![]() ![]() When the cortex of your hair absorbs water and swells up, these scales are pushed outward so they stick up. The hair cuticle is actually made up of flat, overlapping scales that are attached toward the root end of your hair and point toward the tip. When you wet your hair, the thick, central cortex soaks up the water and swells, causing a structural change in the cuticle. This is because of subtle, structural changes that occur when it absorbs water. Interestingly, hair is most vulnerable to damage when it’s wet. There are a few ways you can apply oil to your hair to help protect it from damage.įirst, applying oil to your hair before it’s washed can help reduce the amount of damage it sustains during washing and while it’s wet. Rubbing oil on your hair before or after washing helps prevent damage When applied to hair before washing, coconut oil has been shown to reduce protein loss more than sunflower and mineral oils. This means that oils like mineral oil and sunflower oil can coat the hair, but they aren’t absorbed as well into the hair shaft ( 5). Sunflower oil contains mostly linoleic acid, which has a much bulkier structure, so it’s not as easily absorbed into the hair. This gives coconut oil a long, straight structure, which is more easily absorbed deep into the hair shaft. It’s thought that coconut oil’s chemical structure is behind its superior ability to protect hair ( 4).Ĭoconut oil is predominantly made up of a medium-chain fatty acid called lauric acid. On the other hand, both the mineral and sunflower oils did not have this effect and weren’t found to be effective at reducing protein loss from hair. In fact, coconut oil came out on top in all of their studies and reduced protein loss in hair that was undamaged, bleached, chemically treated, and UV exposed. They found that coconut oil was better at preventing protein loss than both the mineral and sunflower oils when applied either before or after the hair was washed. To see which oil was best for protecting hair health, the researchers measured the amount of protein the hair lost after each of these treatments. One older study published in 2003 examined the effects of applying coconut, sunflower, or mineral oil to hair before or after washing ( 3). However, there is some evidence behind this claim. Given the current popularity of coconut oil, this would be easy to dismiss as a trend. ![]() Why coconut oil is better at protecting your hair than other oilsĬoconut oil is often said to be the best oil to use on your hair to reduce protein loss and keep it looking healthy. Washing, brushing, coloring, and styling your hair can damage its structure, leaving it more prone to breakage. This causes you to lose some of the fibrous proteins that make up your hair’s cortex, making your hair thin, fragile and prone to breakage ( 1, 2). Washing, styling, and coloring your hair can damage the cuticle, making it unable to protect the central parts of the hair shaft. ![]() The cuticle is the tough, protective outer layer of your hair. It contains lots of fibrous proteins and the pigment that gives your hair its color. Interestingly, thick hair contains large amounts of medulla, while fine hair has almost none. This is the soft, central part of the hair shaft. To better understand why this happens, you’ll need to know more about your hair’s structure. Daily grooming practices can damage your hairĭaily grooming practices like washing, brushing, and styling can cause damage to your hair and leave it looking frizzy, broken, and dry. ![]()
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