Using Coconut Oil on Natural Hair in Colder Weather

My braid out results using conditioner and coconut oil

I recently picked up one of my favorite hair products, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil.  I probably haven't had any on hand in a little over a year.  This went from being my staple to being something that was just okay.  Somehow I stopped wanting to buy multiple bottles of oils and decided my Grapeseed and Castor oils were all I needed.  Lately though I started to consider the fact that something seemed very different about my hair.  This made me think back to some of the things I did or used at the start of my journey.  That's when I realized that it had been ages since I used coconut oil on my hair.

Coconut oil can have many benefits for the hair.  The one that I was most concerned about was the oil's ability to moisturize the hair.  This is because it's made up of tiny molecules that are small enough to penetrate through the cuticle layer.  I picked some up at my local natural grocery store, Sprouts, without another thought.  It wasn't until I got home that I realized that, in the past, I tried to stay away from coconut oil during the colder months.  Why?  Well, it was because of the fact that the oil had a tendency to solidify at lower temperatures which could lead to hard hair.  This happened to me the first week I started using it again.  I tried it as a sealant after spritzing my hair with leave-in conditioner diluted with plain water.  I did this for a few days in a row before braiding my hair up into two french braids.  When I took my hair down on wash day I noticed that weird, hard feeling.  My ends felt like straw.

FIND OUT HOW I FRENCH BRAID MY HAIR

After that I figured maybe I would just use it for deep conditioning or hot oil treatments.  Until one night when I decided to use it with my Aussie Moist conditioner for a braid out.  I applied the conditioner to my freshly washed and conditioned hair and then sealed with the coconut oil.  I then took medium sized sections and spritzed with water before smoothing the hair with my denman brush and braided it into plaits.  Let me tell you, my hair was so soft and defined even I couldn't believe the results!  Just two products and I ended up with a braid out that was photoshoot worthy.  That's when I realized that the coconut oil worked for me as long as I used it on wet hair without too much product buildup.   Now my hair is back in love with my old bestie and I plan on keeping up with it during the rest of my No Heat Challenge.  Hopefully this will give me an extra moisture boost during these harsh winter months.