The Benefits of Coconut Oil

The Benefits of Coconut Oil on Hair

Certain things in life can come in trends, like fashion, music, and even health products. Sometimes these trends can get confusing since popularity levels can skyrocket and plummet, and we as consumers might never be sure what the next big things are going to be. We wait, see, and then decide for ourselves if the new trends are worth exploring in our lives.

In current times, coconut oil has become a significant ingredient in regard to maintaining health, to the point where you can purchase a full-length book about the how-to aspects of using coconut oil for such purposes. If you want to check out the book I’m referring to, by the way, it’s called Coconut Oil for Health , and it’s written by Britt Brandon.

The possible health applications of coconut oil are varied so much that to cover all of its prospective uses in depth could take up much more than one simple post. For that reason, singling out one specific detail of coconut oil seems like a logical approach for this writing endeavor, and that one detail we’ll focus on is how the product can be successfully employed for hair repair and health.

Before we dive into how you can utilize coconut oil to improve your hair, let me first mention that there is the question of if you should try it as it reportedly works better on certain hair types than others. In fact, if you have “coarse or dry hair” (Wellness Mama, 2017, “Coconut Oil Isn’t for Every Hair Type” section), this oil product can lead to you actually losing hair—which probably isn’t what you’re going for with your hair treatment options! Should you decide your hair texture wouldn’t blend well with the product, you might want to overlook this health and beauty recommendation in favor of looking elsewhere for the right products to add to your hair care stash!

But if you do believe that your hair is the right fit for this coconut oil approach, keep on reading!

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Coconut Multitasking Kit 

For starters, let’s glance over the reason as to why coconut oil is a good thing for hair in general, and that’s a question that has a very simple answer! Its benefits are linked to the structure of coconut oil itself because it includes so many medium chain fatty acids. That notion, at first, might not mean much to you, but here are the basics of the idea: These particular acids are advantageous because they bring “antibacterial and antimicrobial properties” (Wellness Mama, 2017, “Why Use Coconut Oil for Hair” section) to improve your health. Even if you add the oil directly to your hair, that structural make-up is beneficial in building a healthier you.

Now, the question becomes how coconut oil can benefit your hair, and there are a number of answers to that inquiry—ones that might be your motivation for reading this post in the first place! It’s good to know that a product can help you with a general category of a problem, but if you don’t understand what *exactly* it helps you with, you’re at a loss about when to properly apply it. So, let’s explore a series of specific ways that coconut oil can benefit your hair in order to give you an idea as to when it’s time for you to break out the product for a hair reboot!

It helps with gray hair. Reportedly, coconut oil is one of the things you can buy that can rejuvenate your natural hair color. This is because of its “restorative properties” (Himel, n.d., “Shampoo with Coconut Oil” section) and its general ability to keep your hair healthy (Himel, n.d., “Shampoo with Coconut Oil” section). As an additional tip, it’s particularly useful for this purpose if you mix the coconut oil with lemon juice for your hair fix (“Coconut Oil And Lemon Mixture – It Turns Gray Hair Back To Its Natural Color,” 2016). Essentially, if you find yourself losing your hair color at a too-young age, you might want to look into coconut oil treatments to turn the clock back just a bit!

It keeps balding at bay. Especially if you mix it with a lime, gooseberries, or sage leaves, coconut oil could help you keep a full head of hair, which might be the most important thing you’re looking for in your hair care plans (“13 Wonderful Benefits Of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d.). The coconut oil treatment can additionally assist your hair in growing in length as well, so for any I-want-my-hair-to-grow difficulty you might face, this product could be a fair place to start in dealing with the problem. Don’t be surprised if you have a fuller head of hair for your efforts!

It gets those pesky knots out of your hair more easily. This advantage is one that might appeal mostly to those with “long or curly hair” (“6 Clever Ways To Use Coconut Oil For Gorgeous Hair,” 2014, section #2), but if you find that you really wrestle with a high number of tangles, you might want to use a bit of coconut oil on your hair to help reel the chaos in! And don’t worry about “residue or long-term damage” (“6 Clever Ways To Use Coconut Oil For Gorgeous Hair,” 2014, section #2) in regard to your hair from the application because the coconut oil will seemingly cause neither! If it fixes the problem without causing a new one, that sounds like a solid solution to me! 

It can be your dandruff control. If you’ve been dealing with dandruff for a long time and just can’t find the right shampoo to correct the problem, you might want to try coconut oil for the fix. Those medium chain fatty acids that I mentioned earlier “have strong antiviral, antimicrobial and antifungal properties that target the fungus and help to kill it as well as viruses and bacteria that may be lurking on your scalp” (“5 Best Uses of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d., section #3), so if your shampoos aren’t powerful enough to take care of the problem at its core, coconut oil might be the product for the job!

It can keep the lice away. One of the worst things that can happen to your hair is to find out that you have lice, and coconut oil can be a step in keeping those pests away. During a research endeavor, “coconut oil based spray was 82% successful and the permethrin was only 42% successful” (“5 Best Uses of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d., section #5) in regard to dealing with lice. Permethrin is a “commonly used prescription lice treatment” (“5 Best Uses of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d., section #5), and coconut oil apparently worked nearly twice as well. If coconut oil works that much better than a standard method of combatting the lice problem, it seems a very strong candidate for your best anti-lice bet!

It can protect your hair like sunscreen. If you’re going to be out in the sun for a long period of time, you might think about applying some form of sunblock to your skin, but the truth is that your hair could use a bit of protection as well. For that detail, coconut oil could be your go-to product since it “is a natural sunscreen, with an SPF of 8” (“5 Best Uses of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d., section #4). All you need to do is apply it to your hair in the right amount, then go out and enjoy your day with fewer worries about what the sun is doing to your hair!

These are just six of the ways that coconut oil could benefit your hair, but there are plenty more, like styling, conditioning, and toning (“13 Wonderful Benefits Of Coconut Oil For Hair,” n.d.). All in all, investing in a container of this product or shampoos and conditioners that are coconut-based could be wonderful steps in creating the perfect hair care plan for yourself. Be careful to do your research though for whatever purpose you have in mind for the coconut oil, and make sure you’re pairing it with the right ingredients, applying the correct amounts, and employing it to its fullest potential. If you do, you could find yourself on a coconut-paved path to healthy, beautiful, natural-looking hair!

References
5 Best Uses of Coconut Oil For Hair. (n.d.). Dr. Axe. Retrieved from https://draxe.com/coconut-oil-for-hair/
6 Clever Ways To Use Coconut Oil For Gorgeous Hair. (2014, September 3). Natural Living Ideas. Retrieved from http://www.naturallivingideas.com/coconut-oil-for-hair/
13 Wonderful Benefits Of Coconut Oil For Hair. (n.d.). Organic Facts. Retrieved from https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/oils/coconut-oil-for-hair.html
Coconut Oil And Lemon Mixture – It Turns Gray Hair Back To Its Natural Color. (2016, August 10). Healthy Life Tricks . Retrieved from http://www.healthylifetricks.com/coconut-oil-lemon-mixture-turns-gray-hair-back-natural-color/
Himel, H.F. (n.d.). Why Is Coconut Oil The Best Choice For Reversing Gray Hair? Gaizu Path . Retrieved from http://gaizupath.com/coconut-oil-for-gray-hair/
Wellness Mama. (2017, April 13). Coconut Oil for Hair: Good or Bad? Wellness Mama . Retrieved from https://wellnessmama.com/2162/coconut-oil-for-hair...