Does Hair Dye Kill Lice?

Photo by NoJhan via Wikimedia Commons

Lice – the annoying little monsters that roam our hair while making us feel uncomfortable and our heads itchy. They are small parasite insects that spend their lives on our heads and feed on our blood and when we scratch our itchy scalps it may very well lead to an infection. Lice are also hard to get rid of, mostly because they have evolved over time and have learned how to resist some of the most popular anti-lice medicine we use.

It is a huge problem because millions of people are suffering from it all over the world. In the US alone there are around 10 million people treated for lice every year. So, it is only natural that people are looking for alternative ways on how to get rid of these creepy parasites.

Does dying your hair kill lice?

As we all know, hair dye contains a lot of strong and harmful chemicals, so they should kill the small parasites in your hair, right? There is so much talk about how hair dye is toxic and can harm your hair, so you would expect that with all that power it could at least help you with killing off the lice… Fortunately for us, that’s exactly how it works. Small bugs like lice can’t resist the powerful chemical substances that hair dye contains and whenever you apply it to your hair the lice will die. Many people have reported a lot of success with this method after unsuccessfully trying out medication and other typical lice treatments.

Tip: Don’t forget to comb out the dead lice from your hair.

Will it keep the lice away?

Well, if you already have lice then coloring hair might help with getting rid of them. But after that there is no guarantee that you won’t face this problem again because colored hair doesn’t make you immune to lice.

But there is another important question!

Does hair dye kill lice AND their nits as well?

Lice lay eggs (which are often called nits). Even if you manage to get rid of the lice in your hair it’s as important to get rid of their nits too or it may be just a short term solution as new lice would appear. And this is where some problems may occur.

Experiences and opinions split on this one. Some people claim to have killed all of the lice as well as their eggs by using hair dye. However, that might not always be the case. To understand that better, we might need to look at this process from more of a scientific standpoint.

Hair dye kills lice because the chemicals attack the neurological system of an organism such as lice. The same thing applies for most of the eggs. However, nits that are less than 3 days old don’t have any neurological system yet and therefore may stay unharmed.

So, what should you do?

The only way to really check if hair dye will kill lice is to try it yourself. There are lots of testimonials which indicate that it might work and there is also a lot of doubt about hair dye as the ultimate solution for this problem. But coloring hair is probably a little more pleasant than putting mayo or some other greasy stuff in it. Don’t put too much faith in hair dye as the end to all of your lice problems but giving it a try might be reasonable.

Discussion

Have you tried killing lice and their eggs with hair dye? Have you had any success with other lice remedies?