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What does Lice Look Like in Hair: 5 Surprising Facts

It’s always one problem after another, dandruff, hair fall, dry scalp, lice, and the list goes on and on. But what does lice look like in hair? And how to get rid of them?

The lice and nits in humans are called Pediculosis 1in science, and when they start growing in the scalp or human head, they are called Pediculus Humanus Capitis.

Head lice are of three types: lice eggs, nymphs, and the adult head louse. Do you want to know what does lice look like in hair? Read below for some detailed information.

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Photo by: CalebWoods/Unsplash

My niece asked me one day, “What does lice look like in hair? Can they cause anxiety?”

I told him that a study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that head lice become the reason for increased anxiety levels among parents of school-goers and teenagers whose daily activities are getting bothered by the tickling sensation caused by head ice on their scalps.

And I also told her you couldn’t use does with the word lice because lice are the plural form of the word louse. 

Head lice movements cause itching in a child’s scalp, which results in mild allergic reactions and minor infectious diseases. However, it is not difficult to treat head lice problems.

1. What Does Lice Look Like in Hair?

There are three types of head lice present in the world. Their colour and features keep changing according to age and gender, such as a female louse is chubbier than a male louse.

Head lice can also be classified as male and female adult lice. Both of them mate and give birth to live lice, and then, these head lice nits take one or two weeks to grow into adult lice.

Human head lice might be grey, dark brown, or white. However, there is one common trait in all types of head lice, they prefer to stay and grow fast in long hair and migrate from one person’s head to another.

1.1 Lice Eggs

What does lice look like in its more premature form?

The presence of tiny head lice eggs in hair is the initial stage of head lice infestation. These lice eggs are firmly attached to the hair shaft and are the size of a sesame seed. They are tiny parasites called nits and are imperceptible sometimes.

Lice eggs look like seborrhea. However, unlike dandruff, head lice and nits are harder to dust off. The size of a sesame lice conglutinates with the hair strands of an infested person like magnets conglutinate with iron and make your hair look ugly.

1.2 Nymphs Head Lice

What does lice look like on neck?

These head lice are baby lice with six legs who have just learned to crawl in darker hair. They take six to nine days to come out of egg casings and disaffiliate your hair shafts. And then, these baby lice start crawling here and there around the roots of your long hair. (Nymphs head lice video)

The feature of a tiny head louse is the same as an adult head louse. The only difference between a baby louse and an adult louse is that the adult louse is large.

1.3 Adult Head Louse

Adult Lice look like little bugs with rudimentary wings; each has six legs and is about the size of two millimetres to four millimetres. It lives on the scalp of the human host and relies on human blood and skin for nourishment.

Adult lice are easier to spot, and you can get rid of them by hot wash. Unlike nits, they don’t stick to the hair shaft.

When hot water is poured on grown-up head lice, they leave the hair shaft and fall on the ground or start crawling towards the part of your body that has low temperature after a slight brushing off.

2. How does Lice Spread in the Whole Head?

There are several reasons for getting head lice, and they cancel the myths that exist on the Internet. Have you ever heard that head lice are caused by poor hygiene? So, what lice look like and how can it spread so fast?

Well, I am proof that poor hygiene has nothing to do with head lice. You guys must be assuming that the writer has gone crazy. I haven’t.

But my brain revived the talk of a little girl who never used to wash her hair in winter. Despite the dirty hair, she never had head lice in her hair. Yes, I am talking about myself. So let’s lay off the head lice myths and learn about the real reasons for getting lice in the hair.

2.1 Head-to-Head Contact

One of the main reasons for causing live lice is head-to-head contact. Your child goes to school, sticks their head to their classmates, and brings live head lice home.

These live lice crate more lice nits in your child’s hair, which is likely to spread head lice to the heads of the whole family. Therefore, the parents shall teach children not to go too close to the hair of infested person and dust off their child’s school uniform.

2.2 The Hair Accessories

Sometimes siblings exchange hair accessories like combs, clips, pins, and headbands. It is known as bartering in professional language. And during the exchange process, children exchange one or two head lice from infested child’s head for their own.

2.3 Sharing Clothes with Siblings or Friends

Does your child love to wear siblings’ clothes? If yes, please make sure to check for sesame seed-size lice. The clothes can spread lice.

2.4 Sharing Pillow or Bed with an Infested Person

Adult head lice move quickly from one head to another, making both heads full of head lice. It becomes difficult to spot lice in dark hair at the early stage, which increases the number of lice in hair.

3. How to Identify Head Lice Infestation?

There are two ways to identify lice in a child’s head. One is to inspect your child’s hair yourself, as the money is in the above picture doing. For that, you need to take a paper towel and dry your child’s hair with it.

When you finish drying your hair, you will get at least two or three on that thin paper, the paper towel is white, and lice are visible in this way. Always remember that the colour paper shouldn’t look like lice. 

The second way is to visit a local healthcare center. Most health departments have trained people who catch hair lice using a modern microscope.

