Answering Questions About The Hair Drug Test

October 28th, 2009   12 Comments

(Note: The PDT-90 Test does NOT accept body hair submissions. This article only applies to the HairConfirm Standard/Express product lines.)

The hair follicle drug test is a powerful drug test and one that people have many questions about. One particularly interesting area is the difference between body hair and head hair when you are testing for drugs. What should you consider when deciding what type of hair to submit for your hair home drug test?

The first thing you should ask yourself is what time frame you are interested in. If you are concerned about drug use in the past 90 days, head hair is what you probably want to submit. In most cases it is easier to collect a sample of head hair in the necessary quantity – 90 to 120 strands – than body hair. When collecting body hair you want to collect more than you would when collecting hair, and provide at the very least 100 strands.

However, body hair submissions in a hair drug test situation do have one major advantage – body hair can tell you, if you provide an inch and a half of it in length, a year of drug use history. If you are worried that your child used cocaine in 4 months ago, you may want to submit body hair instead of head hair for your hair follicle drug test.

The reason you can get more information by submitting body hair is that body hair grows more slowly than hair from the head. With either submission, the laboratory will only analyze the inch and a half closest to the root. This is true even if your hair submission is long hair from the head. But this also means that when you choose what hair to submit for your hair follicle drug test, you should keep in mind that body hair grows slowly – it might not be wise to submit body hair if you want to find out about drug use a month ago.

Remember when choosing what type of hair to submit that you cannot mix the two types together when mailing your hair drug test to the lab.

We hope you found this hair drug test information valuable in selecting the type of home drug test you are interested in. Please direct any questions to cs@homehealthtesting.com or call us at 910-815-0209.

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Hair Drug Test Information

September 24th, 2009   10 Comments

The hair drug test is one of the most effective, and only, ways to determine long-term drug use in the home market.  Each one and a half inch sample of hair reveals a 90 day drug history when analyzed by a laboratory.  The hair test you purchase comes with the storage materials you will need for the hair, and a pre-addressed envelope to be sent off to the laboratory for confidential analysis.

It is impossible to tamper with your hair in such a way to alter the results of a hair drug test.   This is because the laboratory evaluates how much of a particular drug’s molecules are embedded in your hair shaft.  Anti-drug shampooing will not effect the hair or alter the results.  This method also eliminates external contamination as a factor.

If you are concerned that you will be unable to collect hair from the head that is long enough for the test, note that two of our hair drug tests accept body hair submissions.  Those tests are the Express HairConfirm Hair Drug Test and the Standard HairConfirm Hair Drug Test.  You cannot mix body hair and head hair when submitting your test though.  Body hair grows much more slowly than head hair and though tested the same way it must be evaluated differently due to the slow growth  – if you were to mix the two types of hair, you wouldn’t have enough of either type to give you an accurate drug history.

A hair drug test does not have very complicated instructions and is easy to perform.  It is not recommended however that you cut hair without the consent of the person whose hair is being cut.  Hair from a hairbrush will be difficult to align the way you are supposed to, and also may not be exclusively from the person you want to test.  This is an important point – when submitting a hair follicle drug test, you must be sure to keep all the hair in order, with all the root ends next to each other.  This is necessary for the lab as they measure how far from the root the drug molecules are to determine drug history.

Hair drug testing is a very effective way to determine drug use. You can buy a hair follicle drug test that tests for 6 or 7 drugs.  The drugs in common are marijuana, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamines, ecstasy and PCP.  The 7th drug is amphetamines.  Both PDT and HairConfirm lines are available.  To give you some idea of the effectiveness of Hair Drug Tests, please note that HairConfirm’s hair test technology has been accredited by the Ohio Department of Health, the New York Department of Health, and is a participant in the Federal Voluntary Hair Proficiency Testing Program.

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