I was visiting my good friend Hala in NYC a couple of months ago. She had to work and I was working on the computer in her apartment.  When she came home, she laughed and asked why my face was all shiny. I had been reading about the wonders of coconut oil online and I found a pot of it in her house, so I had rubbed it all over my face!

Turns out, a friend had given her the coconut oil as a gift, but she forgot about it and left it near her bed.  I found it and showed it to her and suddenly it was like we had found a new toy!

I’ve read a lot of coconut oil propaganda lately, and like apple cider vinegar, soy protein, or acai berry extract, what you read online would make you think it will do your laundry, get you a raise at work, walk your dog, take your kids to school and maybe even cure cancer!

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Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating of course.  But, I wanted to try this stuff for myself, and Hala wouldn’t give hers up, so I got myself some virgin, cold-pressed coconut oil from Tropical Traditions. It’s made by hand, in small quantities, by farmers in the Philippines.  To see why virgin, cold-pressed is better than machine-processed, check out their video.

I must say, coconut oil has been great for my dry skin and I use it as a hair masque – either overnight or about 15 minutes before shampooing (pre-poo!).

I have used it on my face and chest, where I get a lot of breakouts.  Supposedly, the coconut oil merges with the bacteria on your skin and kills it.  (Click here for a better explanation.)  I wouldn’t say I’ve seen a huge improvement in my acne, but it didn’t exacerbate it either. That means, you can use it on your entire body with no worries about breakouts (and maybe it will help your acne, who knows?).

I have used it for cooking, and it has a great, coconut-y flavor – good in stir frys. It’s not bad as a butter substitute on toast, or mixed with a shake. According to the book I read, Virgin Coconut Oil, by Tropical Traditions owners, Brian and Marianita Shilhavy, coconut oil actually helps you lose weight! It sounds backwards because coconut oil is a saturated fat.  It is mostly solid at room temperature.

According to the book, polyunsaturated fats actually make livestock gain weight and coconut oil causes them to lose weight.  The idea behind this is that the medium chain fatty acids in coconut oil are burned more readily than the long chain fatty acids in most vegetable oils. Thus, they are not stored as fat and they increase metabolic activity which induces weight loss.

The book also claims that coconut oil has been shown to lower cholesterol, reduce risk of heart disease, improve thyroid function, improve digestive disorders, boost energy and prevent wrinkles.

I’m not a scientist, so I can’t back up any of these claims, but buying coconut oil is not a huge investment, so I encourage you to try it.  I am a Lean Cuisine kind of cook, so I haven’t used coconut oil in my cooking enough to decide if the claims are true.  If I could get myself to cook on a regular basis, I’d probably lose weight and be healthier anyway!

Has coconut oil worked for you?  Let me know!

So, even if none of these claims are true, coconut oil is still a wonderful skin and hair conditioner! Want to try it for yourself?  Tropical Traditions is giving one lucky reader a quart of gold-standard, cold-pressed, virgin coconut oil (retail value $37.50)!

To enter:

• All you have to do is sign up for the Tropical Traditions e-newsletter to enter. Please leave a comment below after you sign up, and make sure to leave me the same e-mail address you used to sign up. You must do this before earning extra entries.

For extra entries:

• Follow @MyBeautyBunny on Twitter and tweet the following: “@MyBeautyBunny is giving away free Tropical Traditions coconut oil – http://ow.ly/hO6i” Or just click the re-tweet button at the bottom of the post.  Leave a comment below with a link to the tweet after you’ve tweeted. You can tweet as many times as you like – just be sure to leave a comment for each tweet!

• Become a fan of My Beauty Bunny’s Facebook page. If you’re already a fan, just leave your Facebook name.

• Follow My Beauty Bunny through Networked Blogs on Facebook – see the Networked Blogs widget on the right side of the page to quickly add us.  Leave a comment below with your Facebook name after you’ve added us. If you’ve already joined, just leave your Facebook name.

• Sign up for My Beauty Bunny’s e-mail newsletter and leave me the e-mail address you used to sign up. If you’re already a subscriber, just leave me your e-mail address.

IMPORTANT: You must leave a comment for EACH action in order for it to count!

You must be a U.S. citizen, age 18 or older to win. Contest ends midnight (PST), 7/31/09.

Good luck!

Contest is now closed.

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