Photo and text by Gabrielle.
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. Take time off work, or hire a lice helper, or get an older niece or nephew to help, whatever it takes!
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. It was it’s own sort of traumatic.
- 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!). If 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, 3 of the kids have 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 get over myself, and 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, 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!
{ 87 comments… read them below or add one }
Ugh, I had lice twice in grade school. So traumatizing. I’m dreading the inevitable outbreak, now having two small children. Thanks for the good tips. Wondering if anyone has had any luck with this stuff for prevention?
http://www.ulta.com/ulta/a/Fairy-Tales/_/N-1z1410h?ciSelector=searchResults
We’ve been using peppermint essential oil! It has a 90% effectiveness in repelling lice!! We used all the preventative shampoos and sprays before we got lice and none of it really worked :( Id get a bottle of young living peppermint essential oil and give that a shot :)
Thanks, Lindsey!
I LOVE THIS! So honest and so accurate! My daughter had lice last year and she gave it to ME! I freaked, panicked, absolutely thought it meant death lol! Then I went to an incredible place where these incredible women use a louse buster (basically high heat) to remove the lice. And they guarantee it! Best money ever spent. If we ever get it again, we will go right back to the lice ladies. The worst part of it all is the loads of laundry we have to do and the paranoia! Hopefully we never get it again, but if we do, we will be prepared!
Lice is the worst! If you’re ever in France, Pouxit works well. They have different kinds of it and I agree that the plastic combs are insufficient, but the metal ones are great.
I engaged a war with lice in my daughter’s really long hair last summer, for the first time, and like you, I kept missing eggs and lice would be back full force; it was so annoying, all the chemicals really damaged my daughter’s hair too.
I even tried mayonaise (no good) and olive oil (nope).
Some people say you can spray lavender in the back of your neck and above the ears as a preventive measure.
When my daughter was in 2nd grade five years ago she came home with lice. I had a husband who travelled for work and a toddler. PANIC! I was like you, uneducated about lice and hearing a million different versions of things to do. I got the chemicals (I wish I hadn’t). I got two different lice combs (I now know the metal one IS the way to go). I set up a lice removal station. A spotlight on her head. Hours and hours of lice removal commenced. Movies and tv shows kept her relatively happy. My daughter has blonde hair- I could see the bugs but not the eggs. I had the hot soapy bucket of water too. She got lice over and over for a month. I just couldn’t get all of the eggs out. She missed school. She hasn’t had them since. Fast forward just a couple of years and we have TWO places to go in our town to go for lice checks and lice removal. No stigma. You just go. Parents can go get checked. Schools and clubs can hire them to check kids. It is almost like a hair salon. Entertainment for the kids, cute decor. How I wished they had been in existence when I needed the help!
p.s. Tea Tree oil and peppermint oil help ward them off.
Also, I caught lice at a cinema at age 38 for the first time. It took me 2 months to get rid of all the eggs.
Now, everytime I go to the movies, I bring an extra sweater that I put on the back of the seat where I rest my head, and then I throw the sweater in the wash as I get home. I scratch for a couple of hours afterwards, but that’s only psychological…!
Catherine – You’ve just described a fear of mine! Okay, I’ll be taking a sweater with me from now on…
I had no idea! I now may never be able to sit through a movie without worrying about this. I’ve been fortunate to never have had to deal with lice with my kids or myself. I didn’t realize how common it appears it is. Great advice (which I hope I never have to use!).
It’s been years since lice came to our house- especially traumatic because we were literally in the ER on Christmas Eve with my son having an anaphylactic reaction to nuts in a Christmas cookie- and there he is in triage when we discovered he also had lice. We were discharged with a prescription for an Epi pen and how to treat lice. I still check my kids’ heads frequently. We had a station set up, too, with the metal comb and Moroccan oil spray. I boiled the comb after every use (and vacuumed constantly, ran bedding through the hot dryer every morning) and we were good. When the kids went back to school after winter break we found out everyone in class had it over Christmas, too! Happened years ago but I’m still getting over it…
Steph
I know this pain all too well. I have a tried and true solution I want to shout out everywhere. Brown Listerine! (so inexpensive) The combo of menthol and eucalyptol kills them on site. I pour it all over and sit in a disposable shower cap for about an hour. They literally fall off your head. You do have to be diligent about picking out eggs and doing the listerine again in a week. Also, a good blowout and flat iron tiny tiny sections of hair will kill the eggs. Set your flat iron on high. I hope this helps someone!
