Belgium's First Tallow Skincare Brand: Why We Grew Slowly, on Purpose

Short answer: Nana Latta is Belgium's first — and so far only known — tallow skincare brand. Unlike many of the beauty names now filling Belgian feeds through paid ads and influencer deals, Nana Latta grew the slow way: handmade in small batches from a 200-year Belgian tallow tradition, one real customer telling another.

If you've scrolled through Instagram or TikTok lately and felt like skincare ads are everywhere — you're not imagining it. Beauty is one of the most heavily advertised categories online, and a lot of that spend comes from brands with venture funding or big marketing teams behind them. Nana Latta doesn't have that. What it has instead is a 200-year-old Belgian family tallow tradition, a founder who makes every formula by hand, and customers who keep coming back and telling someone else.

Not the Loudest Name in Your Feed — On Purpose

Being first in a category doesn't automatically mean being the most visible. Plenty of skincare brands reaching Belgian shoppers right now — some local, many international — are built on paid social and influencer marketing budgets that a small, handmade Belgian brand simply doesn't have and isn't trying to compete with.

That's a real trade-off, and it's honest to name it: Nana Latta's reach has grown from Trustpilot reviews, word of mouth, and people trying a jar and telling a friend or family member — not from a media budget. It's slower. It's also, we'd argue, more honest — the people talking about Nana Latta aren't being paid to.

What "Slow" Actually Means: Handmade in Belgium

My name is Laura, and I founded Nana Latta — a name that means "Mother Earth" in my native Chechen — after becoming a mother myself and wanting to know exactly what was going on my child's skin. I trained as a Health Advisor and Organic Skincare Formulator, and the more I studied, the more I kept arriving at what my own grandmother already knew without a single certificate: that the body recognises what the earth actually provides.

Every Nana Latta product is still made the way that first jar was — by hand, in small batches, using the gentle cold-process method that keeps the tallow's natural vitamins A, D, E and K intact. Nothing is scaled up past what can still be made with real attention. That's a deliberate choice, not a limitation we're working around.

The tallow itself comes from a Belgian family business that has practiced traditional cold-processing for over 200 years — grass-fed cattle, halal-certified, sourced locally rather than imported. This is not an artisan revival dressed up for marketing. It's an unbroken Belgian tradition that predates the entire concept of a beauty industry.

From Chechnya to Belgium: Roots That Run Deeper Than a Brand Story

I grew up in the Chechen Republic, where natural remedies and skincare passed down from mother to daughter were simply part of life — not a wellness trend, just how things were done. My grandmother never measured anything; she knew a mixture was right by the smell and the feel. That instinct is where Nana Latta actually comes from, long before it was a company in Belgium.

I brought that inherited knowledge with me when I settled in Flemish Brabant, and combined it with formal training and Belgium's own deep tallow-processing heritage. Nana Latta isn't a Belgian brand borrowing an ancestral ingredient for a marketing angle — it's a genuinely Chechen-Belgian story, built by hand, for my own family first and yours second.

Two Ways to Build a Skincare Brand

Neither approach is a secret — but they lead to very different products, and it's worth naming the difference plainly rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Real Belgian Recognition, Not Paid Promotion

In 2025, Nana Latta's Tallow Butter Family Daisy was shortlisted at the European Natural Beauty Awards, held at Théâtre Marigny in Paris during Paris Fashion Week — one of 219 nominated products out of more than 1,274 European entries, judged by an independent panel. That's not a sponsored placement; it's outside recognition of the formula itself, alongside far bigger and better-funded European natural beauty brands.

What Belgian Customers Are Actually Saying

"This tallow butter is a game changer for my skin! It's rich yet absorbs beautifully, leaving my skin soft and glowing. The bakuchiol works as a gentle, natural alternative to retinol, while the rosehip deeply nourishes and evens out my complexion."

"After just a few applications, my dry, itchy, and flaky skin transformed into soft, hydrated skin without that tight feeling. I had been struggling with skin problems for years and tried many products — some worked for a while, but the issues always came back. Nana Latta was different."

→ Read all verified customer reviews on Trustpilot

What This Means for Your Skin Type

• Dry skin: The Belgian grass-fed tallow base is rich enough to use as a standalone daily moisturiser, no layering required.
• Sensitive and reactive skin: The unscented Minimalist Butter keeps the ingredient list short — little for a reactive system to flag.
• Babies and family use: The Family Daisy butter, with chamomile, was formulated to be gentle enough for the whole household.
• Acne-prone skin: Grass-fed tallow's fatty acid profile is close to human sebum; patch-testing first is still worth doing, as with any new product.

Why Choosing Belgian — and Choosing Small — Actually Matters

Every order placed with Nana Latta supports a small Belgian family business rather than a marketing budget: a 200-year-old local tallow tradition kept alive, small-batch production that never gets rushed for scale, and full transparency about where the ingredients actually come from. None of that shows up in a paid ad — it shows up in the jar, and in what customers choose to say about it afterward, unprompted.

That's the actual case for choosing the quieter option: not because louder means worse, but because slow, local, and honestly-made is a real thing worth choosing on its own terms — and in Belgium, right now, there's only one tallow brand built that way.

Related Reads

• Nana Latta's Journey into Handmade Natural Skincare
• The Best Tallow Skincare in Europe: Why Belgian Grass-Fed Tallow Sets the Standard

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Nana Latta a Belgian brand?

Yes. Nana Latta is Belgium's first tallow skincare brand, founded and handmade in Flemish Brabant, using tallow from a Belgian family supplier with over 200 years of cold-processing tradition.

Why haven't I seen more ads for Nana Latta?

Honestly — budget. Nana Latta doesn't run the kind of paid social and influencer campaigns that many bigger, better-funded skincare brands use to reach Belgian shoppers. Growth so far has come from word of mouth and reviews, not media spend.

Is Nana Latta halal certified?

Yes. Nana Latta's tallow comes from Belgian, grass-fed, halal-certified cattle — halal certification requires strict traceability and humane treatment standards, effectively an independent welfare audit.

How is Nana Latta different from bigger, heavily-advertised skincare brands?

The main differences are scale and sourcing, not ingredients hype: Nana Latta is handmade in small batches from a traceable, 200-year Belgian tallow tradition, rather than mass-produced. Whether that matters more to you than a bigger brand's marketing reach is a genuinely personal call.

Is Nana Latta available outside Belgium?

Yes, Nana Latta ships across Belgium and the rest of Europe directly from the website.

Which Nana Latta product should I start with?

The unscented Minimalist Butter (tallow + jojoba) is the simplest starting point for most skin types. Family Daisy, our European Natural Beauty Awards 2025 shortlisted formula, is a gentle option for sensitive skin and family use.