4 WAYS TO USE COCONUT OIL

Sunday, September 21, 2014


Hello! Once again, I'm back for a new post and this time I'm not extremely late! This week has been quite hectic; I graduated from high school on Friday and I've had mixed emotions this week; on one hand, I'm glad to leave school because I don't exactly like the schooling system where how 'smart' you are is based on what kind of subjects you do (apparently, your marks scale higher if you do more Science based subjects like Chemistry, than if you do Arts based subjects like Visual Arts - which is a pity for me). However, on the other hand, I've met my best friends at my school and as my year is quite small, we're a close, tight knit group of friends. As I'm planning to move states for university, I know I won't be staying in touch with everyone and that honestly makes me quite sad. 

Anyway! Back to the post, today I'll be sharing four of my favourite uses of Coconut Oil. I think it's part of the new 'super food' craze and whether or not you believe it, I personally love Coconut Oil for beauty purposes. It absorbs well into the skin without it feeling greasy and since its pH level (it ranges between 5.5-7.8) is similar to our skins ideal pH level (5.5 is said to be the 'magical' number), it is great for neutralising your skins pH level. Not having a neutral pH level can be one of the reasons why your skin is very oily and prone to pimples or even extremely dry. 

4 WAYS TO USE COCONUT OIL:

1) Cuticle Oil
Being a high school student who barely has enough money to buy a coffee, I've become quite frugal with the little money I've saved and I've never been able to justify spending over $10 on a small bottle of cuticle oil. Honestly, some of them are probably filled with nasties that you wouldn't want to put on your nails anyway! I find using a small drop of coconut oil is more than enough for me to make my cuticles look neat and tidy while being much cheaper and better for my hands since coconut oil also has anti-fungal qualities. It's very simple to do:
  1. Melt about a 1/4 teaspoon of coconut oil (the amount will change for everyone but I find that for it, it's more than enough). It has a low melting so you can microwave it for a few seconds or just put it in a small glass jar with a lid and put some hot water around the jar. 
  2. Apply a small drop on each cuticle and massage.

That's how easy and cheap it is! I also think it softens them so it makes it easier to push them back with a cuticle stick before a manicure. If there is any left over, it can also be used to moisturise your hands.

2) Makeup Remover
This is probably one of the beauty crimes I commit but I actually use a lotion to remove my makeup. The one I use can actually be used as a skin cleanser and has never broken me out. More recently however, I've found that coconut oil is also a great makeup remover. The first time I used it as a makeup remover I was quite surprised because it was as if my makeup was lifting off my face! 
  1. Melt about 1/2 a tablespoon of coconut oil into a small bowl (see above on how to melt solid coconut oil). The amount will change depending on how much makeup you have on. 
  2. Massage onto a small area of your skin and immediately remove with a cotton pad or a facial tissue.
  3. Continue doing this all over your face until all your makeup is removed.
I've also heard people applying coconut oil to remove makeup in the solid form by first rubbing the oil between their fingers and then applying onto skin. Since it has a low melting temperature, it can easily become become smooth enough to apply onto skin.
After you remove your makeup using coconut oil I would highly recommend that you wash your face with a gentle cleanser, just to remove anything you might have missed. Using coconut oil is so great for waterproof makeup and a little goes a long way!

3) Body/Lip Scrub
Scrubs are a must in my beauty regime. It gets rid of all the gunk which a cleanser sometimes just can't get rid of. Personally, I wouldn't make my own face scrub just yet, in the fear that I may break out however making body and lip scrubs are fun and when using natural products, I rarely get any bad reactions from it. I'll be making some recipes in the future about how to make different scrubs but here is a very basic scrub:
  1. Mix about 1/2 cup of coconut oil with about 1 cup of brown sugar. (you can change the ratio according to how you like your scrubs; here I'm using a 1:2 ratio of coconut oil to sugar)
  2. Store into an airtight container until you are ready to use it
To make it your own, you can add your favourite essential oils in it to give it a nice scent as well. This recipe is obviously very basic, but very easy to whip up! It's great for all seasons and makes your skin very smooth and moisturised!

4) "Pre-conditioner" for hair
This is my favourite way to use coconut oil! Before washing my hair, I like to 'pre-condition' it which makes it a lot easier to wash and surprisingly, less oily! I started this a couple of months back and I didn't need to wash my hair for about a week (I know it's gross but I just wanted to see how long I could go without washing after trying this), simply because it wasn't oily, which is great because I used to have to wash it every other day. It's so quick and easy and has so many benefits!
  1. Melt about a tablespoon of coconut oil in a small bowl. Again, the amount will differ according to how long your hair is - mine is about an inch or two past my shoulders.
  2. Wet your hair with warm water.
  3. Dip the tips of your fingers into the melted coconut oil and in circular motions, massage your scalp.
  4. Keep doing this until you have nearly no more coconut oil and apply to the ends of your hair. 
  5. Tie up your hair if you can and leave for 3-5 minutes.
  6. After this time, rinse out your hair thoroughly and wash your hair (shampoo and conditioner) as you would normally
It's so easy to do and actually promotes healthy hair growth by stimulating the scalp which is great for those who want to grow out their hair (I noticed my hair growing a little faster than usual!). Since you aren't stripping your hairs of it's natural oils, it makes it easy to wash too. Two tips for you if you do this: 1. If you usually use a leave in conditioner or a thick conditioner after you shampoo your hair, I would switch to a thinner conditioner. Your hair will be so smooth and nourished after anyway! 2. Don't worry about the coconut oil making your hair oily. After you've rinsed it out your hair and shampooed it, it should be all rinsed out!

So there you have it; 4 different ways to use coconut oil! It's truly a versatile product and even if you don't believe it being a super food, it's still great as a beauty product. If you try this out or have any other ways to use coconut oil, please comment below! There should be a new post coming out again this weekend so stay tuned :)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Coconut oil is staple for me! I always have a jar around! I also use those 4 different ways and it works wonders. Another way I heard about was oil pulling.

xxMel

Iris said...

How great is it?! I've heard of oil pulling too and there are so many good benefits! I might try it sometime.


Thanks for commenting!
Iris

anonymous said...

What about coconut water?? I heard it was pretty good for you as well!