Coconut Oil Pulling is Completely Disgusting, Don't Do It

I tried coconut oil pulling. OMG gross.

And it wasn’t great. I’m always down to try DIY life hacks like these because even if it doesn’t work, it can’t hurt anything. But man, coconut oil pulling was rough, although I’m still open to using this semi-solid for killing fugal issues and deep conditioning my hair.

The whole idea behind oil pulling is that it’s going to whiten your teeth and up your oral health game. With just a little bit of swishing oil! What’s the big deal?

What is coconut oil pulling?

The claims of oil pulling are many, depending on what you read. There have been several small studies that show some validity to the claims that oil pulling can help with plaque build up and gingivitis. I’m was interested in the teeth whitening claims, but was unable to find a valid study. Note to self: these teeth whitening remedies are WAY better.

To get the benefits of coconut oil pulling you need to do it for twenty minutes. Besides the obvious question of who has twenty whole minutes a day to focus on oral health, it’s also a jaw workout. My regular minute rinse with mouthwash is fine and all, but twenty minutes? The whole lower part of my face was sore.

What is it like?

I find oil pulling to be incredibly unpleasant. Just. Awful. I tried this three whole times before vowing never ever ever again.

Let’s just have a minute to talk about the taste and texture of oil. Normally I like cooking with coconut oil. It’s lightly sweet and it’s easy to work with. But it’s not like you’re eating straight oil. When you do coconut oil pulling, you have the taste and texture of the oil in your mouth for several minutes. It’s pretty gross. I needed to focus my brain on literally anything else to stop from spitting out the oil early.

I know that three times is not enough to get the benefits of almost anything, so I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t find any difference with the whiteness of my teeth.