Isn’t It Time You Changed Your Oil?

5 by Derek Markham on January 27, 2009

Not the oil in your crankcase, the stuff in your bathroom cupboard. Even the most natural of moisturizers and skin care products have multiple ingredients, some which I can't even pronounce. Read the labels of your lotions and potions, your lip balm and conditioner, and see for yourself. Of course, just because I can't pronounce it doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad for you, but I prefer simple, basic things. The more ingredients something has, the less I want to use it. My choice for personal care is coconut oil. It has one ingredient: coconut.

Pure coconut oil, also known as coconut butter (not to be confused with cocoa butter, from the cacao bean) is one of the best all around moisturizers that I've ever used. It's usually available in health food stores in either refined (for cooking, usually) and unrefined (still has a coconut-y smell) styles. I like the Spectrum brand, but Nutiva also has a super high-quality organic oil. Virgin coconut oil is made from fresh, not dried coconuts, and I always choose the expeller-pressed unrefined version.

Coconut oil makes a superb lip balm and sunburn treatment, and works well for dry skin and hair. It's also an excellent intimate lubricant (though it may not be safe for use with condoms). The oil is solid when the temperature is under 76° F, and a liquid when it's warmer.

For use as a hair conditioner, work the oil into your hair, down to the roots, about a half an hour before showering. Shampoo as usual, but skip the conditioner. It's the only thing I use for hair moisturizing, and I think it works better than shampooing and then adding conditioner afterward. If you still need conditioner after the oil treatment, you might look into getting a milder shampoo.

As a food, it's a great substitute for butter, and the refined version has a high smoke-point of about 450° F, which makes for a great sauté or stir-fry oil. Use coconut oil instead of your usual choice for baked goods, and you'll end up with a super-rich dessert (and the coconut flavor is hardly noticeable).

If it's time to change your oil, try coconut oil and leave the unpronounceable ingredients alone.

Image: Swami Stream at Flickr under CC License

http://freesand.com/ Matt

If you want to, you could add some essential oils to your coconut oil for a fragrant and therapeutic moisturizer. Different plant essential oils also have different therapeutic and medicinal properties. Adding some lavender essential oil would work even better on those sunburns.
http://godlessradio.com/flyswatter Laura Ross

I’ve never tried coconut oil because I despise coconut. I can’t even stand the smell. But I’ll try it. My hair is a bleached out and grey wreck.

My husband and I keep a squeeze bottle of cheap grocery store extra-virgin olive oil in our bathroom and we rub it all over our skin when we get out of the shower, before we towel off. It’s awesome, smells good, and it attracts one of our cats who licks our oily legs and feet and therefore makes her hair shiny.

I also wear a lot of makeup on weekends because I perform as Dr. Frank n Furter in a Rocky Horror cast and have found that the only thing that gets the massive amounts of eyeliner off without hurting my eyes is a cotton ball soaked with jojoba oil (it will blur your vision for an hour or so–don’t wear contacts!).

I’m also fond of cocoa butter and shea butter.
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A good post, and a good suggestion about coconut oil. The other aspect people should consider is the source of ingredients in the products they use. For example palm oil is used in many many skincare products (both natural and non-natural products). Yet most palm oil comes from huge plantations created by massive destruction of the rainforest in Malaysia and Indonesia – which is destroying the habitat for the orangutan and other species as well taking away the green lungs of the earth.

There are other more sustainable sources of palm oil, that are certified as sustainable. This information is not always easy to find, but a little research can help you make a difference. Voting with your wallet when it comes to choice of products (and how they are made) is a very powerful way for change.