Coconuts with Holland and Barrett

Yesterday was officially the first day of the British Summer, but it certainly didn't feel that way!

Luckily for me, the kind PR team over at Holland and Barrett had sent me a parcel full of coconut goodies - perfect to test out on a rainy day. Doesn't the smell of coconut just remind you of Summer? 

I've not yet tried the coconut conditioner (but it smells incredible!) nor the coconut chips as I think I'll use those next time I do some baking. But I've tried the other products:

Sweet Coconut & Vanilla popcorn - the smell is pretty intense when you open the bag, it actually reminded me of Estee Lauder's Bronze Goddess fragrance. Thankfully the product didn't taste perfumed, it had a pretty natural flavour that wasn't too overwhelming. I really enjoyed this popcorn, a lovely alternative to my usual sweet and salty.

Coconut Oil - so obviously the first thing you'd think to use this for is cooking, but I actually used this as a hair mask. Avoiding my roots (as I didn't want to clog my pores, when the oil heats up on your skin it turns to almost a water texture and I didn't want it to drip onto my face) I covered my hair in the oil, and popped it up in a pony tail with a large sandwich bag wrapped around to avoid getting oil on any furniture. Several hours later, I washed the product out - twice shampooing, and then conditioned as I normally would - and oh wow was my hair soft!!! I usually have very tangled hair, but this deep conditioning with the pure coconut oil really made a big difference for me. I'm going to try and get this coconut oil hair ritual into my beauty routine at least once a fortnight from now on.

Cocowhite - I've wanted to try this product for a long while now since seeing it plastered all over Instagram so I was very excited to be sent it. Cocowhite is an oil pulling product. If you've not heard of oil pulling before, it's basically swishing oil around your mouth for around 10 mins and drawing out the bad bacteria in your mouth. Oil pulling is said to whiten the appearance of your teeth, I'm not sure on the science part behind it - but I'd much rather give this a go than try any tooth whitening kits that contain bleaches. 

Why use Cocowhite and not just use the jar of coconut oil? For me, personally, as the Cocowhite product was flavoured with mint it just felt like another part of my dental routine - and it helped me mentally get over the fact that I was literally swilling oil in my mouth. I've only used the product for 2 days, so I can't say I've noticed a difference in the colour of my teeth yet - but they do feel squeaky clean.

Also, everything at Holland and Barrett is currently on Buy One Get One Half Price - and lots of the coconut products are on Sale too.