How To Bring Your Hair Back to Life With a Coco Bun

Have you ever completed an assignment only to realize that it wasn’t a grade??

PLS don’t tell me that I’m the only one… !!

That happened to me last weekend; I’m taking an online statistics course this summer and I was a little behind on the assignments ( about a week – but that’s a century in summer school time ).

Last weekend, I decided to bite the bullet and catch up on work. I packed my bag with some of my study essentials: my fave RXBAR ( chocolate sea salt OBVI! ), my swell water bottle, a fully charged laptop, and a notebook. I then set up camp in the closest Starbucks for a much needed cup of caffeine with light ice ;).

Before I left, I put coconut oil in my hair because ya know – if I’m going to be grinding through a couple chapters of boring statistics, I mine as well give myself a hydrating hair mask!

After sweating through the first two chapters’ assignments, I headed over to the “grades” tab in my student center… AND GUESS WHAT! Turns out, the instructor took out the first two chapters to cut down on material for the summer course.

BISH WHAAAT?!

You’re telling me that I spent my whole day working on something that doesn’t even count toward my grade?

C’mon prof, couldn’t you have taken the chapters off the syllabus!???

But hey – at least I did something productive… I conditioned my hair! 😉

I’ve been putting coconut oil in my hair for YEARS.

During midterms, you can find me in the library with my head in the books and coco in my hair. I may be losing hair over stress, but that hair will be conditioned AF.

There is just something therapeutic about self care when you’re going through a stressful time, ya know??

Last semester, I wanted to lighten up my hair so I got a balayage for the first time. While being blonder is OBVI more fun, it is also REALLY damaging to hair. I have a lot of hair, but my hair is SUPER fine, so it’s very sensitive to damage. To revive my hair, I had to kick up my coco bun game.

My hair stylist gave me some tips for making my hair healthier after my color treatment. And guess what she recommended??

You guessed it – a hair mask! She recommends both a protein treatment and a moisturizing mask, but for this post we will focus on the moisturizing hair mask.

My go-to at home remedy is coconut oil because I ALWAYS have coconut oil handy. Coconut oil can help prevent protein loss in hair and the structure of coconut oil allows it to penetrate hair in ways that other oils can’t.

HOW TO USE COCO OIL :

1. Spoon 1/4 – 1/3 cup of coconut oil into your palm. Warm it up with your hands until melty.

2. Massage the melted coconut oil into the bottom 1/2-3/4 of your hair. If this is your first time doing a coconut oil mask, I would recommend avoiding your scalp because it is more difficult to wash out. Also, the hair growing from your scalp is likely less damaged than the bottom and won’t need a conditioning treatment as much as the bottom half of your hair.

3. Twist your hair into a high bun and make sure that all your hair is out of your face!

4. Go about your day! Avoid touching your hair.

5. SLEEP IN IT – I always keep the coconut oil in my hair for 24 hours; that means that I sleep in it! I put a small towel over my pillow to avoid staining my pillow case. A shower cap should work as well.

6. Wash it out after 24 hours!

TIPS FOR USING COCONUT OIL IN YOUR HAIR :

♡ START W/ SMALL AMOUNTS : This goes along with the previous point. Also, if you have a 24 hour coco bun in your hair with a heaping amount of coconut oil, the coco oil might melt off your hair and onto your shoulders and face – NO THX !!

♡ WARM IT UP : Coconut oil is a solid at room temperature, so when using coconut oil, you want to warm it up in your hands to make it a liquid! This will make it easier to coat the coconut oil evenly throughout your hair.

♡ AVOID THE SCALP : One of my roomies in NYC also gets her hair done. After I told her about the benefits of using coconut oil in hair, she joined the coco bun bandwagon. When she first tried out the bun, she massaged in coconut oil up to her scalp! I would recommend using coconut oil on the bottom half of your hair when you first start so you can get a better idea of how well the oil washes out of your hair. Personally, I find it more difficult to scrub the coco oil out of my scalp than the bottom of my hair.

♡ USE A SCRUNCHY : I am not going to lie – I’m SO SO happy that scrunchies are making a comeback. First off, they are freakin’ adorable! Second, they are so much easier on your hair. All hair ties AREN’T created equally; rubber band hair ties pull on your hair and create breakage. That goes against the whole purpose of a coco bun… So buy yourself a “designated scrunchy” which you can use for your coco buns and won’t mind getting oily. Find yourself a cute PINK scrunchy HERE! LONG LIVE THE SCRUNCHY… !!

♡ WHEN WASHING OUT : Massage shampoo into your coco-ed up hair before wetting it in the shower; this will make it easier to remove the coconut oil from your hair.

Aside from the conditioning benefits, I absolutely LOVE the smell of coconut oil. It smells SO. DAMN. GOOD.

BEFORE you purchase a jar of coco oil, make sure you’re buying the right kind of coco oil !!

If you’re doing your hair a favor, do it the right way!!

The FIRST thing you should look for is “Virgin” coconut oil. Non-virgin, AKA or “RBD oil” which stands for “refined, bleached, and deodorized”. In the RBD oil form, the oil went through a refining process, which strips it of the color and flavor of the oil along with nutrients. Virgin oil is FAB because it’s made from fresh coconut without high heat or any nasty chemicals and it retains more natural phytonutrients, giving it that aroma that’s TO DIE FOR.

GAHH. I wish Apple would create an app that would allow me to share the smell with you.

You can find AHTK approved organic and unrefined coconut oil HERE !!

Try out the magical coco bun yourself and you can thank me later 😉

xx hails