Coconut Oil Benefits And Uses: How To Use Coconut Oil To Grow Your Hair Longer

Everyone wants silky, smooth, shiny, healthy and masculine hair. You can do that through magic coconut oil. Using coconut oil for your hair is a trend and cliche nowadays, there are tons of studies that prove it’s better than other oils at protecting your hair. Today, we are going to show you the benefits of coconut oil, as well as how to apply it to make your hair grow longer and thicker. First thing first, you will need to know the structure of your hair.

The Structure Of Your Hair

Your hair follicles are made up of three parts. The first part is the medulla. This is that soft middle layer of your hair, and the amount of medulla is what makes up how thick or thin your hair is. The middle layer is called the cortex. This is the visible part, It's the outer layer that gives your hair its color and also has tons of fibrous proteins that are a vital nutrient for hair health. The third layer is called the cuticle. This is that tough protective keratin layer of your hair. So if you think about fish and how they have protective scales, the keratin layer is like the armor of your hair follicles. They are actually small overlapping scales that protect your hair proteins from things like weather or pollutant or dirt and chemicals from reaching the medulla and causing breakage.

So things that can damage the cuticle and cause breakage are things like scrubbing and washing too hard, coloring, styling, pulling too hard, if you're putting your hair in a bun, or if it's tied too tightly, and heat. Because when your cuticle breaks, you lose proteins in your cortex, which leaves you with thinner, drier, frizzier hair that's more prone to breakage, furthermore, slower growth, no growth, or just a bad look.

The Benefits Of Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is one of the most effective natural oils found in the world, especially because of its antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, and weight loss potential. Although coconut oil is criticized for its high content of saturated fatty acids, it is not the saturation that determines the quality of oil, but the composition of fatty acids. For example, coconut oil is rich in lauric acid and has a special antibacterial effect. It has been developed into a commercial product: lauric acid, which can resist some bacteria, This is very rare in other oils.

In April of 2003 in "The Journal of Cosmetic Science," researchers tested coconut oil against sunflower oil and mineral oil on the effectiveness of protecting your hair from damage and reducing protein loss in your hair. Quoting the study "Among three oils, coconut oil was the only oil found to reduce the protein loss remarkably for both undamaged and damaged hair when used as a pre-wash and post-wash grooming product. Both sunflower and mineral oils do not help at all in reducing protein loss from hair."

The reason coconut oil is so powerful lies in the composition of the oil. The study goes on to say, "Coconut oil, being a triglyceride of lauric acid (principal fatty acid) has a high affinity for hair proteins" Because of its low molecular weight and straight linear chain, it's able to penetrate inside of your hair shaft.

Another indirect benefit of coconut oil is to help your hair grow longer as well. The reason is when your hair is damaged or breaks, growth slows down tremendously. If breakage happens faster than growth, it can almost halt. So coconut oil can help protect your hair from breakage that occurs from washing or pulling and styling, from the environment, the sun, smoke, and it helps retain those vital proteins. One thing that damages hair is excessive sun exposure. That's another cause of cuticle breakage, and several studies have found that oils like coconut oil, olive oil, peppermint oil, have a UV protection blocking.

How To Use Coconut Oil

There are several uses for coconut oil, here we are bringing you the two best and easiest way to use coconut oil to grow your hair longer and thicker. One is as a prewash protector for your hair or other works as a post-wash detangler.

Coconut oil is great protection before a wash. Start by applying the coconut oil to your hands, rubbing the palms together, and then working it from roots to ends. If you have frizzy or curly parts, coconut oil can help detangle and straighten the frizzy parts. After that, take a thick-bristled comb and comb the scalp out from the roots to the ends of your hair to help spread the coconut oil evenly. Let it sit for a while so it can penetrate all the way into the medulla and get all the protective qualities. Then you can wash and apply conditions as normally would.

As a post-wash detangler, just wash and condition like normal. Make sure to dry your hair enough to where it's only a little damp, like a towel dry, make sure do not use a blow dryer. Then do the same process as before. This will work as a leave-in conditioner, in order to help protect your hair from the sun and from other daily elements that could damage your hair.

A few other ways you could use it as a conditioner, wash like normal, but replace your conditioner with coconut oil. You could also use it as a hair mask, in which you would just rub coconut oil through your hair, let it sit for a few hours before washing it out.