Coconut Oil: Beauty Benefits For Your Skin & Body

Many nat­ur­al oils have won a place in the hearts of con­sumers look­ing for organ­ic, pure treat­ments for soft­en­ing skin and help­ing seal in moisture. Pro­tect­ing against sun dam­age is big on everyone’s list, too, at every time of year – the blaz­ing heat of sum­mer and the freez­ing win­ter days when sun­shine pours down. Coconut oil is prov­ing itself a win­ner in all these cat­e­gories, but its ben­e­fits go far beyond these ABCs of beau­ty basics. In this arti­cle, we do a deep dive into the many ways using coconut oil can make your com­plex­ion look and feel years younger and soft as a fluffy kitten! If you’ve been con­sid­er­ing mak­ing a change in your skin­care rou­tine, or you just want to explore more nat­ur­al prod­ucts for your beau­ty reg­i­men, read on. This is the arti­cle for you! Coconut oil has been pop­u­lar with women for decades as an alter­na­tive to some mois­tur­iz­ers that are laden with per­fumes and chemicals. It is a pure, unadul­ter­at­ed oil that soothes and soft­ens your skin. You can use it as a dai­ly mois­tur­iz­er or as a mask; you leave it on for 10 or 15 min­utes and then remove it with a gen­tle cleanser. How you use it depends, in part, on your skin type – are you dry, oily or a com­bi­na­tion of the two? Does your skin type change with the weath­er? Do you need less mois­ture when the tem­per­a­ture climbs but more as it dips in the fall and win­ter? Not to wor­ry – coconut oil is adapt­able, and you can use less or more as your skin’s needs dictate.

Here’s All You Need To Know About The Benefits Of Coconut Oil!

1- Coconut Oil Is Teeming With Good Fatty Acids

This nat­ur­al oil is rich in linole­ic acid and lau­ric acid, both essen­tial to the appear­ance of soft, youth­ful skin. Lau­ric acid, in par­tic­u­lar, is a ter­rif­ic mois­tur­iz­er, and you don’t need to smooth on a lot of coconut oil to reap the benefits.

2- Coconut Oil May Help Fight Acne – Or It Might Make It Worse!

There is an ongo­ing debate about coconut oil’s effects on acne and oth­er break­outs — whether it helps min­i­mize the appear­ance of the occa­sion­al pim­ple or whether it aggra­vates chron­ic acne. As is so often the case in these mat­ters, the answer is – it depends. Some young women swear by coconut oil as a calm­ing agent for break­outs. Used as a cleanser, there seems to be some valid­i­ty to this. How­ev­er, oth­er women insist that coconut oil makes their acne worse! Ulti­mate­ly, the only source you should heed is your­self. If you are strug­gling with break­outs, try using coconut oil as a first-step cleanser, then remove it with a gen­tle scrub. You may find it does won­der for your skin, or you may find it makes your pim­ples worse. Every person’s skin chal­lenges are unique, so we don’t want to say defin­i­tive­ly that coconut oil is an excel­lent acne treat­ment. It might work for you, and because it’s organ­ic, it cer­tain­ly won’t hurt. Give it a try, but if it doesn’t help, move your bot­tle back into the kitchen and use it to make a deli­cious new sal­ad dressing!

3- Coconut Oil Has Plenty Of Beneficial Medicinal Properties

It has anti-bac­te­r­i­al and anti-fun­gal prop­er­ties that help fight skin aller­gies, rash­es, and der­mati­tis. You can thank the fat­ty acids for that, the linole­ic and the lau­ric. This is a par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­come ben­e­fit if you pre­fer to avoid phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts for skin problems. A lit­tle coconut oil rubbed into dry, win­ter skin works won­ders, but it goes beyond that. Even a seri­ous rash can be calmed with coconut oil, so don’t be afraid to give it a try. Remem­ber – it’s a com­plete­ly nat­ur­al prod­uct that will not harm your skin.

4- Coconut Oil Has Vitamin E

Vit­a­min E has been stud­ied and ana­lyzed by sci­en­tists around the world and nat­ur­al med­i­cine prac­ti­tion­ers. All agree that vit­a­min E fights the dam­age the sun can do to your com­plex­ion, and it goes a step further. Using it reg­u­lar­ly can actu­al­ly pro­tect your skin, not mere­ly soothe it once the dam­age is done. If, for exam­ple, you’re off for a day on the ski slopes, a lit­tle coconut oil smoothed onto your face will pro­tect it from sun and windburn.

