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How To Pass a Hair Follicle Drug Test

Hair follicle drug testing is known for its accuracy and ability to detect drugs and medical cannabis use for up to 90 days after consumption, unlike urine tests commonly used by employers in the United States. For these reasons, an increasing number of companies choose it over a urine drug test for their safety-sensitive employees.

How to pass a hair follicle drug test in 24 hours

If you’re “lucky” to be working for one of these employers, you might be wondering how can you beat a hair follicle drug test requested by your boss. So, are there guaranteed ways to beat hair follicle screenings if you can’t wait for 90 days? The answer is just below.

Hair follicle detox shampoo

In our experience, one of the most sneaky methods to pass a hair follicle drug test in 24 hours is to use Old Style Aloe Rid shampoo. This unique product features an innovative cleansing formula that will reduce drug concentration in your strands and scalp enough to get negative drug test results.

Shampoo to rid toxins for hair follicle drug test
Old Style Aloe hair shampoo

It also wouldn’t hurt if you opt for at-home hair testing kits with your order, so you feel confident at the laboratory collection process after you’ve drug screened yourself in advance.

Macujo method for drug test

This multi-step process was designed more than 20 years ago to rid a person’s hair and scalp of marijuana and all other drugs, and it reportedly has a drug test beating rate of more than 90%. To successfully cleanse from toxins before drug screening, the Macujo method requires Old Style Aloe Toxin Rid shampoo, as well as the following:

  1. Zydot Ultra Clean shampoo
  2. Salicylic acid
Hair testing shampoo
Zydot Ultra Clean

What is hair follicle drug testing?

Hair follicle drug test is a two-tier testing method, which analyzes a range of hair samples to detect alcohol, nicotine, THC metabolite, or traces of other drugs. Step one is analyzing the sample using ELISA test, and the second is a confirmatory GC-MS test to rule out possible false positive drug test results.

There are many different test panels available, and, depending on the company, you may be required to sit through a more extensive screening process for methadone, opium, or another substance. A standard 5-panel hair drug test usually looks for the following drugs:

  • Marijuana (dronabinol, tetrahydrocannabinol)
  • Cocaine
  • Amphetamines (and methamphetamines)
  • Basic opiates (codeine, morphine, and heroin)
  • PCP (also known as Angel Dust)

Hair screen can detect almost any illicit substance, including:

  • Expanded opiates (oxycodone, hydrocodone)
  • Benzodiazepines (like Xanax)
  • Barbiturates
  • Fentanyl
  • Ketamine
  • Barbiturates
  • Benzodiazepines
  • K-2 (synthetic weed)

For each substance tested, there will be a different cutoff level. For example, here are cut-off levels of Quest Diagnostics 5-panel screen:

Amphetamines, PCP, Cocaine300 pg/mg
Opiates500 pg/mg
THC (ELISA or GC-MS)1 or 0.1 pg/mg

Home remedies to pass hair follicle drug test

The articles we’ve found on the Internet suggest various home remedies people supposedly use to cheat hair follicle drug tests. Sadly, alternative methods like apple cider vinegar don’t have the potency to penetrate the hair shaft and clean out toxins from within.

Meanwhile, the downside of using special hair products and chemicals is that the lab may detect them and request to collect a body hair sample instead, according to a study published in The Analyst journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Let’s have a look at the most popular methods we’ve found:

Washing head with lice treatment

Lice shampoos tend to include pyrethrins and piperonal butoxide. It’s unclear how these two ingredients interact with drugs, and no scientific studies have proven that lice treatments would make it easier to beat a hair sample drug test.

Using relaxer to straighten hair

African American women and other people with curly hair often use no-lye (olive oil) and lye relaxers to straighten it. As such, 15-minute treatment with styling products like perm was proven to reduce drug concentrations, according a study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology in 2015.

Clorox bleach and redye treatment

Bleach causes damage to each dyed strand. This fact means that drugs will leach out from your hair strands. According to a paper published in the Forensic Science International journal, bleaching can reduce drug metabolites down to 20-39% of their original presence.

However, you should be careful with this drug cleansing system. If you bleach your hair too many times, it’ll start falling apart, and the lab won’t be able to test it, as stated in the Drug Testing and Analysis journal.

Soaking hair in methanol before drug test

The idea behind soaking one’s hair follicles in methanol (Heet) is that labs performing drug tests use the same method to wash out environmental contaminants from the sample. However, methanol doesn’t remove drug toxins from the root and inside part of a long-time user’s hair, as was proven by Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now, let’s answer the most common questions and bring up important hair follicle drug test facts.

How far back does a follicle screen go?

For an accurate hair screening, a 1.5-inch sample is usually required. The average rate of hair growth is 0.5 inches per month, so only drug use within the past three months will likely fit in the test’s detection window. 

In theory, drug residue stays in your follicles forever. A research by Forensic Science International found in 2004 that traces of opiates drugs were still present in English poet John Keats’ hairs 167 years after his death.

What if my haircut is too short to collect a sample?

Collectors can take a required bit from anywhere on your body, so if your head hair is too short or has dreadlocks, then the lab can use strands from your armpit, leg, or chest.

It’s important to note that substance detection period is longer in samples from the body because this type of hair grows slower. Therefore, a collector won’t need a 1.5-inch hair specimen like they would when taking it from your scalp. If the testers can’t take a body hair sample either, this may raise a red flag.

In the case of a workplace drug screening, the employer will probably wait for your hair to grow back. However, this prep time won’t help you due to long drug detection times of the test. And if you’re avoiding a court-ordered CPS hair drug testing, the judge may replace it with an observed urine test, which is even worse.

Can infrequent user beat a follicle screen naturally?

Yes, sometimes, but it heavily depends on the potency of the drug and the history of use. If the amount of substance stored in your hair is too small to trigger cutoff value, then it won’t show up on the drug test result.

For example, a person who infrequently uses cocaine but does so in excess will risk a positive showing up on a sensitive hair test for drugs. If someone does a single line of coke just one time within 90 days, then they’re more likely to pass a hair screening than fail it. 

What can cause false positive follicle tests?

Some foods like poppy seeds, prescription medication, and NicoDerm CQ can cause false positives during hair follicle testing for drugs. However, most of them are ruled out thanks to a two-step process. Also, samples are always washed before analysis so that environmental contaminants won’t appear on test results.

In case you live with a heavy cannabis smoker, you don’t need to worry about THC from secondhand smoke appearing on hair follicle drug tests.

For drugs to show up during testing, they need to enter a blood vessel that supports your hair cells’ growth. When you inhale secondhand smoke, only trace amounts of THC are entering into your body, and they’re unlikely to make a non-user test positive.

Conclusion

Hair drug testing can detect various substances that have entered your body within the last three months with a high accuracy level. Your body naturally eliminates drugs from blood, saliva and urine over time, but they stay forever in human hair unless you shave it off.

The latter will give you a few days of drug-free hair until drugs re-enter from the bloodstream and become detectable by hair analysis. However, a hair test requires a 1.5-inch sample, meaning this trick won’t work. Various DIY remedies from Reddit and marijuana forums either don’t work, or the lab may be familiar with them.

Therefore, the most effective solution is to use best detox shampoos for drug test, which can be further fortified with the following hair detox methods:

  • Macujo method
  • Jerry G method
Sample collection

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