Does coconut oil dry our hair or darken hair color?

Coconut oil is not only your average kitchen stuff. Many studies, beauty tips and experiments have shown the benefits of this oil. But as a medicine cannot heal every disease, coconut oil is not a magical formula that appropriate to all of your beauty problem, it is not the right solution for every beauty treatment, especially your hair.

People who know that coconut oil is a very good hair treatment may want to try applying it on their hair. But some afraid because others said that this oil may dry the hair or darken the hair color. Is that true?

Let’s find the answer one by one.

Does coconut oil dry our hair?

To answer this question, let’s start with the nature of coconut oil itself.

Coconut oil contains lauric acid which means it has a high affinity for hair proteins. These proteins are good to strengthen hair.  So what is the problem? The only reason why coconut oil may bring more harms than good on your hair is if you are protein sensitive. In short, coconut oil works different on each person.

The proteins in coconut oil bring good effects to people with soft, fine hair, or whose hair diameter  are medium thick. Since this type of hair has a kind of ability to retent the proteins and absorbs all of the goodness of the proteins.

On the other hand, the ones with dry, brittle or stiff hair and protein sensitive  do not have the same ability. Instead bring goodness, those proteins are too much for the hair and make it even more stiff, hard and more breakage when combing or styling.

Having such a type of hair does not mean you cannot use coconut oil at all. You can use it, but never use the coconut oil alone. Try to mix it with other  oils or ingredients such as olive or avocado oil.

In short, the answer of the first question depends on your hair type.

Let’s move to the next question :

Does coconut oil darken hair color?

One of the reason why people are curious about this question is they afraid that the coconut oil will fade their hair color away. It is understandable since the others also apply this oil to cover their grey hair. So is it true that coconut oil may fade the color?

Actually, coconut oil is doing the opposite while it is being applied to your hair. It locks down the hair cuticle which means it locks the hair color. It also moisturizes your hair so that your hair becomes healthy and shiny. But if you start to wonder since  you have used the coconut oil for the first time and notice that the color not as light as before, you should consider these possibilities:

• The coconut oil acts like a coat on your hair, it moisturizes and protects them with its oily layer. It may make your hair color looks less bright. But when it is washed, the hair will return to its original color (in this case your dyed hair color).
• Even if it is true that the coconut oil is a natural ingredient to tones the hair, that’s why people use it for covering their gray hair,  it will never fade away your hair color or your dyed hair with just one or two times of application. You need to apply it as a daily basis application with a thick layer on your hair for long-term use. Besides, the tone its bring to your hair is not a color shock. A long-term using of coconut oil will only saturate the color, but never make your blonde hair turns to brunette or your red dyed hair turns totally black.
• If you are noticing your hair dyed hair color is fading overtime, try to look at the other hair treatments you use. Do you use any non-color treated hair treatment (such as shampoo, hair conditioner or hair mask)? Or, do you use any sulfate-contained shampoo? If you do, one of those product may be the main culprit of your fading hair color problem. Since dyed hair has its own products to make the color lasts longer, and the sulfate-base products are the natural enemy of colored hair.