Living in London on a student budget often means your money-spending is rather limited. Yes, we’d all like to splash the cash on all-important survival items such as lipstick, but unfortunately there’s that little matter of rent and bills, plus the boring (but necessary) essentials like toilet paper and washing-up liquid. You can’t really spend that much money on beauty products, clothes or interior even though you might want to. Upside: that’s exactly how one learns to be clever and find solutions on how to save money.
One of my greatest life hacks is to buy a jar of raw organic coconut oil. “Coconut oil? But that’s expensive, right?”. Well yes – coconut oil can be a bit more expensive if you compare it to olive oil, but the thing with coconut oil is that it can be used for so much more than cooking and baking! It’s a great product that should have a given place in your beauty cabinet as well as your kitchen cupboard..
Top five beauty hacks using coconut oil:
1. Hair mask
Coconut oil is the perfect moisturizer for you hair! Apply it to the ends and let it sit for a couple of hours or (even better) overnight for soft, glossy locks. You’ll never reach for the conditioner again.
2. Body scrub
Mix some brown sugar, freshly squeezed lemon juice and coconut oil together and voilá – you’ve got your own homemade body scrub. Easy as a piece of cake – and smells just as nice, too.
3. Shaving cream
Say bye-bye to shaving cream and go for coconut oil instead. Why? Well for starters it works just as well, and will leave your skin baby-soft.
4. Hand cream
If you (like me) get dry hands and cracks during winter time, just rub in your hands generously with coconut oil before you go to sleep and wake up with silky smooth hands.
5. Sunburn remedy
Keep some of the coconut oil in the fridge – the cold oil will be a life-saver in summer. Next time you lay out on the beach a bit too long, the coconut oil will provide a welcome cooling effect.
Pictures by Dan Howard, Tamara Bellis and Sokoloff Lingerie, all via Unsplash.
A version of this article was previously published on Ordinary Vegan.
I didn’t know about the sunburn treatment😎 I never plan on getting a sunburn but after being outside for a while this would feel great cold out of the refrigerator!