Can avocado oil actually help you grow your hair? How is it beneficial to your hair and scalp? The following article gives an overview about avocado oil, the common myths around it, how to apply it and what to realistically expect from its usage.
The Benefits of Avocado Oil for Hair
The avocado itself is quite a unique fruit. What makes it so special is that it contains mostly fat – the healthy kind of fat that is good for us. It’s often referred to as superfood. That’s no wonder looking at some of its health benefits.
- nearly 20 vitamins, including potassium (good for blood pressure) and lutein (good fur your eyes)
- good source of B vitamins (help fight off disease)
- low in sugar
- high in fiber (helps you feel full longer)
- high in monounsaturated fats (the healthy kind of fat)
Common Myths About Avocado Oil
In the recent years, there has also been a trend to use avocado oil for hair. There are a lot of websites telling all kind of stories about the use and benefits of it. Some of them could not be further from the truth.
First, avocado oil is not a source of protein. This is because if you extract the oil from the fruit, you remove any proteins and carbohydrates. So while fresh avocados are a great source of protein, the oil is not. The same thing is true for any water soluble vitamins like the B vitamins. You won’t find any of them in the oil. They vanish in the process of making it. Even when it’s high quality, cold pressed olive oil.
While this might seem delusional, avocado oil has still many benefits for your hair and scalp. This is because of the monounsaturated fat that the avocado oil consists of.
The Benefits of Avocado Oil for Hair
Our modern lifestyle challenges our hair. Many people suffer from dry hair, damaged through shampoos, heat styling, chemical treatments or environmental pollution. Using monounsaturated fat for your hair helps nourish and strengthen the hair follicle and ease the dry scalp. If you massage the oil into your scalp you stimulate blood flow, which leads to more nutrients that can reach the follicles to stimulate new growth.
If it were for these benefits alone you could use any monounsaturated fat, for example olive oil, hemp oil or sesame oil. But what makes avocado oil special is its high density in fatty acids and vitamin E wich are absorbed really well into our scalp and hair shafts. This protects the hair from environmental stress and stimulates the growth of new hair by unclogging blocked follicles, which is common in male pattern baldness for example.
Note: Olive oil has also been proven to have serveral benefits for hair. Have a look at the following article to find out more:
This is an overview of the most significant benefits:
1. Moisturizes Hair
Avocado oil is thin and light, making it easier for the oil to penetrate the hair and scalp. This moisturizes your skin from the inside, providing sufficient water for the hair to use during growth. If you have a dry and itchy scalp, then insufficient hydration might well be the problem and avocado oil can easily take care of this.
2. Shiny Hair
Avocado oil keeps their hair shiny and silky smooth. Typically used for brittle hair that seems to stick out everywhere, avocado oil has the ability to tame wild hair and allow it to fall back in glorious curls with every strand in place.
3. Strengthens Hair
If you’re suffering from brittle hair or falling hair, this means that you’re not getting enough vitamins and minerals to keep the strands and scalp healthy. Avocado oil contains vitamins which manage to provide nutrition from the inside. This makes it a viable treatment against hair loss, restoring the scalp and essentially making sure that the hair strands hang tighter to their anchor.
4. Repairs Damage
Sun-damaged hair or those that have been continuously exposed to treatment will benefit largely from avocado oil. The oil manages to restore the natural health of the hair so that it grows healthy from the scalp and upwards. If your hair is thinning, lank, and doesn’t seem to have any body, applying avocado oil should do the trick.
Note that although the avocado oil may not reverse split ends, it can prevent further occurrence of the problem. Once you’ve had your hair trimmed for the split ends, apply avocado oil on a routine basis and you shouldn’t have the same problem again.
5. Anti-Dandruff
The benefits of avocado oil against dandruff are still being discussed nowadays. Although there are no published conclusions yet, there’s every reason to believe that this oil can help with some cases of dandruff. Use the oil for at least a week on your hair and if this doesn’t make dandruff disappear, switch to a more certified method.
