5 Ways to Support Your Skin with Alluvial Farms Oinkment

Five uses for Alluvial Farms Oinkment:

1. Keep your skin soft and moisturized

2. cuticle cream

3. Treat psoriasis or eczema

4. Sooth a sunburn

5. Use as a lip balm

I’ve spent years trying to find that one lotion or moisturizer that I could fall in love with. I am a woman in my late forties and a farmer fascinated with natural products I can make myself. I was always looking for something that I could use on my face and body that is moisturizing for my dry skin patches, isn’t too oily for my face, will give my skin a nice glow, helps treat the occasional blemish or acne, has some anti-aging properties since wrinkles are becoming a concern, and is a sustainable and affordable option. 

 After years of searching, I really hadn’t fallen in love with any lotions or beauty products. With a list of must haves like that I knew it would be hard. And then it happened. I found my miracle product; I became a pig farmer, discovered lard, and I finally feel like I’m excited about my skincare. I’m finally feeling like my skin is HEALTHY and I’m happy about what I’m using to moisturize both my face, lips, and body. You might be thinking, did she really just say she uses lard?? Yes, lard. 

When looking for that perfect skincare product, lard does not often occur to most people these days. I know it didn’t for me until I became a pig farmer. I mean honestly, the thought of rubbing pig fat on my body and face didn’t sound that appealing until I started working with pig fat and did a little research. Now I can’t imagine using anything else. 

So what makes lard such a great option? There are truly countless benefits. 

First let’s talk about cost. The great thing about lard is that you get all of the benefits of expensive creams and beauty care products without the crazy price tag. Expensive creams have always been a turn off for me. I want something that works, but I don’t want to pay an outrageous price. As a mother I’m usually spending more on my child than myself. I’m sure all of you parents can relate. Lard is a great solution. Compared to the cost of many other products it’s inexpensive. And with lard, a little goes a long way, so I’m using less and getting more out of it. I’m actually saving money on my skincare regimen since switching to lard. 

Another huge benefit for me is sustainability. Using lard in my daily skincare regimen has really brought me back to appreciating what resources I have locally. Each year for the past few years we have butchered and direct marketed roughly 120 hogs per year. This has left us with roughly 400 pounds of beautiful, vitamin D rich pastured berkshire pork fat “extra” each year. Instead of creating more waste, we are upcycling the back and leaf fat through large batch rendering in a commercial kitchen for our pure lard cooking oil and as a base for our skincare products. 

Oinkment ingredients: Alluvial Farms’ lard, BeeWorks Farm’s beeswax, Wildroot Botanicals peppermint & lavender flower essential oils.

Avoiding chemicals is also a huge must for me. I am aware that chemicals are now so omnipresent in our lives that many can be detected at base levels within our bodies. I try not to add to the load by avoiding use of chemicals in my daily life and in our farming practices. I’ve started using only safe and chemical free options for health and beauty, and lard is an amazing solution for that. Alluvial Farms oinkments are a high quality skin care product with only a handful of ingredients, two of which we grow here on our farm.

To our lard we add Beeswax from BeeWorks Farm - Rob Reinstra manages is business with integrity and hard work, and keeps some of his hives on our farm for half of the year. The beeswax is a antimicrobial stabilizer that bonds to the lard and creates a shelf stable product. Essential oils from an herbalist in Alger, WA distilled by hand from lavender and peppermint plants. I can easily pronounce everything I’m putting on my skin. No questioning or looking up what an ingredient is.

Now for the really fun stuff... what lard is really doing for my skin. There are so many benefits. Lard can reduce fine lines and wrinkles, tone and firm skin, even out complexion and skin color, reduce redness, fight inflammation, help treat rosacea, reduce dryness (which makes it great for use in winter!), helps treat eczema, helps reduce appearance of scars, smooths skin texture, softens skin, improves acne, and reduces the size of pores. (2,3,4, 5)

All of that from lard?! Yep. I hope you can understand now why I was so intrigued. 

But how and why does lard work so well for skincare? When it comes to cellular makeup, pig lard is incredibly close to human skin. Lard has a similar pH to that of human skin, and it is made up of both saturated and monounsaturated fats. When it comes to skincare, the experts know that oil dissolves oil. Since lard is so similar to our own skin oils, it’s really perfect to be used as a skincare product for humans in many forms- lotions, creams, lip balms, cleansers. (1)

Pigs are also extremely efficient at processing sunlight and storing it as Vitamin D in their fat (2). When we rub lard on our skin, we’re soaking up all of that Vitamin D, which helps to minimize dark spots and lines, reduce acne, promote collagen production and reduce inflammation which is a common factor in conditions such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis (3). Lard is also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin E and Vitamin A (1,5). It’s packed full of vitamins to give us that healthy glowing skin that we all crave. 

Not all lard is created equally. Vitamin D-rich lard comes from pastured hogs that have been exposed to sunlight (2). That’s why we only use lard from our own pigs. These pigs are kept on pasture for the majority of their lives and have outdoor access for all of their lives. While they benefit by enjoying that beautiful sunshine and soaking up all of that vitamin D then we benefit with beautiful, soft and most importantly HEALTHY skin. 

So now you might understand why lard checks all of my boxes for a perfect skincare product. I’m officially hooked. I never thought I would be saying that I rub pork fat on my face daily, but here I am, and my skin has never felt this healthy.