15 Jul Is Coca-Cola an Effective Remedy for Treating Lice?

Coca-Cola has some interesting uses that go far beyond a sweet drink. You may have heard that you can use Coca-Cola to clean your toilet bowl, remove cooking grease and scrub tile grout. And in these instances, Coca-Cola is a great alternative because it’s cheap and doesn’t contain harsh ingredients like many cleaning products do.

In 2016, a meme began surfacing on social media about how Coca-Cola can be used to treat head lice. If Coca-Cola can be used for other purposes like cleaning toilets and removing stains, can it be effective against head lice? Let’s find out. 

Does Coca-Cola Kill Lice and Nits? 

There’s a claim that has surfaced on social media stating that Coca-Cola can get rid of lice and nits fast. To make this work, all you need to do is wash the hair with a normal shampoo and saturate it in a bottle of Coke. Let the hair dry, rinse out the Coke and watch all the lice fall out! Easy peasy, right? 

Well, we wish head lice were as easy to kill as a bottle of Coke. Unfortunately, treating head lice with Coca-Cola is a myth. Soda beverages lack the ingredients needed to kill lice. Coca-Cola does contain phosphoric and citric acid, which is why it can be used for other purposes like cleaning, but these ingredients are not effective at killing lice. 

Aside from the citric and phosphoric acid, Coke has sugar, caffeine and caramel – all of which do nothing to break a nit’s strong bond to hair follicles. Bottom line: If you want to get rid of lice quickly and easily, Coca-Cola is not the option. 

Do Any Alternative Treatments Work? 

There’s a lot of information online about alternative ways to treat lice, but we encourage you to proceed with caution. Most of these treatments have no scientific evidence to back them up – you are literally relying on someone else’s claim that they work. And if they don’t work, the infestation will have time to grow and you’ll be back to square one. 

The best advice we can give is to use an evidence-based treatment. You can find these products in stores, but sadly, they often contain chemicals that can be hazardous to human health. For this reason, we recommend sticking with nontoxic head lice treatments. 

My Hair Helpers has everything you need to identify, treat and prevent head lice. All of our products are made from safe ingredients like coconut oil and peppermint. Anyone of any age can use our products! They also come with a 100% happiness, money-back guarantee. Buy our products online or stop into one of our three locations for an in-salon appointment.