Coconut oil goes back thousands of years as a health and beauty support. It's a powerful moisturizer, and the immune-boosting fatty acids that make up the oil have a number of surprising effects: fighting irritation, delaying the degenerative process that leads to wrinkles, and increasing the elasticity of the skin by strengthening individual cells.
Significance
Lab-created moisturizers, with their harsh, synthetic ingredients, introduce chemicals such as cancer-causing parabens into the skin with remarkable efficiency (almost as directly as drinking the chemicals from a glass). The long-term repercussions of this daily chemical onslaught haven't fully been explored by science. Alternatively, the healthy, skin-loving medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) that make up coconut oil are an essential building block of every human cell, supporting the skin in a ground-up sense instead of providing a temporary fix for problems with aging, dehydration and unevenness.
Features
Using a high-quality, virgin (or expeller-pressed) coconut oil guarantees that the maximum nutritional value is available to your skin. When stored in a cool, dark place, the oil may solidify into a consistency that takes the impression of a finger pressed into it; this is absolutely normal. (If you want your oil to remain liquid, keep it at room temperature, but never store it in a distinctly warm place.) A high-quality oil in its liquid state is clear, light in texture and has a fresh, "coconutty" scent.
Considerations
The lion's share of commercial skin products are manufactured using polyunsaturated oils as a base. Unfortunately, these oils are remarkably quick to oxidize. Put simply, they turn rancid rapidly (both in the bottle and on the skin), which adds up to free radical damage. Coconut oil, however, consists for the most part of medium-chain fatty acids (MCTs) that are not easily oxidized. Besides not being part of the cause of free radical damage, the antioxidant properties of the oil can reverse previous skin damage caused by long-term use of lab-created moisturizers.
Anti-Microbial Properties
Found only in coconut oil and breast milk, lauric acid is a very special, powerful compound. Enzymes on the skin break down lauric acid to create a microbe-killing layer that kills viruses and bacteria without having to expend the immune system's resources. Applied topically, coconut oil has been shown to be more effective than over-the-counter drugs to battle yeast infections and thrush. Beyond that, coconut oil is useful to combat the infection-causing bacteria in wounds, as well as to control the underarm bacteria that cause body odor.
Theories/Speculation
Some users report that applying virgin coconut oil before venturing into the sun prevents burning. It's not as strong as a chemical sunblock--and certainly not as strong as zinc oxide, which forms a thick, chalky barrier over the skin--but it prevents about 20 percent of the sun's rays from penetrating. It's an excellent daily preventative measure.
Tags: fatty acids, free radical, free radical damage, lauric acid, MCTs that, radical damage, that make
