Virgin coconut oil is made by pressing the fresh coconut meat to release the oil. In contrast, refined coconut oil uses dried coconut meat, generally referred to as copra. It has become increasingly popular in recent years as an impressive 72% of Americans feel it is healthy, although only 37% of nutritional experts agree. This trend is the same across the globe.
It is worth noting that coconut oil is 100% fat and 80-90% of this is saturated fat. That’s the type that isn’t good for you.
How This Relates To Hair?
Coconut oil is appearing in a wide variety of hair products. This is because bloggers and beauty experts have told everyone how good coconut oil is at removing makeup, moisturizing your skin, boosting hair strength, and even helping to whiten teeth.
It certainly works with removing makeup and it will leave your skin feeling soft. But, if you use coconut oil on your hair you are likely to find it becomes dry and brittle. Coconut oil can even cause the color of your hair to fade!
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How Coconut Oil Dries Your Hair?
Coconut oil has very small molecules, this allows it to penetrate inside your hair and boost the strength of the protein in your hair. This strengthens your hair and helps it to stay hydrated!
That’s a good thing. But, the kicker is that this is only good if you have normal or even greasy hair.
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If you already have dry hair, the coconut oil will bond with the protein in your hair and effectively block access to your hair. This prevents moisture from getting into your hair and leaves it looking and feeling dry and brittle. In short, your hair will be much easier to damage.
The funniest thing about this is that coconut oil is intended to hydrate your hair and it is this that is most harmful to dry hair.
How To Tell If You Can Use Coconut Oil Or Not?
The safest approach is to skip the coconut oil. There are plenty of great hair products available that use natural products without relying on coconut oil. Although, consuming a little in your diet can help strengthen your hair.
The key to whether your hair will benefit from coconut oil is to understand its porosity, that’s how easily it absorbs moisture.
Take several strands of your hair and put them in a glass of water. Leave them for 2-4 minutes and then look at where they are in the water.
If your hair strands are at the bottom you have very porous hair, in the middle of the glass is normal porosity. But, if the hairs are still floating on the top your hair has low porosity and coconut oil is not going to be a good idea for you.