Coconut Oil Before or After Sauna & Steam Rooms (Find Out)

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Coconut oil can be a great moisturizer for your hair and body and even helps your body retain some of the health and moisture it lost due to seasonal or bodily changes. Since saunas dry out your body, most people incorporate coconut oil into their spa routines or visits to the sauna. The question remains; should you use coconut oil on hair and body before or after the sauna?

You should moisturize your hair and skin with coconut oil before or immediately at the point of entry into a sauna or steam room. Use less coconut oil if you have normal skin, and more if you have conventionally dry skin. Using coconut oil on your body and hair before a sauna can help act as a hot oil treatment, help reduce dryness and inflammation, and act as a moisturizer.

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Read on ahead to find out everything you need to know about using coconut oil for moisturizing purposes before entering a sauna, and any pros or cons it may have for your body.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Coconut Oil On Skin & Hair
• Using Coconut Oil Before Sauna or Steam Rooms
  • Pros
  • Cons
• Using Coconut Oil After Sauna or Steam Rooms
  • Pros
  • Cons
• Should You Use Coconut Oil Before or After Sauna/Steam Rooms?
• Skin & Hair Products to Use Before & After Sauna/Steam Rooms
• Conclusion

Benefits of Coconut Oil On Skin & Hair

There are many benefits and advantages to using coconut oil on your hair and body, and that is why coconut oil is such a commonly used product. Some of the benefits include the following:

• Coconut oil is an excellent substitute for lip balms, as it can help reduce dryness and return moisture to your lips.
• Can be mixed with other herbs like mint to make a better moisturizer.
• Acts as an alternative skin-friendly makeup remover and hydrator for the skin.
• Helps reduce dryness caused by fall seasons and helps prevent dry patches on the skin.
• As a body oil, it helps reduce inflammation and acts as a moisturizer to prevent water loss.
• Can be used as a nourisher and healer for cracked skin and dry cuticles.
• The natural oil has anti-bacterial properties which help act as a sanitizer to your skin; removing harmful bacteria.
• Revitalizes your hair and nurses it back to health if left on overnight before a bath. Also reduces hair frizz and dandruff caused by dryness of the scalp.
• This edible oil is high in saturated fats and fatty acids, which, if ingested, can help burn calories and prevent infections.

Using Coconut Oil Before Sauna or Steam Rooms

Saunas and steam rooms are a great way to relax your body and reduce face puffiness, and an overall relaxing ordeal.

However, there is a way to take full advantage of your routine visit to the sauna; by properly following a body and hair routine before entering. This body routine includes coconut oil as the main moisturizer.

Using coconut oil before entering a sauna or a steam room has its own pros and cons. Coconut oil can not only reduce the drying effects of the sauna but also act in your body and hair’s favor in the long run.

On the other hand, if used too much, paired up with the sauna visit, it can cause bodily damage.

To help you decide if using coconut oil before saunas or steam rooms is a good option, we’ve compiled a list of pros and cons.

Pros

It’s recommended to use coconut oil before sauna or steam rooms because:

• It protects your hair and body from heat damage
• Acts as a moisturizer to hydrate and warm up your body before the sauna
• Gets your blood flow going so you benefit from the sauna more
• Helps reduce scalp and skin dryness

Cons

Along with the benefits, there are some disadvantages to applying it beforehand:

• Coconut oil will clog your pores, making the steam useless. As such you won’t benefit from the steam bath
• Pushes the oil deeper into your pores, resulting in damaged pores
• Results in increased pore impurities

Also read: Is Sauna Good For Covid-19?

Using Coconut Oil After Sauna or Steam Rooms

You can also use the coconut oil for your body and hair after you’re done with your sauna bath, in which case, there would be both pros and cons, let’s discuss them one by one.

Pros

• Returns the moisture to your body and hair that was expunged due to the sauna and the bath water.
• Helps get rid of impurities and also cleanses the skin.
• Helps get rid of unwanted bacteria on the skin and hair.
• Reduces skin dryness.

Cons

• It may clog skin and scalp pores if used in excess.
• For people with acne, the added oil only elevates their breakouts and acne, making their skin condition worse.
• Makes hair oilier, resulting in hair fall.

Should You Use Coconut Oil Before or After Sauna/Steam Rooms?

We recommend using coconut oil and any other essential oils before you get into the sauna or steam room because first of all, it has a lot of advantages like moisturizing and helping reduce dryness, and secondly, it can help the relaxing experience more. The oils will just be washed off when you bathe after the sauna, helping the impurities drain.

Skin & Hair Products to Use Before & After Sauna/Steam Rooms

Even though coconut oil is the best product to use before a sauna, there are other amazing skin products out there that you can use before a sauna:

• Lotions – improve circulation, sweating, and open pores
• Cleansers (foam, gel, and cream) – remove pollutants from the skin

As an added bonus, we’ve also provided you with a list of products you can use after the sauna, to help maintain your body health and hygiene:

• Face and hair masks – extract excess oils and impurities from the skin and help moisturize the hair
• Toners – improve skin pores’ tightness
• Exfoliators – wipe away grime and dirt from the skin

Also read: Can Sauna Cure Cold?

Conclusion

By now we hope you’ve found out everything you need to know about what products you should use before and after saunas or steam rooms to help reduce skin dryness, breakouts, as well as heat damage to your skin and hair.

It’s always a good option to use coconut oil before the sauna as it not only helps warm up your skin but also helps set the mood for the sauna. 

(Featured image by Margenauer from Pixabay)