4. How to Repel Lice?

Once your head is full of the same coloured unhatched hair lice. The common ways are not enough to kill head lice. However, there are some effective remedies to cure head body lice.

  1. Light Hair: Lighter hair is easier to comb many times every day, it takes less time to wash them off and apply tea tree oil, which is considered another fruitful method to get hair parasitesout of your life.

  2. Fine-toothed comb: If your hair easily catches critters, use a strong, sharp comb with thin layers of brushes. Because all the lice except nits would get stuck in the comb, and you would get peace for a while.

The size of these lice is like a pen’s nib, which means they are very tiny and need doctor’s treatment or any oil certified by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States of America (FDA). Moreover, lice shampoo and hair cast are also included in the anti-lice products list.

Apart from these things, five exciting facts about lice and empty egg casings would help you improve skin conditions and disease control. Though it has been scientifically proven that lice don’t spread disease, they can affect your mental health conditions.

5. Lice Bites Cause Itching

You have seen how lice look in the pictures attached to this article, right? But have you ever given thought to lice biting the scalp? Well, lice’s saliva causes itching in the head of their hosts.

It means lice bite, that’s why they leave their saliva on the scalp of humans, and this saliva causes itching. Here are some facts that you need to know.

5.1 Mature Lice Move Fast, Like a Snake

I still remember an instance from my childhood. It was Wednesday, and my mother was trying to search for lice in my sister’s head to kill them. However, she failed to catch the lice because one of the lice crawled so fast that my mother couldn’t find it. 

But it is also true that lice cannot walk properly on the surface. That’s why they die within 48 hours of being off to the humans’ heads.

5.2 Mature Lice Prefer Dark

The lice in my sister’s hair used to avoid light. When I saw my sister’s scalp, lice roamed around the hair shafts. I told my sister to keep her head under the study lamp, and as soon as my sister did so, the louse moved fast inside her hair.

5.3 It’s a Myth that Lice Look for Clean Hair

A study published on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, USA, suggests that hair lice 2look for humans’ scalps to feed on. They don’t have any particular interest in clean or dirty hair.

They are transmitted from one child to another. It is a serious concern, and local school boards must take some actions to control hair lice.

5.4 Applying Ice Can Cause the Death of Head Lice

A study conducted at the National Library of Medicine concluded that head lice suffocate in icy water, and the absence of oxygen can take the life of head lice.

5.5 Vitamin Deficiency can cause Head Lice

In some cases, some patients have developed these critters due to scratches because they were not taking the proper intake of vitamins A, C, and Zinc. These vitamins heal damaged tissues and make our skin beautiful.

The deficiency of these vitamins didn’t let the patients cure the scratches, and they got head lice. However, there is no information in the public domain about this observation.

These five facts are either scientifically proven or have been experienced in real life. However, every human has a different body and different types of hair parasites.

Therefore, we suggest our readers identify the lice types and then proceed with the head lice treatment and remedies written in this article.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I kill lice in my hair?

Spinosad 3is suitable for both adults and kids, it can be used on dry hair and washed out after 10 minutes with lukewarm water.

2. What causes lice on your hair?

Head lice are spread by direct touch or by exchanging objects such as combs, brushes, and helmets with another individual who has head lice.

3. Is it OK to have lice in your hair?

The stings lice leave can itch and are undesirable to many people, so, it is not okay.

Final Note

As to what lice look like, the lice are wingless-little parasites that crawl like snakes and suck blood for regular nourishment. They look like tiny pearls with human eyes and are usually found in darker hair. They die after brushing off the head of the human host. 

These tiny creatures cause no physical harm to a human, but they create psychological disorders4 due to stress and social stigma linked with nits and mature lice. A louse 5can make your day and night stressful by causing itching.

Hence the anti-louse treatment is necessary for patients to lessen the allergic reactions caused by a louse’s saliva.

If you are facing the same problem or having difficulty identifying the real cause of itching, confirm it by applying the methods mentioned in this article. 

  1. Coates, Sarah J., et al. “Ectoparasites: pediculosis and tungiasis.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 82.3 (2020): 551-569. ↩︎
  2. Amanzougaghene, Nadia, et al. “Where are we with human lice? A review of the current state of knowledge.” Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology 9 (2020): 474. ↩︎
  3. Sparks, Thomas C., et al. “The spinosyns, spinosad, spinetoram, and synthetic spinosyn mimics‐discovery, exploration, and evolution of a natural product chemistry and the impact of computational tools.” Pest Management Science 77.8 (2021): 3637-3649. ↩︎
  4. Kring, Ann M., and Sheri L. Johnson. Abnormal Psychology: The Science and Treatment of Psychological Disorders, DSM-5-TR Update. John Wiley & Sons, 2022. ↩︎
  5. Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y., et al. “International recommendations for an effective control of head louse infestations.” International journal of dermatology 60.3 (2021): 272-280. ↩︎

Last Updated on by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology

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JYOTI Dhama

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