Lice in hair is the most common place for lice to affect, but there are other areas lice can live as well. I was curious to know if lice in your beard was actually a thing, so I ended up doing some research, some of which may surprise you.
Can you get lice in your beard? Yes, you can get lice in your facial hair. The type of lice that infect beards is known as crab lice. Can you get head lice in your beard, Head Lice thrive in thick hair and most facial hair is coarse and patchy, making it hard for head lice to thrive in your beard for long. Crab lice prefer coarse hair as compared to head lice.
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Types of lice
Head lice: what are head lice and why can’t they live in the beard?
Head lice are described as small insects that infest the head and live on sucking blood from the human scalp. Pediculosis capitis is an investigation of the head with head lice. Pediculosis capitis is not a sign of unhygienic conditions. Additionally, head lice cannot transfer bacterial and viral diseases or infections.
As mentioned above, head lice thrive on the scalp where they suck blood from the scalp. Given that, scalp hair is dense and thick it makes it easier for head lice to thrive.
On the other hand, facial hair is coarse. Most beards are not patchy, which makes it more difficult for lice to live in facial hair.
Thankfully, if you do have head lice, it can easily be treated with over the counter medications.
Pubic lice: eyelashes, eyebrows, beard and mustache lice
Now, we have established that head lice cannot thrive in your facial hair for long. But which form of lice can infect your facial hair?
The crab lice are the one type of lice that can thrive in other hairs in the body apart from your scalp. Just like head lice, which only thrives in the scalp, crab lice thrive in other hair types apart from the scalp hair which is coarser as compared to scalp hair.
Body lice
These types of lice are common in overpopulated areas. Body lice attach themselves to the seams of the cloths, they transfer themselves to human beings to feed.
One of the facts that make it easy for them to survive is that they can jump really high from one host to another and even last for about 3 days away from a human host.
What causes beard lice?
Beard lice are not necessarily caused by dirt and do not mean if you have beard lice you are unhygienic. Beard lice are contracted via contact. It can either be contacted with an infected person or with the belongings of an infected person.
How to tell if you have lice in your beard
When trying to check your beard for lice or nits, follow these steps
- Wet your facial hair- this makes it easier to spot lice as it slows them down
- Using a magnifying glass under a bright light to check for lice
- Using your fingers separate your beard into sections to make it easy to look at.
How to treat beard lice at home
The first thing that comes to your mind when you hear about treating beard lice is shaving off your beard. Well, while that is one of the ways of treating facial hair lice. It is not the only option. There are other methods that you can use to treat lice that do not involve your patiently grown beard.
There are several anti-lice shampoos that are made using permethrin or pyrethrin. These shampoos are very effective when fighting a beard, head, and pubic lice.
While most of these shampoos are generally made for the head lice and may end up harming your facial hair, there are several other alternatives that will help you fight off beard lice easily.
Best alternatives to treating beard lice instead of using shampoo
Lavender oil
While continued use of lavender oil is not good for your beard growth and development, applying it for a short time to treat lice has been proven to be effective.
Mix two drops of pure lavender oil in 10 milliliters and use it to wash your beard once or twice per week for a month to get rid of lice. However, lavender oil does not kill lice nits.
Tea tree oil treatment for beard lice
Although more research is required on how effective tea tree oil is against lice, the current studies shows that tea tree oil is an effective treatment.
One study found published here
, claims that tea tree oil can kill lice in their nymph and adult stage of life. Tea tree oil was also found to considerably reduce the number of lice eggs that we are able to hatch.
Another study published here shows similar results when tea tree oil was tested against three other products to treat lice. Pyrethrins and piperonyl were among the products that were tested against tea trees.
At the end of the study, tea tree oil mixed with lavender oil was found to be more effective, as compared to the other products.
How to keep beard lice away
Based on this study, which tested the effectiveness of tea tree oil, lavender oil peppermint oil, and DEET to prevent lice, tea tree oil on its own was found to be the most effective choice to keep lice away.
However, tea tree oil and lavender oil are anti-androgenic and not recommended for long-term use on facial hair. If you are traveling to a place that you are afraid you may come into contact with someone with lice, you can carry tea tree oil and lavender and use them to make sure lice do not infect your beard.
You should not use tea tree oil for a long time as it has been proven to cause side effects such as enlarged breasts.
