Does Hairspray Kill Roaches?

Since hairspray can be used to fix a variety of hair problems, it’s a popular product for all types of hair.

Some women also use hairspray to get rid of roaches. If spray is sprayed into any room, it is supposed to eliminate roaches from the room.

So, does hair spray kill roaches? Hair spray is a common household chemical that you probably use every day.

Unfortunately, it’s also been linked to roaches. More specifically, it’s been linked to roaches dying in homes.

The reasoning behind this is that hair spray contains butane gas. Butane gas is highly flammable, and roaches are attracted to it.

In fact, roaches are so attracted to butane that they’ll actually die if they come into contact with it.

What Is a Hairspray?

Hair spray is an oily liquid used to temporarily hold a person’s hairstyle in place until the next time that person washes his or her hair or styles the hair in a different way.

It is made of polymers that are dissolved in a solution of alcohol and water or acetone and water. When the solution is heated to high temperatures, the polymers turn into a plastic resin.

They are widely accessible at medicine stores as well as supermarkets in aerosol cans.

Does Hairspray Kill Roaches?

Because most roaches do not eat food indoors, they depend on outside food sources for survival.

They don’t have a good sense of taste or smell, though, and will eat almost anything they find in the kitchen or bathroom if they can’t find anything else to eat. This includes food scraps on dishes or countertops or crumbs under the toaster.

They may be their only sources of nourishment for days at a time while hiding in cracks and crevices around the house, so they will stick around as long as they can find them.

Hairspray works by filling the air with chemicals that stop nerves from working normally and make muscles contract uncontrollably until they run out of oxygen and die.

How Does Hairspray Kill Cockroaches and Other Insects?

Insects, unlike mammals, have an exoskeleton made of hard plates called sclerites that protect their internal organs from damage and help them move by covering their bodies with a network of legs.

Spiders and roaches, like other insects, have hollow bodies composed of three primary parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.

If these holes are large enough to allow air to escape and expose the inside of the body to the air, the insect will suffocate and die within a matter of minutes.

When you spray hairspray directly on bugs like cockroaches, the repellent chemicals it contains disrupt their nervous systems, and they essentially freeze in place.

This formation will stick to the bug’s exoskeleton and help hold it still while you spray more hairspray on it until the bug dies from a lack of oxygen.

The spray may also harden the bug’s exoskeleton so that it can’t move. Since it can’t move, it won’t be able to breathe and will die slowly.

Once the majority of the gaps are plugged and the insect can no longer breathe, it will die within a couple of minutes.

Spiders and cockroaches may also die when exposed to hairspray for long periods of time because the chemical ingredients in the aerosol can irritate their respiratory systems or damage their bodies in other ways.

This will keep any survivors from dying the same way as those who were hit by the spray and died right away.

How Long Does It Take Hairspray To Kill Insects?

It’s incredible how long a roach can live after being sprayed with hairspray: sometimes for several days or even weeks, though typically no more than one or two days.

This is done by wiping the insect down with a damp cloth to remove the liquid from its bodies and letting it dry in the sun.

For example, a cockroach will die in 6 to 12 hours if it eats enough of the chemical to make it toxic enough to kill it.

Is It Painful to Use Hairspray to Kill Cockroaches?

Insects, including spiders and other cockroaches, feel pain like people do, but they also exhibit a primitive nervous system that does not require nerve cells to pass signals to the brain for a human to be able to perceive pain.

Different insects differ in their sensitivity to pain, but for many people, using hairspray to kill roaches and other insects isn’t very painful at all.

Entomologists, however, disagree about whether insects even experience pain in any meaningful way and assume instead that they just react to it instinctively because that’s part of how evolution works.

As a consequence, they assume that humans can also not feel the pain of other living things when we kill them.

This is designed to let human users quickly remove the product from their skin and dispose of it after use.

After being sprayed with pesticide, you may see a cockroach waving its legs around as if it’s trying to swim in a pool or waving you goodbye.

Also Read: Does Hot Water Kill Roaches?

Conclusion

Hairspray may not be the best weapon to use to kill cockroaches, but it does work. Read this article to learn how to get rid of roaches naturally and without the use of pesticides.

For roach control, it is also suggested by experts that you restrict access into your house to water and food, keep all food stored in air-tight containers or in refrigerators, and clean the kitchen regularly, since cockroaches love food scraps.

Use insect traps inside cabinets, pantries, and closets to catch and kill roaches before they enter your home.

They are, however, a quick, easy, and reliable way to get rid of roaches in an emergency that many people use when they have roaches in their homes.