Last Updated on July 3, 2024 by Kapuluan
Janice Sakata-Schultze, a freelance content marketing strategist and writer from Denver, wrote this guest post for Kapuluan Coconut. She and her daughters tried coconut oil for their beauty issues over one month.
With my family living in the arid high, altitude air of Colorado, we constantly battle skin and hair problems. As a result, my two teen daughters and I have tried every product on the market to varying degrees of success. Plus, they’re often chock full of ingredients that we can’t pronounce and don’t know their reason for existence.
The exciting thing about our beauty care is we each have specific main problems. For example, my younger daughter NL has coarse dry hair with less moisture than a haystack in summer. The older one, JR, gets occasional acne breakouts but fortunately, nothing serious. As for myself, I’m the lucky one – my hands and skin become tough and leathery, especially in the low-humidity winter.
So after reading about the benefits of coconut oil, I convinced my kids that we should all give it a go and see if it could help our issues. Naturally, being adolescents, they were both skeptical and teased me that I was following “another dumb trend,” as one of them eloquently said. The other one reminded me that I said the same about eating more kale.
What finally convinced them was appealing to their growing sophistication as consumers. They choose chemical-free products whenever possible, whether for food or beauty care. So coconut oil fits the bill perfectly for our experiments.
Below are the results of our month-long experiment, starting from the first week in January to the first week in February:
Coconut oil for hair care: from coarse to soft
NL doesn’t like to wash her hair because she knows that most shampoos and conditioners don’t work for her. She co claims that her hair “always looks awful.” When she wakes up in the morning, she looks like a wild warrior from deep in the jungles of Borneo.
Her naturally wavy locks have a rough texture that many products can’t seem to tame. She also likes to color her hair often and uses a straightening iron nearly daily. We decided that using a deep conditioning coconut oil treatment twice a week might be the best solution for her and using a dab in the morning as she styled her hair. We chose the treatment from Livestrong because it seemed the simplest.
After nearly 30 days of these two strategies, NL’s hair looked shinier and softer. It was t completely silky smooth, but it appeared healthier than it had in a long time.
Coconut oil for acne: from pimples to perfection
My 15-year-old JR has beautiful, luxuriously long medium brown hair, but her complexion is another matter. While she doesn’t have the severe acne problems that plague many of her friends and classmates, she does have occasional breakouts around her forehead, nose, and chin. The pimples are often formed as stubborn blackheads.
She hadn’t washed her face much as a daily nighttime regimen before this. But she knew the acne could continue if she didn’t start. We begin with a straightforward washing routine based on WellnessMama.com. JR would also apply coconut oil on pimples or rub some on her cheeks if she experienced dryness or redness.
Once the month was done, her complexion looked noticeably more precise and smoother, and she had fewer breakouts than before using the coconut oil.
Coconut oil for skin: from rough to smooth
The last experiment with coconut oil involved my skincare. Before moving to Colorado in 2002, I never experienced problems with dry skin, and I battled them every year since. Applying lotion becomes a nearly hourly ritual so my hands don’t crack and bleed (pretty, I assure you).
During the 30-day experiment, the simplest of the three, I rubbed emulsified coconut oil into my hands, cuticles, and lips every morning and at bedtime. I worked it there if my hands and face needed extra love. Whenever I washed my hands, I reapplied coconut oil. It even replaced my regular lotion half the time. Taking a sizeable scoop of oil and rubbing it in my hands first, I applied it to damp skin and dried it off with a towel.
The result here? My hand and body stayed relatively soft, even through a Colorado winter’s harsh cold and dryness. Admittedly, I wasn’t always consistent with it, and my skin sometimes cracked when I didn’t apply any. But the upshot of this was the coconut oil worked as well as lotion…and it’s wholly additive and chemical-free.
The takeaways from our coconut oil beauty experiments
My daughters and I all agree that coconut oil has a place in our self-care and beauty regimens. Also, we were fortunate that none of us didn’t suffer the allergic reactions to coconut oil that some do. We all over the scent of virgin oil and appreciate that it’s a truly all-natural product. If sometimes doubting teenagers believe coconut oil can help their beauty issues, it can work for anyone.
JOIN US ON INSTAGRAM
