More Things Learned, Part 2

[spryng]

The second most awesome thing I learned this year? Coconut oil = amazeballs.

No, seriously. You can use it to cook. It smells delicious. It tastes delicious. It's made up of happy medium-chain fatty acids. You can use it as a lotion - I've switched completely to coconut oil for my dry face and ashy legs. It can moonlight as a sun block (haha!), although it's only SPF2 or something ridiculously small like that.

But my favorite use of coconut oil? Are you ready for it? Because get this: deodorant. Yeah, you heard me. And might have actually already heard me, since I mentioned it on a DITL already.

Okay, so embarrassing story time: I once worked at Lowe's for a summer. I applied stick deo every day. And yet, within an hour or two of being at work, I was already getting sweaty and stinky. I brought stick deo with me and applied it twice a day, but I'd still start to stink after only an hour. I thought I was just being hypersensitive and paranoid. But no - I got called to HR and told a coworker had reported my stinkiness. To put it mildly, that was embarrassing. I went out immediately and bought new deo and that worked - at least for two weeks.

Deo and I have had a long and tumultuous relationship. For some unknown reason, I could try any deo and - as long as it was a brand I hadn't previously been using - it would work. For a very short time. Usually two weeks. Once or twice, when I was really lucky, almost an entire month. I rarely got through an entire stick before needing to buy a new brand. It was annoying and awful and sometimes outright embarrassing, but I figured that was the way it was.

Then I got on a natural kick. First I played around with no-poo, but my hair - even in the desert - is still too oily a beast to go without shampoo indefinitely. Then I switched most of my lotion to coconut oil, and while doing that, read something, somewhere, about the antifungal and antibiotic properties of coconut oil. That little nugget of info settled into the back of my brain, only to emerge fully formed a few months later into a new idea: why not try coconut oil as a deo? I googled about it and sure enough, this was a common thing with many possible recipes.

So I tried it. And it worked. And I'd say that was the end of things, but that would be disingenuous. It worked for a week. And then I got stinky again. But this time I persevered - surely this could work. Surely this would work. I changed up the recipe. I re-applied often. And then, one day, I realized I wasn't remotely stinky. A week later, I noticed I could go more than a full day without reapplying. It was, simply, magical.

So, in short, and TL;DR : coconut oil = magical.

Comments

[ladibug21.livejournal.com]

I too LOVE coconut oil. I use it all the time. I've never used it as a deodorant though. You haven't noticed any oily stains on the armpits of your clothes?

[pennywhistle.livejournal.com]

Does it work well as an antiperspirant? I don't get the stinky problem, but very very wet...to the point of embarrassing stains that people point and laugh at :-(

Love cooking with coconut oil...haven't tried it for anything else yet ^_^

[spryng.livejournal.com]

It's the aluminum in commercial deo that acts as an antiperspirant, so coconut oil doesn't do anything to stop perspiration, just cleans up the stink. I have noticed I'm a little damper under the arms using it, though, but thankfully the desert = very quick drying time.