Okay, so lately, you may have seen videos and read articles on why many naturalistas no longer use coconut oil as part of their hair regimen.  Shocking, isn’t it, since coconut oil seems to be the holy grail for most naturalistas.  In fact, coconut oil is raved about my many people for its many beneficial uses. But what many women found with coconut oil and their hair strands was that they just did not mesh well together.  Some reported that it left their strands feeling dry, or it made their scalp feel like it was on fire, or that it made their scalp extremely dry.  Ironically, women that I knew personally, reported to me that coconut oil was making their hair dry.

I admit, I jumped on the coconut band wagon soon after I became natural.  As a result, it is my currently facial and body moisturizer and I don’t have any complaints in that aspect. Coconut oil was the one product that women swore by and used it generously with their wash and go’s, twist-outs, as a pre-poo, or as a sealant as it is said to penetrate the hair shaft more than any other oil.  As far as my hair was concerned, I had only used it occasionally, usually as one of the ingredients in one of my DIY hair concoctions.  I had never used it solely on my strands, and so the question of whether it was not beneficial for my hair was not something I had ever thought about.  Until recently.

Using Coconut Oil As A Pre-poo

After a You-Tube hair tutorial watching binge, I decided to pre-poo my hair the night before my wash day using coconut oil as the main ingredient on dry hair.  I whipped it up to give it a nice smooth consistency and added small amounts of a few other oils: jojoba, castor, and avocado.  I really appreciated the fact that it was whipped; it made for easy application. And speaking of application, I found myself using a whole lot of it when applying to my medium sized sections.  It almost felt like my hair wasn’t absorbing it, so I found myself using tons of it.  I wondered what would have happened had my hair been wet or damp, but from what I understood, pre-poos are best on dry hair.  I covered my hair with a plastic bag, a satin scarf, and my bonnet and slept with it overnight.  I should mention that by the time I was done with the application, I had coconut oil dripping down my face and neck.  The next day was wash day and can I say that when I took down my detangled jumbo twisted sections, my hair felt amazingly soft.  I washed and styled my hair as per usual and from that day on, I decided to add my whipped coconut oil pre-poo into my wash regimen.

Using Coconut Oil As A Sealant

I was so excited about the pre-poo that I decided to use coconut oil to seal my hair about a week after my wash.  I began by using my trusty spritz bottle which consisted of water and conditioner and applied it to my hair, just enough to dampen it and went in with coconut oil. I made sure to focus on my ends.  Overall, my strands appeared to look moisturized and my twists were nice and plump when I was all done.  I couldn’t wait to see the results the next day.  Needless to say, I wasn’t as excited as I had been with the pre-poo results.  My hair, especially my ends, looked dry.  Not only did they look dry, but they felt dry as well.  I was baffled.  I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.  The only major thing that was different from the pre-poo was the addition of water.  Had I used too much coconut oil? Too little?  I had no answers and decided not to use coconut oil to seal my hair.

This made me sad because, honestly, I wanted to love the versatility of coconut oil.  It’s my face and body moisturizer.  I’ve even used it to remove makeup.  I so wanted it to be as versatile for my hair as well.  Will I continue to add coconut oil to my DIY’s? Not sure, but I will continue to support its tremendous other benefits and hope to give some of them a try in the future.  But right now, it serves only one purpose for my hair which is a pre-poo.  And right now, that’s good enough for me.

Happy Health Hair Journey!