We use coconut oil for lots of things in our house, these are the ten I can think of, off the top of my head, every day uses for it. We buy a jar or two of cold-pressed, virgin oil from our local health food shop, and each jar lasts about two months or so, or less if we use a lot of it for a particular need.
I am a big fan of both traditional and natural cures and also science-based medicine in our house and we work with a mix of both. As an ex-nurse, with medical experience, I am very aware that there is a lot about medical science that we need and rely on and I am grateful for that, but there are some natural remedies we use as well. It’s all about balance and common sense I think.
Coconut oil is one of those wonder products that is cheap, easy to source, lasts a long time, and is basic and natural. There are many ways you can use it, and here are some that work for us.
for eczema (please consult with your doctor on this, we used coconut oil with the blessing of our GP and it worked well for us.
for nappy rash
as hair conditioner
also for my psoriasis
As a cheap and gentle facial cleanser to remove makeup and dirt from the skin
In food, for baking or cooking – for frying sweet items, such as pancakes and using for some Asian dishes and I’ve used it as an oil substitute instead of butter when baking (I refuse to use margarine/fake butters) and you can add it to smoothies
as a substitute for lanolin when breastfeeding (turns out, I’m allergic to lanolin, took me a while to figure out why traditional lanolin-based nipple ointments didn’t do anything for me, and actually made soreness 10x worse!) because it’s naturally antimicrobial and anti-fungal and it won’t hurt the baby, it doesn’t need to be wiped off, like prescribed anti-fungal ointments do, before nursing, which is an added bonus.
As a dry skin treatment When my hands are dry, and I’m in the kitchen and can’t be bothered to run and get my hand cream, or when the kids have got a patch of dry skin and it’s handy.
So that is how we use it. Cold pressed coconut oil doesn’t smell strong like you would expect, so if that worries you and all you can think is that it will make everything smell like cheap sun cream, then don’t worry, I promise it doesn’t…
There are supposed to be some health benefits that coconut oil, too.
*The usual disclaimer. This is not a medical blog, I am not blogging in a medical professional capacity, and I did all my own reading and research before using coconut oil. This blog post is not offering advice or medical help. Please consult your own doctor or health professional before using alternative products to treat any medical/health condition*
Our family hits about 7 out of your 10!!
Thank you so much for your original comment to my post and to following it up with this post! with the Christmas and New Year shenanigans i have a non Christmas shopping list with this bad boy on it!
Thanks again 🙂
Hope it’s helpful, it certainly won’t do any harm to try it! I’m just about out of the Christmas chaos now, tree will be down at the weekend and we will be back to normal! Yay!
hope it was a good one! hubby went back to work today so not quite got my old trusty routine back yet! 😉
It definitely works well for my daughter’s eczema, and soothes my sore skin, where I have some patches of psoriasis. Thanks for commenting! 🙂
There’s a newly released e-book on amazon.com we’ve discovered called, “The Coconut Oil Health & Beauty Book” by M.D. Fry, PhD. We’ve seen many books on the topic of coconut oil, this one, however, is particularly simple, practical and one of the more compete books we’ve found.
Thank you! Will go and have a look at it!
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community.
Your web site provided us with valuable information to work on.
You’ve done a formidable job and our entire community will be thankful to you.
I’ve heard rather many information about coconut oil but it’s the first time I’ve found such a complete article about ways of using it, thanks! Personally I tried coconut oil for restoring my hair and skin care, the results were very good, from that time I liked this product so much 🙂 I’m also very impressed how helpful this oil was in case of psoriasis and eczema, I’ll definetely recommend it for one my friend who suffers from psoriasis too!
And it was really interesting to read that you use coconut oil for cooking some dishes 🙂 I’m curious about the recipees, I would be glad if you shared a couple of them 🙂 Also does the taste differ so much in case of coconut oil comparing to the other ones?
I love the smell of coconut. Maybe I should use it as conditioner for the perfume. #ParentPower
Interesting read and learnt something new as well x #parentpower
I adore the smell of coconut. I like the sound of using it for hand cream. Since the hand washing a sanitising has increased my hand are already becoming dry. I love a visit to the health food shop. #ParentPower
I used coconut oil for a month for ‘pulling’ (rinsing/swishing) but didn’t really notice any benefit. I think I will now try it on my eczema, thanks for the tip! #parentpower