This post was originally published in August 2015, but the other day, I received an email from a reader that said:
We’ve got lice raging through our school right now, and I remembered you’d posted about it a few years back. I searched for that post and found so much good, common sense, CALMING advice. Just wanted to suggest you repost it – maybe allow people to weigh in again on any new treatment or prevention products that have actually worked for them.
I think that’s a brilliant idea! So here is the post again. And I hope you’ll chime in with anything that has worked for you and your family. New effective combs? New effective shampoos? Other new treatments? Please share!
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Have you been reading the crazy headlines about Super Lice? If you’ve missed out, here’s the summary: apparently, head lice in at least 25 states have become resistant to over-the-counter pesticides. Yuck.
But I have to say, I’m reading these reports with a raised eyebrow, because our big run-in with lice was over 6 years ago, and even back then, before “super lice” existed, I had zero luck with chemical responses to the bugs. In fact, if anyone asks me for lice advice, based on my own family’s experience, my response is always:
1) Skip the lice shampoo, it’s not reliable, and it gives false confidence.
2) Get the metal lice combs — the plastic ones don’t do a dang thing.
3) Don’t panic. Focus your energy on physically removing the lice (and the eggs!) from the hair. It takes time, so find time in your day (or evening), or hire a lice helper, or get an older niece or nephew to help.
For those of you in the middle of a lice catastrophe, you’re not alone. No shame, my friends. It can happen to anyone. And it’s totally the worst. Here’s how it went down at our house.
– We were living in New York. We get a note from the elementary school that there is a lice outbreak, and that one of my girls is affected.
– Next, gagging and a complete gross-out ensue on my part. So gross!!!! Then complete and total panic sets in. I envision lice on every fabric surface of my home. On the sofas, on the rugs, on the sheets, on the towels, on the clothes. I continue freaking out. And remember, at the time, I have 5 very young kids. Crawling toddlers, napping babies. Kids everywhere! So therefore, lice everywhere!! (Or at least, that’s what my brain was thinking.)
– So of course, I went out and bought ALL THE CHEMICALS. Every lice shampoo and lice spray I could find. I carefully read all instructions, treated the infected child with lice shampoo, and combed through her hair with the plastic lice combs that come with the lice shampoo. And though I was freaking out, I tried to act like it was no big deal to the kids, because I didn’t want to freak them out too.
– Then I checked all the other kids for lice, sprayed all the sofas with lice spray, and did approximately 1000 loads of laundry. Essentially, if you could put it through the washing machine, it was washed.
– And the whole time the shampooing and the laundry is going, I’m experiencing this continued panic. Are the lice spreading faster than I can spray and shampoo?!! And are the kids getting new lice from the sofa or carpet?!! I had this overwhelming feeling that I would never get rid of all the lice. I couldn’t see an end to this. Plus, I felt so much shame. I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about the lice. The shame was it’s own sort of trauma.
– After I had completed all the official lice shampoo processes, and washed everything in the house, I began to calm down. We did lice checks on all the kids, we couldn’t find any. Clean bill of health!
– But it turns out, that we didn’t get all the eggs. (I’m telling you, those plastic combs are no good!). In fact, I don’t think I even understood what I was looking for egg-wise. I think I was so grossed out by interacting with the actual bugs, that I let myself trust the shampoo, which was “guaranteed” to get the eggs. Here it was a few weeks later, and now, three of the kids had lice!!!!!
– At this point, it’s taking everything in me not to turn into a total basket case. This time around, I read everything I can about lice online. The most helpful thing I find is a timeline of a the lice life cycle. And knowing the life cycle, it gives me a much better picture of how to battle the lice more effectively. I also learn that much of what I’ve heard about lice is a myth. I learn that lice can’t jump or fly, that lice don’t spread infection, and that lice can only live for a couple of hours if they aren’t on a human. Such a relief! (I don’t have the original link I found 6 years ago, but this video has similar info about the myths and life cycle.)
– For the second round of lice, I go chemical-free. I skip the lice shampoos. I skip the extra laundry. I don’t worry about the couches or the rugs or the comforters or the clothes or the toys. My focus is on physically removing the bugs and the eggs from the hair. Which means, I also have to stop being a wimp about touching the bugs. I also get over my shame, so that I can talk to my friends about it and get advice.