5- Use It As a Treatment For Your Hair

This ben­e­fit comes with a caveat: if your hair is oily, it’s best to avoid all oils, whether it’s coconut, olive or any oth­er kind. How­ev­er, if your hair tends to be dry or it’s colour treat­ed, using coconut oil once a week as a con­di­tion­ing salve can work wonders. It’s great as a treat­ment for itchy scalps, too. When your hair is dirty (and there­fore at its most porous) mas­sage one-third of a cup into your scalp and ends. (The amount depends on how long your hair is, of course.) Wrap your head in an old tow­el and leave it in for 10 or 15 minutes. Rinse it thor­ough­ly, then sham­poo. (You may need two lath­ers, depend­ing on how eas­i­ly it rins­es.) You’ll notice an imme­di­ate dif­fer­ence in how smooth and shiny your tress­es are. Fur­ther­more, coconut is packed with pro­teins that can help slow down hair thin­ning or loss.

6- Put a Drop Or Two In Your Bathtub

Nat­u­ral­ly, you can’t put too much coconut oil in your bath with­out it leav­ing an oily ring, and no one wants that. But a lit­tle drop is ben­e­fi­cial as a mois­tur­iz­er for your whole body, so the next time you have a stress-reliev­ing, can­dlelit bath to ease your mind after a long day, add a few drops of coconut oil. Even the smell is sooth­ing, and it helps qui­et the mind!

7- Lauric Acid Stimulates Collagen Growth

Since coconut oil is chock full of fat­ty acids, includ­ing lau­ric acid, it actu­al­ly “encour­ages” col­la­gen to grow – that won­der­ful com­po­nent of youth­ful skin that depletes as we age. Coconut oil actu­al­ly prompts it to mul­ti­ply because it’s filled with col­la­gen-cre­at­ing lau­ric acid. So, when you use it on your com­plex­ion, you’re giv­ing your­self a lit­tle youth pump! So, it not only soft­ens your skin, it makes it look younger, too. All that in a bot­tle of oil you may have been leav­ing in the pantry all this time!

8- Coconut Oil Fights Aging

None of us wants our actu­al age to be reflect­ed on our faces, right? Coconut oil can help keep wrin­kles, creas­es and crow’s feet at bay. It is those won­der­ful, rich fat­ty acids again that coconut oil has in abun­dance respon­si­ble for help­ing com­bat those tell­tale signs of grow­ing old­er from becom­ing too pronounced. Whether you use it as a mois­tur­iz­er, a cleanser or a mask, coconut oil is a won­der­ful war­rior in the fight against vis­i­ble signs of aging. And because it has no addi­tives, chem­i­cals or added scent, it is gen­tle on almost all skin types if used correctly.

9- Coconut Oil Reduces The Appearance Of Stretch Marks

Preg­nan­cy can wreak hav­oc on the skin, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the tum­my and breasts. Smooth­ing in pure coconut oil or a prod­uct con­tain­ing it eas­es the appear­ance of these lines and pro­motes the elas­tic­i­ty of the skin. If you’re expect­ing now, use coconut oil lib­er­al­ly on your stom­ach to pre­vent stretch marks from becom­ing too vis­i­ble. If you have stretch marks because of a past preg­nan­cy, it’s nev­er too late to reduce their visibility.

Wrapping Up

Coconut oil can be part of your dai­ly or week­ly beau­ty reg­i­men, no mat­ter how old you are! It effec­tive­ly reduces signs of aging; it can help with break­outs and sun dam­age, and it even reduces the appear­ance of stretch marks. It is an all-nat­ur­al prod­uct that has many appli­ca­tions and using it as a mois­tur­iz­er or cleanser, or when you have a hot bath, is sure to bring wel­come relief to many skin woes. Coconut oil does not belong sole­ly in the kitchen any­more. Try it the next time you’re look­ing for an organ­ic way to revive and update your beau­ty rou­tine. It soft­ens skin, eas­es the appear­ance of fine lines on the face and neck, and pro­tects your com­plex­ion when you’re out in the sun. And it makes hair shiny, smooth, less frizzy, and brit­tle at the ends. It nour­ish­es your face and body with vit­a­mins and rich fat­ty acids that make a big dif­fer­ence to how your skin looks and feels. Lib­er­al­ly smooth on coconut oil the next time you’re look­ing for a way to soothe, pro­tect and mois­tur­ize your skin. It has a mul­ti­tude of ben­e­fits that works on almost any skin type – you just have to exper­i­ment a lit­tle to find the use that’s right for you. And one oth­er thing we for­got to men­tion – coconut oil smells absolute­ly fan­tas­tic too! *Med­ical Dis­claimer: Seize Your Life Today Media con­tent is strict­ly infor­ma­tion­al and should not be con­sid­ered med­ical advice. Please see a cer­ti­fied med­ical pro­fes­sion­al for diag­no­sis and treat­ment recommendations.