Hair drug testing is a growing but still somewhat unfamiliar drug testing process. People have questions all the time about it, so we decided to create a guide to the most important aspects of this home drug test process.
First of all, you are going to need a pretty specific amount of hair. At least 90 to 120 strands should be collected for submission, and if the hair is short or fine, collect a bit more.
Secondly, where you collect the hair is important. You must collect it from the scalp – you cannot just snip the ends off the hair. Although it takes some time to reach this point, drugs become harder to detect as the hair grows out and grows older. And it is also important to give the hair drug test laboratory a consistent starting point to work with. That point is a week before the hair was cut – it takes about a week for hair with or without drugs to grow out long enough to be cut and then analyzed.
The third thing to be aware of with this home drug test is that each half inch of hair that you provide represents about a month. Ideally, you want to provide an inch and a half of hair – that will give you a 90 day drug history. With a consumer test kit, 90 days is the maximum period of analysis for head hair (we will get into body hair later). You can submit hair a foot in length but only the inch and a half closest to the scalp will be analyzed. Do not, however, shorten the hair from the other end for that reason. Your hair drug test will specifically tell you how to collect the hair.
You may also not have known that the hair sample used in a hair drug test is pulverized by the laboratory. Once in liquid form, they can get to the metabolites inside. Any accredited laboratory will use this process to determine if drugs are present in the hair.
Now a question often asked is – can I use hair that I collect from a hairbrush for my test? The answer is no, for a few reasons. One, you cannot necessarily be sure that all the hair on the brush is from the same person. Two, when you submit a hair sample for your hair drug test, all the hair must be organized the same way. All the root ends must be together for your submission to be successfully analyzed. Finally, you may not know how old the hair is on the hairbrush, and end up mixing hair that is a year old with hair that is from this week. The integrity of the hair drug test will deteriorate.
The last area of interest I want to address is body hair. Some tests accept body hair, others do not, so you must check with the manufacturer or store to find out. If body hair can be analyzed by your home drug test hair kit, then you will be able to learn a longer drug history than you can with hair from the head. An inch and a half of body hair could take you back as long as 5-6 months, possibly longer.
Hair drug testing offers a lot of promise to parents and employers, as it is one of the only tests that can tell you such a long drug history. The great thing about the home drug test market is that it provides these tests to you without having to go to a laboratory yourself. The hair is processed by the same accredited laboratories, so the results are just as accurate with the home drug testing method.