I worked at a medical clinic oversees this summer and the dr there uses the same thing. (Like every other person there has lice.) It has to be the original Listerine. One hour on your head with a shower cap on and then wash out.
I saw this picture on your Instagram feed and had to read the whole article. We just spent two weeks down the lice rabbit hole and I’m scarred for life! Was just working on a blog post about it when I saw yours. It’s clearly topical these days.
We recently came back from an Amsterdam vacation and my 14 year old, my 20 month old and I had lice! I did the chemical shampoos on all 3 but literally sat there for hours using the comb until I felt their heads were clean. My mother helped with mine once. A week later we just ran the comb through, faster than the first time and thank goodness that worked.
Oh my goodness! All three of my girls with long hair got lice this summer! I totally felt like I had no one to talk to about it because I didn’t want them freaking out like I was inside! then on top of it, I thought it too! I wish I had this article to read when I found out about it! I spent so much money on products and sprays and was so discouraged when I kept finding bugs! All of your pointers and tips are so true and so helpful! I hope I never have to deal with that again! Thank you for sharing!
What timing! We are going through it right now. spotted lice on my daughter last night. I actually have a lice pro coming over later to do a second removal of bugs and eggs on her, as I am not confident I got it all last night. Plus, I really want an expert to check the other 3 of us in the house. We plan on going the natural route,using hair conditioner and a metal comb (the terminator brand). I too had little luck with the chemicals when we went through this 7 years ago. It didn’t work and I was in tears for weeks trying to get rid of the bugs over and over on my 5 year old. The other thing that I found helped in killing any missed eggs was using a hot flat iron hair straightener each morning for another week all over the head as close to scalp as you can get safely. It felt like added insurance for any nits I couldn’t see. It is such a drag. I am hoping the rest of us don’t have it. My head itches just thinking about it!!
We had a run-in with lice last summer (my sons brought it home from camp and then I got it from them) on day 2 of our family vacation at the beach. To say I was freaking out was an understatement. We ended up hiring a company called Lice Happens and the “lice lady” came to our beach house and treated all of us. I know there are similar companies all around the country and I just did a Google search and found this one. The website for that company (www.licehappens.com) has great myth-busting information about lice. Knowing the facts really got me through that experience with a lot less anxiety and stress. I hated having to use those chemical shampoos on my children and it was so nice to know that there are other options. I bought the”treatment” (non-toxic!) from Lice Happens and the metal comb (which I take with me on every vacation!!). Hopefully we won’t ever have lice again but now that I have information and peace of mind it will be a non-issue if we are struck again!
Both of my kids had lice a few years ago within the first few weeks of school starting back up. It was horrible. I ran out and bought the lice remedies at the pharmacy and did all the laundry and vacuumed everywhere. It didn’t work! The kids came back with lice a few days later. We ended up going to a service in our city called Nit Pixies where they go through each child’s hair and removes the lice and eggs. Then I went home and did all the laundry again and vacuumed again. Thankfully that did the trick. It was pricey but I really don’t think I would have gotten rid of them with the help of professionals. It was reassuring they didn’t use chemicals to get rid of them either!
I remember getting lice a couple of times when I was in elementary school. It was awful. Once I had it on Mother’s Day and my poor mom spent the whole day combing. I remember her using a cotton ball soaked in vinegar on each section she combed. No idea if that is actually effective but the whole process for me was just terrible and I had a crick in my neck for a week from bending while my mom combed. I’m itchy just reading about this. Hope I never have to deal with it again!
I don’t have kids, but hooooooo boy I remember dealing with lice in the Philippines. We have very big classes in elementary school (I went to a private Catholic all-girls school)… imagine 48 girls, most of them with long hair. Imagine 10 classrooms per grade (with 1-7 in the same building). Some girls in different grades are sisters or cousins. Many are friends and hang out together at home outside of class. Now imagine 1 lice outbreak. Total disaster! I am very adept at picking out lice and eggs as a result–there were times we just had to do it for each other, if your parents were too busy, or if you didn’t have a nanny (most girls did) to help you out. We had to pick them out by hand and squeeze them dead between your thumbnails. I am hoping if I ever have kids, it won’t be an issue. Like riding a bike, I don’t think I’ll ever forget how to pick lice!
My girls had LONG hair and got lice. When I found an egg on a hair strand, it was actually easier just to snip that one hair strand off their head with scissors instead of trying to pull the sticky egg all the way down the hair shaft.
