Coconut oil is an amazing therapy for treatment of all kinds of skin diseases and used for beauty enhancement. This post will throw light on how to DIY (Do It Yourself) coconut oil without having to buy any equipment for this purpose, you will be able to produce it with what you already have.

Now, I am going to talk about importance of coconut oil, things you can do with it and how you can make your own oil, home made kinda thing. Yeah!

Steemians, are you ready? OK, lemme tell you a short story first.

Once upon a time, in mid 2017, I was introduced to importance of this oil by a friend who his an expert in skin beauty. I complained to her about skin scabies that has defied all skin treatment creams and ointments. So Miss Cecilia recommended coconut oil to me, she gave me two options, either to buy from stores or produce one at home.

According to her, homemade coconut oil is better in two ways;

• Cost: it is cheaper to buy coconut from fruit stores or at local market. In Nigeria, average price of Coconut is #200 (two hundred naira), this is equivalent of $0.571 in USD. Also it is equivalent to 0.36 steem.

I hope I am not oversimplifying the cost analysis, hehe!

From my experience, three coconut (average size) will give you more than 100ml of oil.

In Naira (Nigerian currency) three coconut will cost #200, that is 3 × #200 = #600 = 1.08 steem = $1.71. Yeah, I have done the calculation so you can consider if coconut is cheaper or more expensive in your country than Nigeria:)

Note: This is the current price in Nigeria as at 5th of July, 2018.

• Quality: based on her experience, she said it is hard to find top quality coconut oil in Nigerian market. Most of the oil are mixed or diluted with other kinds of oil, therefore, it potency is reduced. So imagine that you are buying low quality oil at premium price of #1,800 per 100ml, equivalent to 1.5 steem or $5. Mehn! The difference is clear. If you are in my position, what would you have done? So I settled for HOMEMADE COCONUT OIL. What are the benefits of using coconut oil?

HOW TO PREPARE COCONUT OIL

• Step One:
  You have to break its back in other to have access to the succulent inner part of it. Sorry, I didn't capture it in camera. But I guess anyone can do this. Actually, the inner part is what we refer to as coconut.

• Step Two:
  You will dice it to a size that you think that your blender will be able to blend easily.

• Step Three:
  Then blending or grinding is the next thing. Here, you have to get it right or miss it all. While blending it, you must use water whose temperature is not less than 70°C, but certainly not more than 85°C. This practice makes it possible to extract more oil from the coconut than when colder water is used.

• Step Four:
  To get more juice out of the coconut, re-blend the shaft. More juice means more oil people!

• Step Five:
  Sieve out the juice and throw the shaft away, you may feed it to animals if you have poultry or pets. To some bakers, they make use of the shaft to bake coconut cake or bread.

• Step Six:
  Now you have to separate the juice (whitish semiliquid substance) from water. Two options are available here, so it depends on your resources.

First, if you have refrigerator or freezer, pour the juice into a bowl and allow its temperature to drop to about 5°C. Water will separate from the juice, due to varying densities, oil will float on water. So you can scoop oil transfer it to fry pan. This method saves time and more efficient.

Second, pour the juice in a bowl and cover it tightly. After 6 hours, oil will float on water, then you can scoop it too.

This is the best option in absence of refrigerator.

• Step Seven:
  Place the oil on stove or cooker (gas or electric), these are more preferred because using coal pot or fire woods will add strange odour to your oil. We only want to perceive odour of coconut in your oil!

• Step Eight:
  Continue to heat until you notice that water has evaporated completely. When you observe that the oil is getting brownish, stop heating it.

• Step Nine:
  Allow the oil to cool for about 1 hour, then you should decant it as I'd in the video, make sure that the oil is free from particles. Get a bottle, pour the oil and cover.

Finally, you will have this.

Enjoy your oil!

Let us look at some of the known benefits of this oil.

BENEFITS OF USING COCOON OIL

• Hair Care: It can be used to treat nonhereditary hair loss, many women claimed that it improves hair growth and prevent discoloration of hair. Personally, I have been able to treat dandruff with coconut oil.

• Skin Care: Like I mentioned earlier, I was able to get rid of skin scabies with the use of coconut. In fact, this challenge led me to discovery of coconut oil. I never knew about its potency. Other benefits includes, treatment of eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis and dry skin.

• Weight Loss: Fats in coconut oil are easily converted to energy, it reduces abdominal weight in women, especially in countries where coconut oil is used as one of the cooking oils.

• Improves Immunity: it contains antimicrobial lipids and acids like lauric, capric, and caprylic, which possess antifungal, anti-bacterial, and antiviral properties in them.

• Boosts Digestion: there are evidences that people who consume coconut oil have less constipation, it deals with fungi or bacteria that can cause indigestion.

• Dental Care: If you desire white teeth using natural whitener, try coconut oil. Just drink a teaspoon of oil, hold it in your mouth for 10 minutes, then spit it out and brush your teeth. Repeat this regularly for a week, you will notice an improvement.

• Speeds Up Healing: when you have bruise, apply coconut oil on its surface, it will form a protective layer which will prevent fungi and bacteria infection.

• Keeping Organs Healthy: presence of glycerides in the oil keeps the liver healthy, because it converts fats to energy, thereby reducing workload on liver.

• Helps in AIDS & Cancer Treatment: Using coconut oil for cooking helps in reducing power of viral infection.

• Boosts Heart Health: if saturated fats is good for the heart, and coconut oil contains saturated fats, then it improves heart health.

Voila! You have made quality coconut oil for yourself, not only this, you have learned about its benefits too.

I hope this article is helpful to you.