Homemade Coconut Oil: Natural Remedy for Preventing Hair Loss
Shining and healthy hair attracts everyone. While markets are flooded with hair treatment products of various types, they most often result in negative side effects and do not provide a cost effective way to keep the hair healthy. Towards a very cost effective way to maintain beautiful and healthy hair and to prevent hair loss, coconut oil made at home may come as a surprise. Pure coconut oil suitable for healthy hair is expensive. But one can always make some for home use. In the first section of the present hub we have discussed the benefits of coconut oil for healthy hair. In the second section, we discussed the process to make coconut oil at home and in the third and last part we have discussed some other benefits and uses of coconut oil as a home remedy for many health issues. Hope, readers find this write up useful.
Coconut Oil for Preventing Hair Loss
Pleasantly smelling coconut hair oil prevents hair loss due to its rich vitamin-E and lauric acid content. This reasonably light oil for hair prevents dryness of the hair by providing natural moisture to hair and scalp. Due to its cooling effect on hair, it protects from excess heat and sunlight exposure in the peak summers. The type of fat in the coconut oil does not evaporate easily and gets easily absorbed by human skin. Due to these wonderful properties, coconut oil keeps the hair soft and moist. It prevents hair from breaking as it does not let the hair dry up. So, if one wants a healthy, smooth and free flowing hair, then the best natural way to achieve this is to go for coconut oil. A regular massage of coconut oil on head and scalp is not only enriching for hair, its vitamin content helps the scalp skin remain healthy and relaxed. One may go for a massage before sleeping or should give it at least an hour to settle before shampoo.
How to make Coconut Oil at Home
It is fairly easy to make coconut oil at home, although it is bit of a process. Once in a while you may make the oil at home through this crude method discussed below and the output can be stored for years without any problem. Moreover, since no additives and other things are involved, the oil extracted in this method gives you purest coconut oil that has wonderful effects for hair growth without any side effect. It is also a lot of fun making this at home. Give it a try and see the results yourself.
Items needed for making coconut Oil at home
The major items needed for extraction of coconut oil are as under
(1) Mature coconuts 3-4 pieces. Green coconuts used for drinks are too tender to extract oil. The best coconuts for making oil are mature and fleshy meaty coconuts. If one is not living in a coastal region where coconuts are available in plenty, one may go for coconut copra or dried kernel of coconut which is available almost everywhere.
(2) Coconut grater or scraper to grate the fleshy content of the nut. However, if one is using dried coconut copra a grinder-mixer available in almost all kitchens would do.
(3) An utensil with a wide opening
(4) Kitchen mesh to filter the coconut milk. Even a clean mesh cloth or a common juice filter would do.
(5) Stove
The Process of Making Homemade Coconut Oil
As mentioned earlier, making coconut oil is fairly easy. As a first step, grate the coconuts properly. If one is using copra, then the best way to grate these is to cut the copra into small pieces and soak the pieces in water for a couple of hours and then grate these in the grinder.
After the coconuts are grated, extract the milk by squeezing the grated coconut with the filter mesh. After an initial squeezing, add some warm water and squeeze again to extract as much milk as possible. For extracting coconut oil we need the milk only. Remaining grated coconut may be used for making coconut powder or anything else. We shall discuss this in some other hub.
Put on the stove and start cooking the extracted coconut milk. Keep of cooking it on high flame. The water content will evaporate and after cooking the milk for around half an hour you can notice the oil coming out and the non fat waste settling down at the bottom of the utensil.
You may also feel a sweet strong smell of coconut oil which indicates that the oil is now ready. Put off the stove and gently pour down the oil from the vessel to some other pot. It will easily come out and the extra non fat things will remain in the utensil.
Transfer the golden yellow coconut oil into a bottle or container. It can be safely stored for years and the oil extracted in this process would never lose its beautiful golden color or the sweet aromatic smell. Apply the oil occasionally on your scalp and hair for the purpose for which it was made.
Other benefits of Coconut Oil
It is now well acknowledged in scientific literature that after human breast milk, coconut oil is the only source of lauric fatty acid. In fact, while only around 6 percent of the fat content in mother’s breast milk, 3 percent in cow and goat milk is lauric acid, in coconut oil, it contains around 50 percent of the total fat. Lauric acid has some interesting effects on human body. It creates some immune system in human and animal body called ‘Monolaurin’ which is effective in destroying lipid coated viruses such as HIV, cytomegalovirus and herps. Please see the items referred at the end of this hub for more details on these interesting properties. Thus, this ordinary oil is a gift of nature for improving the immune system in human body. In my child hood days, homemade coconut oil was extensively suggested by elders to apply on common wounds for quick healing apart from being used as hair oil. Coconut oil massage on body at night gives a refreshing feeling. In the southern part of India, coconut oil is used as an edible oil that has the ability to create monolaurin in the body. Thus, this wonderful oil not only helps prevent hair loss and hair regrowth, it also has wonderful medicinal properties
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