Can A Blow Dryer Kill Lice
They have found that the most effective is using hot air from a device such as a blow dryer.
Can a blow dryer kill lice. Lice are one of the hardiest life forms you or i is likely to meet. For blow drying to be most effective at killing lice eggs use a high wattage blow dryer on the fastest and hottest setting your child can tolerate. We are often asked by parents in fairfield county if heat will kill lice and nits. However almost half of the bugs still remained which means they were alive and viable capable of laying more nits and keeping the infestation going and growing.
Be sure to use a super lice treatment prior to blow drying the hair because blow drying is not very effective at killing lice bugs. One mom in norwalk told us that she had tried to blow out the nits recently by aiming a blow dryer at her child s head while another parent in darien washed everything in the house in hot water and the dried it on high heat in the clothes dryer. You can still get one of those brands and remove the embarrassment for good. A cycle in a hot dryer will kill off any lice and eggs on cloth.
So yes blow drying the hair can kill these bugs and even their nits. The study did show that it was the highest speed of blowing air not the highest temperature. Blow drying for head lice is different with that you blow dry on dry hair. The process of using the heat dryers is three steps meaning that professionals must comb out and remove the dead lice and eggs then apply oil before using the heat dryer on the scalp.
You divide the hair into sections and must be very particular about directing the air on either side of the section of hair right at the scalp for at least 30 seconds each. Using the clothes dryer allows you to treat many items in much less time and with much greater efficiency. A blow dryer does not get hot enough to kill lice and nits. An old fashioned bonnet dryer killed nearly 89 of nits but just 10 of lice while a blow dryer using direct heat got rid of nearly 98 of nits and 55 of lice.
There are several products in stores which claim to be for treatment of lice but most of these as far as i can tell are more likely to make you sick than to kill lice. It can take 30 minutes to an hour for the treatment not including the manual comb out then additional application. In fact many blow dryers are available today for killing hair lice. In a study blow drying the hair was shown to kill of some of the lice.
In one study warm air blown directly into the hair killed up to 98 of nits and over 80 of lice. Researchers have looked at many different methods of killing head lice.