– It’s summer time now, and the kids are out of school. I set up little lice removal station on the kitchen table with a view of the backyard. While the kids play outside and the baby naps, I take one infected child and put her in front of a laptop with a favorite movie. I spray her hair with water, then I use the metal lice combs to go through her hair in very small sections. I have a box of tissues next to me, and a bowl of hot soapy water. Every time I pull the comb through, even if I can’t see an egg or a bug, I wipe down the comb with a clean tissue, then I put the used tissue in the hot soapy water. (Eventually, the soggy, soapy tissues are put in a plastic garbage bag, tied off and sent directly to the outside trashcan.) This whole system takes a couple of hours per kid.
– The next day, I do the exact same thing, in case I missed anything. The good news is it goes faster this time. Maybe an hour per kid. When I finish this second combing session, I’m confident there are no more bugs. And I’m mostly confident there are no more eggs — but the eggs are so much harder to find, that I’m not 100% confident.
– Then, I wait 9 days. If I missed any eggs in the two concentrated combing sessions, they’ll all be hatched by 9 days later, but the new lice won’t be old enough to lay new eggs yet. That window of time is important! I do the lice combing station again. I find one baby lice, and that’s it. I don’t expect to find any eggs, and I’m right. There are none!
– We are officially lice free!!!
Here’s the thing, during that second round of lice, having 3 kids with lice was one million times less stressful than that first time having just one child with lice. The difference was of course the added knowledge. Understanding the egg timeline and the myths, plus understanding the importance of the physical removal (versus shampooing) did the trick.
I like to think that if it ever happens in the future, I’ll be more calm about it. But really, it won’t surprise me if I freak out again. Lice are stressful!
Okay Dear Readers/Lice Experts, what’s your take? Were any of you nodding your heads when I mentioned setting up a lice-removing station? Also, I know there are new lice-killing shampoos that come out all the time. Have you found something that works that maybe I haven’t heard of? And for those of you who have battled lice successfully, what system worked for you? Oh. One last question: in the last few years, I’ve seen shops open up where you can drop off your kids and the shop will physically remove the lice and eggs. Have you ever tried a service like that?
P.S. — Pro-tip: We’ve kept our metal lice combs all this time (see photo at top). You know what else they’re good for? Cleaning velcro! When our kids sneakers or jackets have velcro tabs that get filled with lint or random threads, the metal combs clean them up like new!
Oh yuck! I have such lice PTSD. Straight out of undergrad, I worked in a residential girls’ home. We had 12 girlies between ages 6 and 14. So. Much. Hair. And, of course, all 12 girls got lice at the same time. So much combing, laundry, and soothing of freaked out feelings! I’m pretty sure I have earned the pass we seemed to have gotten in the last 10 years with my own daughter. Lice… shudders.
having worked in childcare and dealt with lice on occasion the only thing I would add is some cheap condtioner when combing out as the lice slide right out as they cant hang onto the hair.
A couple of spritzes of tea tree oil every morning helps with prevention
ROBI COMB!!!! It electrocutes lice! Best thing ever, available to buy on Amazon. My sister had hair to get knees as a child and this was the only thing that worked. No, I’m not being paid to say this, ha!
My youngest had lice a few years ago, and she had very long, very thick hair :/ After talking with the pharmacist, we did a treatment that was specifically developed because of the resistance lice had to the usual ingredients. He also recommended the metal comb, and it took us almost 4 hours to comb through afterwards. She then used a pure tea tree oil shampoo (by Holista) until the second treatment/ comb-through.
Unfortunately, the friend she caught the lice from did not have the same success, so we had them back a few weeks later, but it wasn’t as bad dealing with it a second time. Since then, we add pure tea tree oil to everyone’s regular shampoo as a deterrent, and use the tea tree oil shampoo 1-2 times a week as well. We’ve been exposed to lice a few times since, but none of us has caught them :)
A million thank yous for posting this and all the resulting comments! My daughter’s daycare just informed us that a kid in the neighbouring room has lice but as they all play together on the playground there’s a chance the little vermin can get around.
A friend who’s a pediatric nurse swears by tea tree oil. She adds a few teaspoons of tea tree oil to her regular bottle of shampoo and uses it as a preventive measure.
My daughter and I got lice 4 years ago, and my experience was EXACTLY like yours. Like you, I wondered if I would freak out if we got them again. Fast forward to this summer, and I get the e-mail from a friend saying her daughter has lice. I check my daughter and she has them too. No freak out this time; I just pulled out the metal comb and conditioner got to work. I was lucky that her case was mild, and I didn’t get them this time. (For us, the Nit Free Terminator comb has been the best.)
