Food For Beauty: Coconut Oil — Your Skin’s New BFF
~ Jodie Lea Cleaves
You should really be able to eat your beauty treatments! Since your skin is your body’s largest organ and it absorbs most of what is applied to it, then you only want to put on the outside, what you would put on the inside! Whatever is absorbed through the skin goes straight into the bloodstream without passing through the gut and liver to filter it. So YES, if you can eat it, you can definitely apply it to your skin!.
The Truth About Your Skin
Healthy food and plenty of good-quality water are key to providing what you need to build beautiful skin, hair and nails from the inside. Your cell membranes are made up of lipids, which are essentially fat. Not just any fat though. Cell membranes are about 50% saturated fats. And the only effective way to get those saturated fats permanently into your system in a way that will address skin tone and dryness, is to eat them.
Dull hair, brittle nails and flaky skin are caused by the lack of the required building blocks your body needs. Once we understand the mechanics of the cells, it is easy to see how the medium chain fatty acids (lauric, capric and caprylic) replace the lipids lost in the barrier layer of the skin.
Oil For Acne?
As counter-intuitive as this may sound, by adding moisture to dry skin with coconut oil, it can actually help to heal acne. When you eat coconut oil, your body transports it directly to the parts of your body that need hydration. But rather than your skin becoming oily, your skin receives the building blocks it needs to keep the skin in balance.
[tweet_dis]Without saturated fat to form the lipids that make up your cell membranes, your skin cells dry out and die at a faster rate.[/tweet_dis] Part of what causes acne is dead skin cells blocking the pores, trapping the natural oils (sebum) and creating infections.
Properly hydrated skin that has the needed amount of fat to form healthy cell membranes can maintain proper hydration of surface skin cells, allowing them to die and then slough off naturally as the body was designed to do.
By keeping the skin properly hydrated, it stays firm and has natural, youthful-looking elasticity that helps keep wrinkles and sagging at bay.
On The Outside
Coconut oil is a very effective, all-natural moisturizer when applied topically to the skin. It’s not water based like most commercial beauty products. As soon as the water evaporates on your skin, those moisturizers stops working. But coconut oil has no water and is 100% moisturizing.
It may look greasy, however it absorbs quickly leaving the skin soft and supple. It is naturally free of silicone, parabens, fragrances, dyes and any other artificial chemicals that can be harsh on your skin and damaging to your health.
Also, by eating up to 2 tablespoons of cold pressed virgin organic coconut oil daily, you should notice a difference in your skin within 3-5 days. If you are new to the wonders of eating coconut oil, it is advised you take it slowly and build up the amount taken. Start with a teaspoon a couple of times a day and gradually build up to the recommended 2-3 tablespoons.
Cooking with coconut oil is also highly recommended as it is one of the most stable oils at high temperatures…not to mention one of the most delicious.
Cheers to eating your way to natural beauty. Bon appetit!
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Win Products:
Take a ‘Home Spa Selfie’ this week with our Hair Repair treatment and post it on our Body Enlightenment Facebook page (every Saturday we’ll choose a winner who will be gifted with one of our ‘be you’ Authentic Beauty products.)