As for lice shampoo/chemicals, we ended up using Cetaphil hair gel on their heads. Cover the head with the goopy mess, then blow dry it till it’s dry and hard. This will suffocate the lice. Then wash. This method came from our pediatrician.
Good luck!
i am physically shaking. all wigged out. sat down to have my break and a salad . . . ahh! you are a hero. your tips are gold.
We have been there too. But at school, most parents don’t care before its too late and it have spread. For a long period, I comed them every day after school! They brought home, every day, some new really big once /-:
Finally they school made a overall check and then… all the girls with ponytails and all the boys with short haircut. It was and overall problem that everyone was overlooking it!!
Such timing! Our family of 8 just went through this. Total nightmare. All six kids ages 3-14 had it, plus me. My husband was the only one who escaped. We were also moving out of our house that week, so the hours and hours of combing out lice, laundry, and packing made for a near nervous breakdown. I think I was averaging 3 hours of sleep a night! And with no one to talk to because-the Shame! Now, a few weeks later we are in the new house, lice free, and I completely agree with you on the education. Knowledge really is power. For treatment we did a combo of intensive careful combing(which I think really is the key), and also used Vamouse http://www.vamousselice.com/ which kills the lice by dehydration and is pesticide free. We also got a prescription from our pediatrician for Sklice http://www.sklice.com/index.html which is supposed to treat the “super lice” that are resistant to treatment. I know this was probably overkill, but I didn’t want to chance bringing it to the new house. Great post-I’m sure it will help a lot of panicking parents. The take away from the whole experience for me-Don’t panic! You can do it, and really once you get over how gross combing bugs out of your kids hair is, enjoy the hours you get to spend with them and make it fun. We had movie marathons, great discussions, and blasted our favorite music. They are only tiny bugs after all and we can conquer them!
As my daughter said when we had this come through in first grade- “God didn’t need to invent lice. Just the idea of lice makes our head itch.” And mine is itching now.
Using cheap cooking oil is an awesomely effective way of suffocating both eggs and lice.
Drench hair in oil and cover with a shower cap for 30mins. The lice can make air bubbles in water but not oil and the egg casing is clogged with oil. Then comb out.
Sad that this isn’t widely known.
When I was raising kids, lice was always a problem in the schools. My kids never got them. The only thing we could figure out was that they would blow dry their hair every day.(It was the 70′s) The heat must have killed them (the lice and their eggs). Good luck
We used olive oil: massaged it through my girls hair, put a shower cap on them, and put them to bed. The next morning we combed out the hair with the wire combs. Washed their hair. It was so long ago I can’t remember how many days we waited, but we would oil it again to take care of any lice that may have hatched. The oil suffocates the little buggers. So no chemicals, no lice, and really soft hair.
We had it three years ago , while I was pregnant with my fourth. Total panic and hysteria inssued on my part. 18 loads of laundry, countless bags of unwashables bagged up and thrown away or stored for a month in the garage, bleach washes on every hard surface, lice spray on everything upholstered and three Rid treatments. I shaved my sons head and my daughters sat through lice extractions everyday for a week and then again 2 weeks later. Not to mention that I flat ironed their hair everyday for two weeks just to make sure. New pillows, combs and brushes, and I even washed any clothes that got worn but didn’t get washed because they looked clean enough to wear again. My husband was worried for my sanity, but I was so skeeved out that I couldn’t stop myself. Now three years later I’m pregnant again and the thought of lice gets me itching and a little panicked. This time I think I’d just do the treatments and flat iron and wash their bedding.
Yes, the metal combs are the way to go. I use the terminator. Olive oil, mayo, coconut oil, tea tree oil etc etc don’t work. You really want it to work but it’s useless. Daily combing and a blast with a hot dryer! Know the lice cycle and be on top of it. On a positive note, I started to really enjoy the comb outs with my kids. We had some great conversations.
Oh my head itches just reading post. Nasty little critters!
Such a great topic to cover and really good advice. Just wondering how you handle checking yourself in this scenario. We’ve been through it a couple times now and I can fairly confidently handle the kids, but I’m always at a loss on whether my husband is effectively checking me.
Great post! it’s so frustrating because the chemicals don’t work yet our school system sends out instructions recommending rid and other pesticides. Parents use them and assumed they’re done after using it once!
My kids were infected and we easily got rid of it with pantene conditioner and the nit free terminator comb. The first comb out takes a long time…took 1-2 hours until no bugs/nits were found. Then, I combed every other day for 2 weeks and I maybe found 1 or 2 additional nits. Aside from washing sheets, I focused on the head, not the house.