We were lucky this time because my friend was quick to share her news. So if you do get lice, please don’t feel embarrassed about letting people know. Tell everyone who might have been in contact with your kids, so that they can find and get rid of them early. (The bonus for you, of course, is that your friends won’t be passing the lice back to you.)
If you have multi-racial children and they have fine hair they CAN get lice. Our doctor told us that my children couldn’t get lice because the lice have evolved for a certain hair shaft shape. African lice have evolved for a different shape. I had never told him that my children only had one African American great-grandparent, and three Afro-Hispanic great-grandparents with wavy hair. My oldest son was in Mexico when his grandfather called to tell me that he had lice. I was mortified. Luckily they dealt with it before they came back from Mexico. Lice is easier to deal with when you have sons. You can always shave their heads.
Lice like clean hair, and since then I have always used pomades in their hair and mine. Almost every year their was a lice outbreak at school but they never got it again.
We had it here a few years ago…luckily, only the kids got it. I steered clear from the chemicals and instead combed like crazy (with metal.) I also coated the hair in a mixture of mayonnaise and Neem oil (bad smell) and then covered their head in a shower cap and had them sleep that way. The next morning, we washed and dried and then….(and this was what gave me the most comfort) I used my Chi flat iron that could basically start a fire it’s so hot, and I went over their hair (even the boys) in very fine strands. Nothing could survive that level of heat. It’s much higher than a hair dryer or laundry dryer. And I agree, just reading this has upped my itchiness level exponentially
I have been through a few infestations and the best thing I can say is…don’t be nervous to tell people who have been around your kid. Maybe that’s how they got lice and if not, they will thank you for being able to check early forestall bigger problems. After buying every single thing including electric combs, the least stressful way to deal with it is to take everyone without crewcuts to a professional lice picker. Put put everything in the dryer on high, all bedding, towels, clothes, etc, vacuum the car and furniture thoroughly. and be done. Professional pickers usually guarantee their results and they will check family members for a nominal fee at our salon and then charge by the hour to remove them if they find something. Your time is valuable too and often they can treat all the victims at the same time. If there is a non-infested adult at your house they can start sanitary proceedings at home while the victims are at the salon.
The part that you worry about the lice spreading before you’re were able to clean was my initial panic when my daughter had lice last summer. But after educating myself I felt more confident that it was not spreading as fast as I thought.
A local children’s hair salon has a natural product that we used. There is an enzyme that releases the “glue” used on the egg to stick to the hair and a bottle of oil to suffocate that louse. I know the oil worked but I”m not sure the enzyme worked on our hair. I could not get the eggs out with the metal comb. I ended up cutting each egg out of my daughter’s hair. Each individual strand of hair by taking about 10 strands of hair, searching for eggs and cutting any strand of hair that had an egg attached. I spent hours one week making sure she was nit free. Hours.
I would honestly use mayo or the natural product we have and combing/cutting if we get an infestation again. Will never use the chemicals for it personally.
I have not used a lice removal store but I know someone who has. Her child would not sit well for her to go through his hair so she went to the store and he was better behaved. It’s tough for young ones.
Once we understood the lifecyle of the lice, it was all very helpful for us. We skipped the chemical shampoo. We combed through hair nightly and then again after there could possibly be a hatching, in case we didn’t get them all the first time.
Instead of washing all the combs and brushes, barettes etc we just put them in the freezer every morning. The lice can’t survive in that cold.
We also didn’t wash bedding or stuffed animals.
They rotated stuff animals if they wanted them. I also had them sleep in a different place each night at the outset. In their bed one night. On the couch. On the floor. In the guest bed. They were in elementary school and found it fun to sleep in a different place each night, during the week.
We had it twice — the first time we used the harsh chemical treatments and they didn’t work. AND I was freaked out about the chemicals I was putting on my daughter’s head. We found a brand that came highly recommended and is natural and easy to find (Amazon, Ulta), and it was MUCH more effective (combined with hours of combing with the metal comb).
It’s called Fairy Tales Haircare and this is the website: http://www.fairytaleshaircare.com/
They make a lice product but they also make a very nice rosemary-based shampoo that is supposed to help prevent and repel lice, so since finding this, we’ve used that once or twice a month on the kids (or we switch to it anytime the notice has come home from school).
My head itches after reading this! I have super curly hair and have memories of my dad dragging that awful plastic comb through my curls over the bathtub for hours. I’m dreading the day my kids get them!