6. No Greasy Feeling
Perhaps the best thing about avocado oil is the fact that it’s not greasy or that it doesn’t leave a weird smell on the hair. Hence, you can use it as a leave-in conditioner without worrying about how your hair would smell or feel later.
How to Apply Avocado Oil to Your Hair
The most obvious way of using avocado oil is by applying it directly to the hair and massaging it on the scalp:
- Put on old clothes as applying oil might be a little drippy and you don’t want to ruin your favorite shirt. Put an old towel around your shoulder to prevent this.
- Chose a covering for your hair (shower cap, plastic wrap, another old t-shirt). You want to be able to cover your hair for a couple of hours or overnight.
- Rub the avocado oil into your hair. Use your fingers to massage it in and increase blood flow. You can also use a comb for this.
- Cover your hair with your method of choice and make sure it doesn’t move.
- Wait at least 2 hours for the avocado oil to soak in. You can also leave it on overnight.
- Wash your hair two or three times until it feels no longer oily (use a mild shampoo for that)
Have a look at this video showing you exactly how to apply the oil (any oil actually):
Can You Also Apply it to Your Skin?
Yes, avocado oil is good for hair and skin. You can use it for facial moisturizing, skin care, dry skin, age spots or as a facial mask.
Choosing the Right Avocado Oil for Your Hair
The good news is that there is currently lots of avocado oil for hair and body products available online. Try to go with an organic and cold pressed oil as they contain the most vitamins.
If you have any questions about avocado oil for hair, leave a note below or submit a message through the contact form.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I use avocado oil in my hair?
This really is a matter of personal preference. It depends how much time you’ve got to apply it, leave it in and then wash it out.
In India for example, especially in the south, many people put oil in their hair every morning, which is why you see such thick and glossy hair on many Indian people.
However, obviously the oil can come off on your hands and other things during the day. But in small quantities, as a local conditioner and head dampener daily use is fine.
Many people suggest using avocado oil in your hair once per week. Apply the avocado oil, put a bath hat on and then leave it to soak in overnight. Then rinse out thoroughly using a mild shampoo the next morning.
You can use it more frequently, but the length of time you leave it on your hair will directly affect the benefits, so avocado oil should only really be applied to your hair when you have the time to make it beneficial.
How much avocado oil should I use in my hair?
If you are applying avocado oil directly to your hair then a coin sized amount is best. When we are talking about the coin, a United States nickel is about the size you should be thinking.
But the question really depends on whether you are applying avocado to your head neat, or mixing it was something else. If you are creating a hair mask that contains avocado oil, then there is no set amount, it’s about using the right amounts of each ingredient in the hair mask and then applying it in a sensible manner.
Answering this question from a different angle, there is no harm in applying too much avocado oil to your hair. So you can’t overload your hair, it just makes it heavy and more difficult to wash out afterwards.
Can I mix avocado oil with anything else to benefit my hair even more?
There are plenty of things you can add to avocado oil to benefit your hair even more. Look up hair mask recipes to see the sort of things people are using.
But generally, you can mix avocado oil with essential oils such as peppermint or lavender, honey, olive oil, coconut oil and even natural yoghurt.
You’re looking for natural organic substances that contain nutrients and vitamins which can soak into your hair and scalp. Some people swear by mixing one third avocado oil with two thirds caster oil to create a very rich, penetrating and beneficial hair mask.
Can I use avocado oil on my face?
Yes you can! Avocado oil is very beneficial for the face. It contains Oleic acid which is fantastic for the skin. Just make sure you only use pure organic, cold-pressed avocado oil.
The mix of monounsaturated fatty acids and Vitamin E found in avocado oil can do facial skin wonders. On top of that it contains several powerful natural antioxidants.
All this put together means that avocado oil is great as a morning moisturizer, because it is lighter than some other natural oils like coconut oil.
All you have to do is use clean hands to gently massage in a small quantity, making sure you don’t go too close to the eyes as this can clog up the tear ducts and cause problems.
