My friend Erika – that’s her with her adorable rescue pup, Ginger! – is an amazing human being who is smart and talented and generous and thoughtful and funny and inspiring and, on top of all this awesomeness, she has ridiculously white teeth and rocks the heck out of red lipstick and I’m insanely jealous about it.

As a blonde, I’ve always been encouraged to wear red because it’s supposed to look fabulous on me, but it just never looks right. I could say it looks too bold and dramatic or that it’s the wrong shade of red (I’m definitely more of a blue-red kind of girl instead of orange-red), but in reality red lipstick emphasizes just how not white my teeth are and I hate it.

I’ve tried every whitening strip and whitening toothpaste on the market and while I’d never call my teeth yellow, they’re definitely not white. Erika‘s are white…I mean look at them! White as white can be! So when I told her about my obsession with her teeth and how I wished mine could be that white, she asked if I had tried oil pulling. No, but I’ve seen it mentioned online…tell me more!

She walks into her bathroom and comes out with a little packet of coconut oil and tells me to swish it around in my mouth for twenty minutes. At this point, she could have told me anything and I probably would have done it for the hope of whiter teeth, so I rip the packet open and squeeze out the oil, which looks like paste at this point, into my mouth where it quickly melts into a liquid and I set the timer on my phone for twenty minutes – I’m not fooling around! – and swish away.

By the time I spit (into the trash, it’s not good for your plumbing!) and rinse and smile in the mirror, I might not be a total believer, but I’m definitely intrigued. My teeth do look whiter and I’m willing to give it a go for a week and see what happens.

Here’s to whiter teeth and rocking red lipstick like a boss!!

Update: Two weeks later and there’s no doubt that my teeth are multiple shades whiter and I’m telling anyone willing to listen to try it. For a whopping $10 for a 14oz jar of organic refined extra virgin coconut oil, what do you have to lose? You can also use it for cooking and on your hair and skin if it needs a little extra moisture. It can do a lot and I’m pretty sure it was a go to item in the medicine man’s arsenal back in the day.

Thank you, Erika for sharing this awesome beauty tip!

Pro Tip: If you like the taste/smell of coconut, try the unrefined version. If you want it to be tasteless/odorless, get the refined. You can also buy perfectly portioned packets with coconut oil that is lightly flavored – mint or strawberry. I think it’s great for traveling, but if you’re home a teaspoon from the jar will do the trick. I’ve read a couple of articles suggesting two or three tablespoons and they must have mutant mouths because that’s far more than necessary. Trust me.