Two Brothers.
No Plan.

Two Brothers, No Plan

Jake and Kyle have been best friends their whole lives — they just happen to also be brothers. Growing up on the lakeshore in Norton Shores, Michigan, they spent their childhood in ice rinks, on golf courses, in duck blinds, and on the water. Starting a business together was always the plan. What that business would actually be — that took a little longer to figure out.

The catalyst came when Jake, a Director for 18 years, lost his job. For most people, that's a setback. For Jake and Kyle, it was the push to finally build something of their own. Skincare was the last thing on either of their minds.

The Idea Found Them

The idea found them on a family trip to Frankenmuth. In the hotel room, the women in their group were talking about beef tallow — how good it was for their skin. Jake and Kyle gave it a try.

It wasn't for them. The scent was off, and it felt like it was made for someone else's routine, not theirs.

So they went looking for a version built for men. They couldn't find one. Nobody had made tallow for guys who work outside, coach their kids from the baseball diamond, or spend more time in a duck blind than in front of a mirror. That gap became Dude Tallow.

From a Bad Sketch to The Old Fashioned

The Monday after that trip, Jake sent over an AI-generated image of what he pictured the jar looking like. It looked nothing like what Dude Tallow actually became — but it was enough to get them moving.

What followed was a lot of trial and error. Formulas that smelled wrong. Formulas that sat on the skin instead of sinking in. Tallow that claimed to be grass-fed but couldn't back it up as grass-fed and finished. Ingredient lists that looked clean on paper but didn't actually do anything for the fine lines and wrinkles two lifelong outdoorsmen were starting to notice on their own faces.

Solving all of it — the scent, the absorption, the sourcing, the actual results — became The Old Fashioned.

Getting Older, Getting Sore

The second product came from the same place the first one did: paying attention to their own lives. Between the two of them, they've spent decades on the ice, on the course, on job sites, and outdoors — and neither of them bounces back the way they used to.

They went looking for a tallow-based muscle balm and found the same problem all over again: nothing out there was built the way they wanted. So they built it themselves — a muscle balm carrying 1,000mg of CBD in a grass-fed and finished tallow base, using tallow as the delivery vehicle so it actually absorbs instead of just sitting on the surface.

That became the CBD Muscle Balm.

Just Getting Started

Dude Tallow started with two guys who noticed a gap and decided to fill it themselves. We've got more products in mind down the line — but The Old Fashioned and the CBD Muscle Balm came first because they're the ones that have genuinely worked for us. We wanted to get those right before we did anything else.

No ten-step routine. No products you can't pronounce. Just what actually works.

Skip the Routine.™

— Jake & Kyle, Dude Tallow