The Basics Of Hair Lice
Oct 7th, 2008 by beauty writer
Head Lice are human parasites and are transferred by personal contact with an infected person. They are not transmitted via animals, including your family dog or cat. The reason why is because Hair lice, as mentioned earlier, are a human parasite and live off of the consumption of human blood.
Hair lice are generally small in size (adults can grow as large as a sesame seed) and dark in color (usually brown or tan) making them often times hard to detect. Adult lice females lay eggs, referred to as NITs as close as possible to the “host’s” hair shaft. The female bugs can lay up to 150 NITs in their life-cycle.
The medical term for a case of Hair lice is Pediculosis, or sometimes referred to as Pediculosis Capitis (infestation of the scalp with lice). They are considered by medical journals to be contagious as they can be spread from one person to another, but are not considered to be a harmful disease.
Based on recent medical information, head lice do not normally carry or spread harmful diseases, or carry them. More often than not, they are best described as a nuisance than anything else.
Head Lice also do not travel through the air nor can they be transferred onto a human head from the ground. They have no ability to fly and cannot “jump” from head to head as was suspected previously.
Therefore, the most likely case of parasitic transferral is by clothing, including towels, sharing hair grooming tools such as a brush, hair barrettes, hair ties, or combs, or sleeping on the same bedding as that of an infested individual.
Water will not kill them. They go into a state of suspension, or hibernation when presented with an abundance of water such as bathing, showering, swimming, etc. and are well adapt at “hanging on” if and when necessary as is the case with water.
Adults cannot survive over 72 hours off of any given “host”. However, they can hide within furniture, clothing, or bedding within that time period so they can happily re-infest themselves onto the host’s head, or find another suitable host within that time period.
You can find head lice prevention information here.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed for updates!
Beauty care is important…. and it’s good that this information about head lice is shared so the other stylist know when to stop cutting/ styling the hair. It’s against the law for a stylist to cut or style a head lice infested client. The Beauty Specialist should refer the client to a Doctor or a Certified Health Professional that is in the medical field in which this infectious disease may be treated safely & correctly.