We just suffered through the horror of lice. I had it and so did both of my kids. We used a lice treatment that I bought at Whole Foods. It’s a cream you put in your hair, then you put a shower cap on for at least 4 hours (the kids wore it for 6 or 7 hours, and I wore it over night). It’s very effective- when we removed the shower caps, there were a few dead lice in them. Then, we added tea tree oil to shampoo and washed everyone’s hair (we let it sit for a few minutes), then we saturated the hair with a mixture of half apple cider vinegar half water and let it sit for at least five minutes. This step is very important- it breaks down the sticky substance that lets the eggs stick to hair. The AC vinegar is also a great conditioner/detangler- it made using the metal comb super easy. Then we rinsed and voila- gone.
We went through the lice ordeal with all 3 of our children and it lasted for 1 1/2 years! Because of crazy over-the-top privacy laws in Italy, the school was not allowed to inform of the problem and so they kept getting re-infected. Finally when the entire school was itchy they came public! Anyway, I’m glad to know of the Listerine treatment. We used an olive oil routine that was super effective with each reinfestation. Certainly couldn’t go the chemical route for that long of a period.
Oh my goodness! I happened to be up in the wee hours of the morning, this happened to show up in my suggested feed and I happen to be battling lice right now for the first time ever with all 4 of my kids and me! My husband was spared. We used a service called NitWits and I am combing through checking heads daily, blow drying hair, using a lice prevention shampoo on the days we do wash (which is not everyday since they like a clean head!) and a spray. I am laundering and vacuuming like a mad woman. I know that the head checks are the most important, but I’m also a bugophobe and am neurotic when it comes to this! Manager for 12 years as a school counselor to dodge this bullet and now that I am at home with the kids (ages 9,7,4,2), we got hit! I would not be sad in the slightest to have the kids stuffed animals not “survive” the great lice battle and I pray this is the first and LAST time this happens! Soooo gross and thank you for sharing!
Managed not manager ;)
LiceFreee Gel has no nasty chemicals. It’s a saline gel, which causes lice to die from dehydration. My neighbor, a medical scientist, recommended it. Works like a charm!
The first time my kids had lice, I used the chemical stuff and put it on bare-handed. My hands were covered in the substance for maybe 4 minutes, and my hands stayed ice cold and tingling for a few hours afterwards. It made me very concerned about what I’d just put on my kid’s heads! And they had that stuff on their heads a lot longer than I’d had it on my hands. I would never use that stuff again.
When my daughter came home with lice and the chemicals didn’t work (twice), I called the HOTLINE for the last product I used. The woman who answered told me not to use that product another time because the chemicals might be absorbed. Then she whispered into the phone and told me what I should do.
She said that if I rinsed my daughter’s head with salt water (water and salt), it would kill anything alive on her hair. Then she told me to wash the hair and rinse it and then put on tons of hair conditioner and cover her head with a plastic bag for 30 minutes. What happens is the hair expands and pops the eggs from the follicles.
Then wash and rinse the hair again. IT WORKED! NO CHEMICALS! NO NIT COMBS! I did this 2 days in a row and she went back to school lice free.
My friend took her kids to a “nit picker” or Lice lady like some mentioned above
And paid the money so she could concentrate on getting the house in order. It was winter time so she wrapped up all the cushions and stuffed animals and left them outside for a few days knowing that lice don’t like the cold. She was thankful to have that service without chemicals.
I have a girl in grade school, so we’ve experienced lice and lice scares. Our hair stylist discovered them and told us about a new hot-air treatment that was invented by a scientist who worked with bird lice.
Short story – he moved his lab from the UK to Utah and noticed his lice were dying, at the same time, his kids were getting lice at school. He realized the hot dry environment could kill lice and invented a way to dry/desiccate the human lice eggs, nits and adult lice. And, since they are killed via hot air, there is no building up of “resistant” lice.
He allowed franchises of the invention and they have one here in Seattle. (she makes house calls!!)
Works like a charm and my kid actually enjoyed the treatment, she said it felt great. Way better than even the places that comb out the lice for you (we’ve tried that too.) My girl was almost crying b/c they were so rough.
Here’s the link to the NPR story on the scientist and his invention – it’s fascinating!
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/09/150299564/the-key-to-keeping-lice-at-bay-a-lot-of-hot-air
After you realize that pretty much every parent deals with this, it’s not embarrassing – it’s just life. But still, you’ll always feel itchy just talking about it! :)
I am horrified to admit that my daughter has had lice 6 times! My husband and I are germaphobes; he can’t even handle the thought of them much less assist with nit-picking or treatments.
