Does Head Lice Like Clean Hair?

Whether your hair is natural or dyed, lice can live in both conditions. If you’re experiencing a lice infestation, it’s important to keep your hair clean and shampooed. Clean hair is more attractive to lice than dirty hair. Dirty hair can hide the scent of your blood, preventing them from attaching to your head.

While it may be tempting to wash your hair after every shower, head lice don’t usually stay off your hair for long. In fact, if you want to avoid the embarrassment of a head lice infestation, you should focus your treatment on your hair. There are several different methods of head lice treatment and preventing infestations.

Lice are small and can easily hide in hair. They produce a substance that sticks their eggs to your hair. To remove them, you must use a special nit comb. Although showers have powerful water jets, they cannot remove live lice from hair. If you can’t get rid of the lice with the comb, you can try to reposition your child away from the hair.

If these methods don’t work, you can turn to medical help. Some treatments are based on dimeticone, an oily substance that suffocates lice. However, this method only works 80-90% of the time. This means that you may have to repeat the treatment several times.