If you’ve heard a bit about what coconut milk can do for your hair, you'll know how essential the deep hydration is to soothe and repair dry hair, while boosting volume! If you’re intrigued, but don’t know where to start or how to use it, you’ve come to the right place!
How To Use Coconut Milk For Hair: The Best Tips
How long do you leave coconut milk in your hair? Read on for everything you need to know about coconut milk, what it can do for your hair, how to use it, and how to find the Coconut Milk products for your hair needs!
What is Coconut Milk?
Coconut milk is a super hydrating ingredient produced from the white inner “flesh” of the coconut rather than the watery liquid inside. It is made by grating the flesh and then soaking it in hot water. A “cream” rises to the top of the mixture and is then skimmed off before the remaining liquid is put through a cheesecloth so that the liquid becomes thinner and thinner after each round -- eventually producing a thin, white, milky substance known as coconut milk.
How Does Coconut Milk Benefit Your Hair?
Using coconut milk for hair can really work wonders. But how? Here are just a few of the ways that coconut milk can benefit your hair:
- Coconut milk is a great natural conditioner. Coconut milk contains fatty acids and antioxidants that are extremely nourishing for both your hair and skin. It is able to penetrate the hair shaft and the pores in your scalp to transform dry hair into healthy and soft hair.
- Coconut milk can help detangle your hair. Since it is an emollient that softens hair, using coconut milk for hair can help detangle knots and add slick shine to help you create gorgeous hair styles! Leaving you with flawless hair in no time.
- Coconut milk can promote hair growth and stem hair loss. Coconut milk can help your hair health journey thanks to fats, proteins, and vitamins. All of these components indirectly contribute to an environment where the hair is more likely to grow.
- Coconut milk can seal split ends. A little bit of coconut milk on the ends of your hair can go a long way to smoothing out split ends, and making your cuticles lay flat for frizz-free hair!
How to Use Coconut Milk for Hair
There are a few different ways that you can use coconut milk for hair depending on your current hair concerns and future hair goals. You might want to try out a combination of these methods to really reap all the benefits from coconut milk.
- Pure coconut milk. You can use coconut milk for hair on its own as a pre-shampoo scalp treatment. Just apply it to dry hair, wait about 30 minutes, rinse it out, and then shampoo and condition like normal. You can also apply pure coconut to damp hair after showering to smooth frizz and split ends.
- Hair products formulated with coconut milk. Probably one of the most convenient and beneficial ways to use coconut milk for your hair is to use air products that include coconut milk along with other great ingredients. For example, WOW Skin Science makes an amazing coconut milk shampoo formulated with sweet almond oil, aloe vera extract, jojoba oil, and argan oil to boost coconut milk extract's hydrating power. WOW also has a complementary coconut milk conditioner formulated with castor oil, olive oil, argan oil, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein.
- Homemade coconut milk hair mask. If you want to do an at-home spa day, then you should definitely whip up a homemade coconut milk hair mask. There are several different recipes out there, but some great ones include ingredients like avocados, lemon juice, honey, essential oils, and olive oil.
- Drink coconut milk. Believe it or not, but you don’t just have to use coconut milk externally for it to benefit your hair. In fact, you can drink coconut milk regularly so that your body can then process the fats, vitamins, and minerals and end up with more nourished hair from the inside out!
How Long to Leave Coconut Milk In Your Hair
How long to leave coconut milk in your hair really depends on how you’re using it. For example, if you are using our Coconut Milk Conditioner, then you should leave it on your hair for about 2-3 minutes before rinsing. This is a perfect time for you to do other things in the shower like shave, wash your body, or wash your face.
On the other hand, if you are applying a homemade coconut milk mask for your hair, then you should generally leave it on for 20-30 minutes in order for it to really penetrate into your hair and scalp for you to get the most benefits. You can boost the benefits by wrapping your hair in a hot towel so the hair follicles open up and absorb all that hydration.
How to Find the Best Coconut Milk Hair Products
Even though you may think that you can just go out and buy any coconut milk hair products and call it a day, that’s really not the right approach. This is especially true if you are specifically buying hair products that have been formulated with coconut milk alongside other ingredients.
This is because many hair products contain potentially harmful ingredients such as silicones, sulfates, parabens, and more that you definitely don’t want to be putting in your hair! As a general rule of thumb, always read the ingredient label of any product before you buy it. If you see any of these types of products or you can’t actually pronounce the first few ingredients on the list (the most concentrated ingredients), then it’s probably best to avoid this product.
Another tip is to actually look into the company that you are purchasing from. Quality companies will be honest about their ingredients and where they come from. For example, WOW Skin Science only uses natural, vegan-friendly ingredients in our products, which have been specially formulated to be safe yet still effective without the use of any unnecessary chemicals.
At the end of the day, the amount of time that you leave coconut milk in your hair depends on what products you’re using and what you’re trying to accomplish. However, most products will be effective in just a short time since coconut oil is potent but gentle at the same time! Good luck on your hair journey!
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