The many uses of coconut oil

I have used coconut oil on my face, body and hair as a moisturizer for a while now.  There's many other uses for it, but that's for another blog post.  For anyone who doesn't know, coconut oil comes in a glass jar and can be found in the cooking isle.  It is in a solid state as long as the temperature is cooler than 76 degrees.  Once it gets warmer than that, it melts into a liquid.

I use the oil on her skin as a moisturizer.  Her pediatrician even made a comment the first time she saw Addison.   She said she had never seen such beautiful skin on a newborn.  The best part about using the oil on your skin is it's not greasy and a little bit goes a very long way.  Not to mention it smells great too!

One Friday night we had to run some errands and same for the next morning.  I'm not sure which day it happened (my guess would be Saturday) but she got a tiny bit of diaper rash from sitting in a dirty diaper for too long.  Keep in mind we are using cloth diapers, not disposable.  Immediately after I saw the diaper rash I applied some coconut oil to her bottom and by the end of the night, the rash was gone!  I had read about coconut oil being great for diaper rash, but I could hardly believe how fast it cleared it up.  Now I just apply a very light layer of coconut oil every time I change her diaper.  Not only does it make clean ups a breeze, it seems to help the cloth wipe glide over her skin better.  After looking at other natural products for treating diaper rash, it makes sense to see 98% of them contain coconut oil. It is antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial.  It is also a safe alternative to use for diaper rash if you use cloth diapers.

I noticed on the inside of her right thigh a tiny red mark.  Initially it looked like it was just a mark left from her diaper maybe being too tight.  Every day we have about an hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon with no diaper.  After all of this free time without a diaper, the marks were still there.  I decided to try a little coconut oil on it.  After about 4 applications, the red marks had faded to a pinkish color.  By the next day, the marks were completely gone and have never come back.

Addison also seemed to be getting a case of cradle cap. I started putting coconut oil on her head and it soon disappeared. Her cradle cap never got crusty and yellow.  It pretty much just looked like flaky, scaly skin.  After about a week and a half to two weeks of use and lightly brushing her scalp in a circular motion, the cradle cap was gone and beautiful peach fuzz was left on her head where her hair had previously fallen out.