We’re in KS and our elementary school has been dealing with super lice for years. (We just got lockers which I hope will help the epidemic by preventing all the backpacks and coats from being in constant contact.)
None of the over the counter shampoos have ever worked and I have twice spent $200 out of pocket on prescription treatments.
After worrying that I was doing irreparable harm to my daughter with all the chemicals, I finally tried an all natural remedy that is much more effective for us than the prescriptions.
1. Saturate hair with apple cider vinegar and let it remain on scalp for 30 minutes.
2. Rinse (but don’t wash) the vinegar out, then
3. Glop on coconut oil like a thick coating of conditioner, place a disposable plastic shower cap on head and leave overnight.
4. The next morning, use a metal lice comb to comb through hair. I use a big, clear bowl of hot water and dip, swish the comb into the water after each pass. The coconut oil makes the eggs and lice slide right out.
5.Shampoo like normal and resume life for 9 days. Then, repeat steps 3-4.
I have had to deal with lice more times than I care to remember. When we lived overseas, the school children would just continually pass them around! They didn’t send children home from school because of “nits” and no one checked to make sure they were clear before they returned after a known case. As an American, and a former teacher, I found this shocking. But I did find a solution to the problem and it works beautifully. It’s called the Nuvo Method and it uses Cetaphil Lotion to kill the lice. I will never use anything else! Here’s a link explaining the whole process:
http://nuvoforheadlice.com/test/
I was going to comment on the Cetaphil method. We havent had lice but friends have and this method is scientifically proven!
Metal combs and thorough, repeated lice removal the way you described are the very best treatment. My daughter has super-thick hair, so when she got lice in preschool (right before Christmas – we had to cancel our travel plans!) it was a real pain.
We spent hours going through her hair on several days to make sure we didn’t miss an egg or a bug.
But because the eggs are so hard to see, we also did a hair treatment to suffocate any that we might have missed. Starting with completely dry hair, liberally coat every single strand with Cetaphil (yes, the facial soap for sensitive skin). We used an entire new bottle of Cetaphil on my daughter. Comb out the excess (the hair should still be completely soaked with it, but you can comb out the white globs of extra) and then blow dry the hair until it’s bone dry. It will take an hour or so because of the soap, and when it’s done, your kiddo will look like they have three times more hair than they actually do. Leave it on for 24 hours (we braided my daughters hair, her braid was the size of my wrist, haha) and then wash it out.
The Cetaphil shrink-wraps the hair strand and completely blocks any oxygen from getting to the eggs, so they suffocate. Eggs can go a long time w/out oxygen and survive, so you really need to leave it on for hours, not the 30 minutes some folks have suggested above.
We’ve never had to deal with it in our house but I’m pretty paranoid about it so I put a few drops of tea tree oil in the spray bottle I use to do my kids hair in the morning and I always send them to school with their hair in a braid. Not sure if this is the reason we’ve been able to avoid it but I’m not going to risk not doing it in order to find out!
Completely soak your kids’ hair in olive oil and leave it in as long as you can before combing out. This smothers live bugs and makes it easier to comb afterwards (plus makes the hair really soft). I like to leave the oil on after combing out in case we missed anything. Recomb the next day (sleep on a towel) and wash out.
I’m a mother of five and owner of Nebraska Lice. We have found that, really the only way to safely get rid of lice, is the meticulous process of removal. The shampoos and intense-heat dryers just aren’t consistently effective. It may take a few hours but its certainly worth the the time. If you’re not confident that you can do the job, try to find a lice removal company. At Nebraska Lice, we will eliminate your lice crisis!
I too battled lice (twice this school year). It was a shock to me because my girls are 6 & 8 and this was the first year they got it?! So first time this year, found one live one on each head. Treated the whole family with OTC shampoo, combed and cut out eggs (that I could see) for a week and we were all good! Fast forward 6 months….8 year old itching, find 3 live ones. Back to the OTC shampoo, except this time (after leaving it on for correct time) I found myself pulling off 12 LIVE ones AFTER shampoo! Ummm, obviously that didn’t work! I started to comb every other day and a few days later found 2 live ones on 8 yr. old, 1 on 6 yr. old. Started combing every day. Treated 8 yr. old and myself (for good measure, 6 yr. old had no signs) with cetaphil on a Friday. Combed every day the following week, found 1 live one, but no eggs on 8 yr. old 3 days after cetaphil. Did 2nd cetaphil treatment today, and found 1 egg, no live ones. My thoughts from this experience? Might be the cetaphil interrupting the life cycle of this infestation, but I think it mostly has to do with combing, combing, combing! I just feel better using the cetaphil with the combing (I researched this method for HOURS…worth it to google it)
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Though I don’t have head lice ( I am bald), I think that all children with a super lice problem feel super guilty because their parents look very fearful! Super stress comes not from head lice but from parent’s own perception of a super lice problem.
