How to make Coconut Oil (For hair and skin)

So last weekend I got my creative cap on and made my very own ....... Coconut Oil!!! I love this stuff. I've been using it for the past week on my skin and hair. I love this stuff!!! My skin really drinks it up. My hair looks shinnier and feels softer, especially my ends. Did I mention I love this stuff?!!

And who's responsible for this, you ask. This video by MixtressTV:



As you'll see, the video is so straight forward and it made the process a breeze (with great background music to boot!). I pretty much followed her entire method and only did a couple of things differently. My process was as follows:

I used 2 coconuts. Cracked them open and shredded/grated the flesh. Boy was that hard work! Good bicep work out though! But I need a blender ASAP!

Shredded coconut

I poured 5 cups of warm water in total. I think mine was bordering on hot though (oops!). I added 3 cups first and squeezed, then 2 cups and squeezed.

Making coconut milk

I then strained the liquid out. I felt like I wasn't getting much liquid out so I actually squeezed handfulls of the soaking shredded mush over a strainer. I think my line of thinking was that this would help me get a higher yield. Don't think it helped any though, seeing as most of what I got back (pretty much got all 5 cups and a bit back) was water that I ended up throwing away. Doh!

Coconut milk

Put it in the fridge. The cream separates and you get a hard block forming at the top.


I left this in the fridge for about a day and a half (was way too excited to wait 2 or 3!!). Got the block out and threw the water portion away.

Coconut cream block

This block then gets heated. This is the part when you actually get the oil! I don't have a stainless steel pot : ( so I had to use a non-stick frying pan. I think it worked ok.

Initially the coconut cream remains white when brought to a boil

The sugars/ proteins (or whatever it is, lol) start to clump, leaving a clear liquid. That's the oil!

Strained the oil out with an ol' trustly tea strainer.

Coconut oil!! How cool is that?!

I think the video shows the oil being all poured out at once. My thinking was that I didn't want to 'burn' the oil. So when a reasonable amount 'formed' in the pan, I would pour it out, leaving the clumps in the pan and wait for more oil to come out, then poured that out... and so on. I learnt this method from NigerianQueen's fotki tutorial: How to Make Coconut Oil.

I was still getting oil at this point.

I was so keen to get as much oil out as I could. I cooked those clumps until and my mum politely asked me to open more windows. That's when I realized I needed to stop, because it looked like all I had left were bits of charcoal in the pan!! LOL.

The finished product! It looks golden brown initially, but turns white once it's hardened. I keep it in the fridge as suggested. Gives it a longer shelf life, me thinks. The yield is slightly more than half a cup.

My coconut oil in all its glory! : )

All-in-all, this was a lot of fun and a big learning curve. I had made coconut oil before with the help of NigerianQueen's tutorial. It's an excellent tutorial. Slightly different from MixtressTV's method. You'll probably see that I've kind of combined the two methods.

If you do decided to have a go, please please please let me know how it worked out for you. Which method you used, if you improved on any of the methods, if you made any mistakes etc. Hopefully we can all learn from each other's experiences.

This was a lot of fun and as Veronica puts it "Yeh I liked that, that was good, that was goood." It sure was! Happy coconut oil making!!