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Castor Oil Hair Benefits — Pure Jamaican Black Castor Oil

Castor oil is one of the most beneficial oils for the hair.  But in order to get the most hair benefits out of your castor oil, it’s important that you get the right form.  In the last post, we talked about how great a combination it is to use Jamaican black castor oil with shea butter.  In this post, we’ll just go into the benefits of using this form of castor oil on its own.  Not all castor oil’s are created equal.  Most castor oils you find in the store have been heavily processed or “refined” in order to give them a maximum shelf life and resistance to light and oxygen damage.  This is turn, strips most of the essential nutrients away. This Jamaican black castor oil has not been processed in this way.  You can tell that it hasn’t been overly processed just by the fact that it comes in a dark brown glass bottle.  This helps shield it from light damage.  Jamaican black castor oil is created in an old fashioned style that uses minimal processing and keeps the essential nutrients intact.  It’s leaps and bounds above other brands.

Specific Benefits of Jamaican Black Castor Oil for the Hair

We’re not sure exactly how Jamaican black castor oil benefits the hair more than other forms of castor oil.  It might just be that because Jamaican black castor oil is simply more nutritious because it hasn’t been as refined, that it feeds the scalp and hair in greater ways.  Or it might be that the specific blend of nutrients benefits the hair in greater ways.  All that we are sure of is that Jamaican black castor oil has been shown to be the best castor oil for the hair.  The testimonies of people who have tried it on their hair and scalp are overwhelmingly positive.  Here’s one testimonial:

“I love love love this product! I started using it back in march 2010 to thicken my hair and to grow some bald spots it took a couple of months but it worked. It is now August and i have notice a big difference in my hair. It’s a lot thicker, stronger, shiner, and it help my split ends as well.”

Click Here to Read the Full Testimonial

Jamaican Castor Oil Hair Food on Sale Here

Castor Oil Hair Benefits — Jamaican Black Castor Oil and Shea Butter

Jamaican black castor oil has some amazing hair benefits.  Just like the benefits of regular castor oil, Jamaican black castor oil absorbs deeply into the skin and delivers key nutrients past the surface layers of the skin and deep into the connective tissue below.  For this reason, castor oil is perfect for the scalp because hair formation happens deep below the skin in the root and follicle.  Delivering nutrients topically to where the hair starts its growth is difficult.  But castor oil benefits  the hair greatly by absorbing down father than any other oil.  The reason why it has such great penetration is because of its low molecular mass.  It can pass through many layers of the skin unhindered.  I really like the above product because it utilizes two powerful hair compounds, Jamaican black castor oil primarily for the scalp, and shea butter for the hair.  It’s super cheap and super effective.

Why Jamaican Black Castor Oil?

Jamaican black castor oil has extra nutrients that regular castor oil doesn’t have.  Though enough research hasn’t been done to uncover exactly how the extra nutrients in Jamaican black castor oil positively effect the hair and scalp, a wide variety of testimonies have shown that this form of castor oil is just more effective for the health of the hair and scalp.  I have my own theories on this.  Jamaican black castor oil is generally much less refined than regular castor oil.  Because of this, it almost always has lots more nutrients.  It’s darker and richer in color.  I think that this extra dose of nutrients is the cause of the extended benefits.

Cons

The only drawback to this particular product is the smell.  Jamaican black castor oil and shea butter don’t always smell the greatest, and this particular combination can have a powerful smell.  For this reason, it’s best when used at night.  But most castor oil products are used at night anyway.  Castor oil goes on thick and makes the skin look very oily, so most people prefer to use it while they sleep.  This particular castor oil/shea butter combination goes on somewhat oily and has a odorous scent to it, so you’ll most likely want to reserve it for night use.

I actually take the smell as a pro though.  Both shea butter and Jamaican black castor oil have strong scents when in their unrefined states.  Many makers of these products send them through harsh refining processes which remove the odor, but also strip much of the nutrients away.  So when I find a natural product like this that has an odor to it, I’m actually encouraged that the maker of the product left the product as unrefined as possible.

Nutritional Castor Oil Hair Benefits

Castor oil is one of the most beneficial cold pressed oils.  Castor oil hair benefits are better than almost any other oil.  This is due to a variety of factors.  One is the fact that castor oil has such a low molecular weight that allows it to penetrate deeply beyond the surface layers of the skin and into the connective tissue below.  This is important to the scalp, because follicles and roots are buried deeply beneath the surface of the skin and are difficult to deliver nutrients directly to.  Castor oil has the ability to go down deep and deliver key nutrients directly to the areas that need them.

Castor oil is very high in ricinoleic acid.  Ricinoleic acid is an Omega 9 essential fatty acid and is very good at drawing and keeping moisture in the area it’s applied.  This causes castor oil to be a great moisturizer.  Ricinoleic acid also has the interesting function of being antifungal and antimicrobial.  You wouldn’t think that this would have anything to do with the hair, but in fact fungal and microbial attack are two of the main causes of early hair loss.  The hair can be a place for lots of harmful microorganisms to live, and using a product that not only nourishes and protects is a great idea.

The other main ingredient found in castor oil is oleic acid.  This is the same compound that’s prevalent in olive oil.  If you’ve read any posts in the category of olive oil hair benefits, you’ve seen that olive oil is another oil that’s great for the scalp.  You’ll find that fairly commonly, that oils share a variety of compounds that are all healthy for a particular part of the body.  One thing that a lot of people do is mix olive oil and castor oil together for the hair.  The hair benefits of a mixture of oils can be even greater than a single oil by itself.  So experiment a bit and see what combinations seem to do the best for you.

Castor Oil Hair Benefits from the Right Oil

Castor oil has been around and used for a really long time, not just for its hair benefits, but for its skin benefits and nutritional value as well.  Castor oil is one of those old world treatments to fix whatever ails you.  But because of the fact that castor oil has been around for such a long time and its benefits have long been known, you really have to be careful about which kind you buy.  That goes for pretty much any topical oil you’ll see in a natural health store, but especially for castor oil.  Labels can be very deceiving, and there aren’t federal laws as yet that govern many of the misleading statements that oil distributors are allowed to put on their products.

Castor oil has amazing skin and hair benefits, but in order for those benefits to remain intact, the production process needs to be sensitive to the nature of the oil.  The tendency of oil makers is to try and squeeze out every last drop of oil from their seeds, nuts, and beans in order to maximize their profits.  This has given way to processes that use immense heat and pressure to extract oils, and sometimes a 20 step refining process that uses various chemicals.  I can already feel you cringing.  Many oils are produced with methods that destroy the value of the oil.

So when you go to look for a castor oil for hair and topical use, try and find one that’s been cold pressed and cold processed.  But this can sometimes be deceiving. Cold is a relative term and there isn’t a federal law that governs the specific temperature range that an oil needs to remain in to be considered “Cold.”  Expeller pressed and unrefined is even better if you can find it.  An expeller is an old fashioned way of squeezing the oils out of seeds, nuts, and beans that doesn’t use heat, and keeps the integrity of the oil intact.  In a few posts from now, we’ll show you a brand of castor oil that’s perfect for the hair, created in an old fashioned style and unrefined.  It even comes in a dark brown glass bottle to protect the oil from sunlight.  For now though, it’s important that before you buy a bottle of castor oil, that you don’t just reach for the first one you find.