If your kids have a super lice problem then you should relax and make your mind peaceful. Then help your kids relax and make their mind peaceful. Gabrielle’s article proved that a super lice problem has a very effective solution: combing. No toxic chemicals needed.
I learned that hair dye kills them so after combing through. I just dyed my hair. I worked with kids who gave it to me so when I am with them I keep my hair up and dyed.
Oh man…I so wished I saw this post last year! Man! When I discovered lice in my daughter’s hair, I panicked. When my daughter (only 5 at that time) heard me uttered “lice”, boy, I thought cops would come to my house because she literally dropped and screamed like never before! She screamed for three hours while I struggled to calm her and talk to her. Her older brother finally melted and cried. Both had lices. Not many but I wasn’t aware of “eggs”!!!
Finally, after calming shower and lice cleansing, she finally told me why she screamed…she thought she would be forced to chop off ALL her “Rapunzel” beloved long hair (now it’s past her butts). 🤦🏻♀️ That was how I discovered school had a lice outbreak and she saw some of her girlfriends (kindergartners) has their hair cut to their earline lengths. And I was bit peeved school didn’t notify us of lice outbreak until a month later. Come on!
Poor girl, she was traumatized about lice and seeing her friends’ hair chopped off. Sheesh…don’t worry, lesson learned about comb, shampoos, peppermint spray, etc from all of you guys. And don’t worry again, her hair is still long and all is well. (Knock on wood).
I only have one kid, so when my son had lice, I contracted out the removal process. The lice nanny came to my house and basically did was you describe. She also sprays on an enzyme that that helps loosen the hold that the lice have on the hair and that helps when she does the combing. She said that if you have a girl, you should definitely braid her hair or put it in a bun every day. Most of the kids in my son’s class who got lice had longer hair. I now spray my son’s head with peppermint oil every day.
I have long been terrified of lice, dating back to when I had it as a second grader, and one of the “cool girls” in my class called to invite me over to play and my younger brother answered the phone and said, “Oh, she can’t come over, she’s getting the lice picked out of her hair.” I don’t know if I’m over the embarrassment yet!!!
That beign said, I’m almost glad we’re through our first experience with it, because it was so much different than that! My daughter, also in second grade, had a friend who got it – and that girl’s mom sent out an all points bulletin to the girlscout troop, an extracurricular group that had been meeting at their house, the basketball team…basically anyone who had been near their kids was told immediately to check! And because it was presented that way, no shame involved, everyone just went and got their kids checked/treated, most cases were caught really quickly, and it was a breeze. Also part of it being a breeze….lice treatment centers and lice nannies and such exist now, so you arent sitting out in the yard while your mom painstakingly nit-picks your hair while you scream and cry.
The woman who treated our hair used dimethicone oil that kills any mature bugs within a few minutes by clogging up their breathing. It also oils up the hair so that running the metal pick through it took under 10 minutes. She also sent us home with our own “kit” that included a comb and several bottles of the oil with instructions to retreat in 7 days. I feel like after this first experience, I’d be brave enough to save that chunk of money next time and DIY it! Everyone also advises braids or buns for girls, which I’d never heard before, just to avoid contact and reinfestation.
I don’t know if it is available in the US but we tried something quite new over here which is called Novokid. We tried a couple of things and this was by far the easiest and non toxic. Turned out that my daughter who has quite a bit of hair did need a double treatment but SO much easier than having to douse their hair and then wash it (especially when they’re little and still not big fans of having their hair washed :))
what a timely reposting! just got an email that a few confirmed cases in my daughter’s pre-K class. thanks to this, i’m not freaking out! yay! i also shared this post and video with the entire class so we can all be educated on the myths and facts about headlice.
one of my friends swears by tea tree oil in shampoo and conditioner + the nit comb.
when my daughter came home with lice in kindergarten Im the one who got it !!!! Imagine trying to comb and lice check yourself. My husband wasnt that helpful with checking and our apt is really dark. We did one round of whatever the well known chemical shampoo is and then a round of coconut oil/tea tree oil mask. And used tea tree oil shampoo for the next couple of weeks. luckily we got rid of them quickly