The Day the LA Times Stumbled Upon Our Booth

A few weeks ago, a woman stopped at our booth at the Redondo Beach farmers market. Nothing unusual about that — the best part of my week is the conversations that happen over that table. She picked up a jar of our bison tallow moisturizer, asked good questions, and listened while I talked about the ranch our tallow comes from and why we render it the slow way.

What I didn’t know was that she was a writer for the Los Angeles Times.

Yesterday, the Times published her piece on the rise of tallow skincare — and it opens right there at our booth in Redondo Beach, with a small amber jar sitting between the heirloom tomatoes and the artisanal honey. She went on to test Ancient Nature alongside two other tallow brands for two weeks, and she interviewed dermatologists and cosmetic chemists about the whole category while she did it.

You can read the full article here: What’s the deal with... beef tallow skincare? — Los Angeles Times

Her two weeks — in her words, not mine

She spent two weeks with the products, talked to dermatologists and cosmetic chemists, and wrote honestly about the whole experience — her observations, her questions, and her own conclusions. I won’t summarize any of it for you. It’s her story, and it’s worth reading exactly as she told it.

And honestly, that’s the fun part: you don’t have to take her word for it, or mine. Come by the booth any week and try everything on the table before you spend a dollar. Or order online knowing every jar comes with our 30-day guarantee — if it’s not for you, send it back and we’ll make it right, no questions asked. The same goes for anything you pick up at the booth. The whole point of what we make is that your own skin gets to decide.

The honest part

The article isn’t a commercial for tallow, and I’m glad. The dermatologists she interviewed are skeptical of the big claims floating around this category — and honestly, so am I. The internet is full of people promising that tallow will fix everything. We’ve never sold it that way, and we never will.

What we make is simple: skin food. Real ingredients from an animal raised on pasture the way animals should be raised, rendered and poured by hand in small batches here in Los Angeles. If you’re curious why we chose bison over beef, I wrote about that here. And if you’re new to tallow and wondering how to actually use it, start here.

Why this one means so much

Ancient Nature is barely a year old. There’s no PR agency, no ad budget behind this — just a table at a farmers market, a jar of something I made with my own hands, and a stranger curious enough to stop.

That’s how this whole thing has grown from the beginning: one conversation at a time. My grandmother made remedies by hand in São Paulo, and people trusted her because they knew her. A national newspaper finding us the same way a neighbor would — by walking past the booth — feels like the right way for this story to be told.

To everyone who has stopped at that table, asked a question, or taken a jar home: this belongs to you too. Thank you.

Come say hi — Redondo Beach on Thursdays, Hermosa Beach or Topanga on Fridays, Marina del Rey on Saturdays, Mar Vista on Sundays.

— Bruno