A hairdresser specialising in treating nits has revealed a series of horrifying cases – and shared little-known facts about lice that left TikTokers horrified.
Rachel Maroun, 22, from Sydney, Australia, has made headlines for her rather unusual occupation, and has made it her mission to help teach people how to treat – and avoid – the pesky issue of hair lice.
In a recent video shared with her four million followers, she shared clips of horrifying infestations.
She also informed viewers of things they may not know when it comes to the unsavoury critters – including how they camouflage themselves in our hair and can go unnoticed for up to six weeks.
Rachel said: “I’m going to tell you some facts about head lice that you might not know.
“Lice can lay up to 150 eggs in their lifetime.
“It only takes one week for those eggs to hatch, but it takes you about six weeks to realise you have head lice, since that’s when the symptoms start.
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“Which means that leaves them plenty of time to reproduce and form their colonies.”
Throughout the informative video, Rachel shares clips of different clients she has worked on – including a girl with visible lice crawling through her hair roots, and a clip of the comb Rachel uses to extract the nits.
She continues: “Lice eggs can also change colour.
“By using a special pigment, they can actually match the colour of your hair to help them hide.
“But once those babies are hatched, the eggshells stay in the hair but start to lose their colour – that’s why we can see all of these tiny white dots hanging in the hair here.”
Rachel shows a clip of the egg shells littering the hair of one girl.
She continues: “The eggs are laid with a special glue that bonds them to your hair. The sticky casing protects them from chemical treatments, which means they have to be combed out.
“Once they are out, they can be popped just like the lice.”
Next, the lice technician shares a clip of her ‘popping’ the lice between a glass case – causing them to die.
The post garnered 49,000 likes and hundreds of comments.
One person said: “I’m scared now.”
“Please tell me I am not the only one who’s head starts itching while watching these videos,” another user commented.
Someone else added: “I work in childcare and this made my head ichy help.” [sic]
“What no way,” said another baffled user.
“Why does my head itch now,” one person added.
“How do you not get lice?” another viewer wondered.
Rachel has worked on extreme cases of hair lice – including on a girl’s head that took nine hours to remove, and another on a little boy’s head who had “more lice than strands of hair”.
Her unusual choice of profession has led to people commenting on why she would work on such cases.
“I don’t expect many people to like my job,” Rachel previously told NeedToKnow.co.uk.
“I’m very used to the ‘grossed out’ reaction I receive for doing what I do. At one point I was the only technician in Australia since no one wanted to do treatments.
“But I couldn’t see myself in any other career so maybe it was made for me. My job, although I never imagined myself doing it has been the biggest blessing.
“It makes me happy everyday knowing that I can change someone’s quality of life in such a short period of time.
“The one thing I adore about what I do is being able to turn a negative experience into a positive one for every one of my clients.”
