out with it. Ours hasn't been.
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Raw unfiltered honey for skin, cloudy and crystallising in an open glass jar.

The ingredient

What Raw Honey Actually Means

Raw means unheated. Commercial honey is usually warmed to somewhere around 145 to 170°F so it flows through fine filters, which is what gives you a clear jar that never crystallises. Filtering that finely takes out the pollen, the propolis and the bits of wax along with the cloudiness.

Unfiltered means those are still in there. Ours is both: never heated, never fine-filtered, strained only enough to take out the obvious wax.

You can tell raw honey by looking at it. It's cloudy rather than clear, and it will crystallise eventually, which is a sign it's what it says rather than a fault. Warm the jar gently and it goes back to liquid.
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What It's Doing in the Jar

Honey is hygroscopic, which is a technical way of saying it attracts water and holds onto it. On skin that means it draws moisture toward the surface rather than sealing it in from above, which is the opposite of what an oil does and the reason the two work well together.

Tallow is the seal. Honey is the pull. Put them in the same jar and you've covered both halves of the problem, which is why dry skin that soaks up product and still feels tight by evening tends to do better with a pairing than with either one alone.

It's also been used on skin for thousands of years and traditionally used to soothe, which we'd rather state as history than dress up as something else.
Raw honey for skin stretching in a thick thread from a small dish to two fingertips.

Honey as a Face Mask

You can use raw honey on its own, and plenty of people do. Spread a thin layer on clean skin, leave it ten to twenty minutes, and rinse with warm water. It's sticky and it's worth doing over a sink.

Start with five minutes if your skin is reactive, and patch-test on your inner forearm first as you would with anything new. Honey is non-comedogenic and doesn't need diluting for most skin.

Anyone with a bee-related allergy should leave it alone.
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Where Ours Comes From

Raw and unfiltered Texas honey. Never heated, never fine-filtered, and the same honey you could put on toast.

That last part is a decent test for any skincare ingredient. Most of what goes into a moisturizer would not survive it.
beef tallow skincare whipped body butter

Hide & Honey

The Pull and the Seal

Raw and unfiltered Texas honey draws moisture in. Grass-fed, grass-finished tallow helps hold it there. Vitamin E keeps the whole thing stable without a preservative.
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Common Questions

What is raw honey?
Honey that hasn't been heated or fine-filtered. Most supermarket honey is warmed so it runs through fine filters, which makes it clear and stops it crystallising, and takes the pollen and propolis out along the way. Raw honey keeps them, which is why it's cloudier and why it sets solid over time.
How can you tell if honey is raw?
Look at it. Raw honey is usually cloudy rather than glass-clear, and it crystallises over weeks or months into something thick and grainy. Perfectly clear honey that stays liquid forever has almost always been heated and filtered. Crystallising is a sign you got the real thing, not a sign it's gone off. Stand the jar in warm water and it loosens up.
Is honey good for your skin?
It's a humectant, which means it draws moisture toward the skin and holds it there rather than coating the surface. That's a useful thing to have in a moisturizer, and it's why it pairs well with a fat like tallow that works the other way round. It's been used on skin for thousands of years and traditionally used to soothe.
Can I put raw honey straight on my face?
Yes, and it's one of the simplest things you can do with it. A thin layer on clean skin, ten to twenty minutes, then rinse with warm water. Do it over a sink. If your skin is reactive, start at five minutes, and patch-test first. Anyone with a bee allergy should skip it.
What's the difference between raw and pasteurized honey?
Heat and filtering. Pasteurized honey is warmed to around 145 to 170°F and passed through fine filters, which makes it clear, pourable and slow to crystallise. Raw honey skips both steps, so it keeps its pollen and propolis and behaves less predictably in the jar. For eating, the difference is mostly character. For skin, we'd rather use the version that's had less done to it.
Why does honey go solid?
Because it's supposed to. Honey is a supersaturated sugar solution and crystallising is its natural resting state, which raw honey does faster because the pollen gives the crystals something to form around. Filtered, heated honey stays liquid longer, which is the whole reason it's processed that way. Warm the jar gently if you want it runny again.
Is your honey the same honey you could eat?
Yes. Raw and unfiltered Texas honey, exactly as it comes. We think that's a fair test to hold a skincare ingredient to, and most of them don't pass it.