Benefits of Coconut Oil for your Hair

A friend of mine loves to put coconut oil treatments in her hair and sometimes comes out during the day with her hair slicked back into a bun when she has the treatment in. After seeing her a few times with her sleek shiny bun, I thought I would give it a try.

There are so many claims around about the benefits of coconut oil and sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe. I’ve read some pretty big claims, one claim was that coconut oil will prevent or reverse grey hair by regenerating hair cells. I not sure how trustworthy that is but it would be pretty awesome if it were true! Another claim, that seems more reliable, is that coconut oil reduces hair loss (as it has been used for this purpose in India since ancient times). While I don’t know how effectively this works, there seems to be a common theme; coconut oil is good for and rejuvenates hair.

Hair Treatment

Coconut oil hair treatments can be a bit difficult in finding an appropriate time to do them. You can leave it in for anything from a couple of hours to the whole day or night. A lot of websites suggest that you put the oil in before you go to bed and wear a shower cap or cling wrap your head to prevent your sheets from getting super oily. I don’t like doing this because I always think some will come out. Therefore I usually do my treatments on the rare day that I don’t have to go out, or the only outing is to yoga (where these sorts of things are socially acceptable) or a very close friend’s house.

I usually use 2 heaped tablespoons of solid coconut oil or 3-4 level tablespoons if it’s in liquid form. Even if it is solid I put the oil in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to melt it – careful with this!!! If your microwave is super powerful you don’t want to overheat the oil and burn yourself.

To apply the treatment, it’s easiest to section out your hair to make sure you cover all of your hair fully. You want to apply the oil equally from the roots to the ends as the treatment will work on keeping the roots healthy as well as adding protein to dry ends. I tend to apply it to the roots and the brush it through. This seems to work really well and the oil goes much further than you would suspect (something I learned the hard way the first time I did it and kept having drips of coconut oil running down my face for the whole day).

When you wash the oil out, you will probably need to double shampoo (I have tried only shampooing once and my hair just got really greasy really quickly)!

For best results, you should do the treatment between 1-4 times a month.

I really love using coconut oil as a hair treatment not only because it’s all natural, but also because I find I feel the softness for longer after each treatment. As the bottom half of my hair gets pretty dry at the moment after being dyed too much, I find if I do one treatment a week, my hair feels really soft and much healthier! Also, even though coconut oil is pretty expensive as far as oils go, it’s much cheaper than buying other hair treatments or other hair oils! So give it a go and let me know if you like it! xx