I had it when I was a kid. And when I was 19! I was soo embarrassed but I just went to the pharmacy and bought the lice shampoo, used it. My boyfriend at the time combed through my hair with the plastic comb and every time he found a bug he would put it in a plastic sandwich bag. Then I waited the required time and did a second treatment and he combed again and it was gone! I lived in an apartment at the time and couldn’t afford to wash all my stuff in the coin machines so I didn’t but I never had a problem with it returning or passing it along to my roomies.
When my son got lice last year while we were living in Europe, the local pharmacy gave us a product call Nyda. It was amazing. It’s not a chemical or poison to kill the lice but instead is a silicone-based product and the lice slip off your scalp when using the comb. It worked like a charm and they all fell out within minutes.
I definitely had the heebie-jeebies though through the whole experience. We never had lice before so I had to watch youtube videos to know what I was looking for. Don’t ever do that. So gross!
So agree with many of these. COMB, COMB and COMB again! That’s the only way to get rid of them. I think the media and literature are confusing when it comes to nits and eggs. If you don’t get the eggs off the head you’ll never get rid of the bugs. We have dealt with a lice episode at least once/year for the past 5 school years on at least 1 of my 4 children! I will say that I am less prone to freak out now… unfortunately I think its part of the school year.
My one side comment is to all parents please don’t allow your son or daughter to have a sleep over if you found lice on their head less than a week before. This has happened to us on 2 occasions and low and behold my daughter(s) end up with lice a week later……
Thank you for this! We’ve battled it twice, both times my daughter had longish hair, and if I wasn’t a trained hairstylist, I wouldn’t have felt as capable to do the tedious sectioning and nitpicking.
Your process and tips are spot-on. I’d also add that I’d read online about dry heat being effective in killing the crawlers and drying up the eggs.
So, after nitpicking, out came the hood dryer that I have for an at-home color client. My daughter sat under it for 1/2 twice over two days, just to be sure. (Even better would have been the old-fashioned bonnet type hair dryers, anyone remember those? At 45, I have a couple early 70′s memories of mom’s!)
Our last battle was almost three years ago, but so fresh in my mind. Good luck to any and all dealing with it. You will prevail!!!
My daughter was sent home from school with lice last spring the same week I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I took one look at the list of ingredients in the chemical shampoos and decided no way was that stuff coming into my house. I don’t know why I have a tumor, but I’m now very diligent about keeping products with toxins off our bodies. Luckily we have a service in town like a couple of people mentioned where they use a heat treatment to kill the bugs and eggs and then comb them all out for you. Completely non toxic. It took less than an hour while my daughter watched a video. Amazing! I washed all of our bedding and quarantined everything else for a few days in a black plastic garbage bag and I was diligent about checking for any remaining eggs for the 9 day period afterward and that was it. They didn’t come back. I’ve been using an anti-lice spray on her hair occasionally with essential oils in it for prevention. So far, so good!
Ugh! Your experience reminds me of my own 38 years ago. I actually caused our septic to overflow with the insane amount of laundry. And, we had only one child. It was such a demoralizing experience.
Then the two summers on, our son got lice while visiting his cousins–who were exposed through sharing batting helmets. Or so it was believed, since the entire Little League team had lice. Pathetically, our toddler daughter caught them from her brother.
I have a guaranteed system that will get rid of lice. Simply apply oil (saturate ) to your hair (mineral oil or Olive oil ). for 30 minutes before washing. Do this every seven days three times Oil suffocates them. However, the egg sacs (nits) will not be killed this way ….NO NEED TO SPEND HOURS GETTING OUT NITS…assume they will hatch but those almost-adult lice will suffocate on the next scheduled oiling. Stay away from those harsh chemicals because your skin absorbs it and it’s up to your liver to detoxify it from your body ( particularly harmful for kids under six years of age ). As far as clothing and bedding and stuff toy animals if you can just not go near them for a week all the live lice will die because they need to feed No need to freak out and start washing everything just close the bedroom door and don’t go in there for a week
After 3 kids and 3 rounds of lice….the best remedy AFTER picking out the nits is to dry wet hair with a hot dryer! They don’t like the heat!
question. did your husband freak out at all? i went to through a very similar experience and almost made myself sick with the worry, the obsessive cleaning. my husband in fact had the worst case of lice but he really did not seem fazed. now, i’m a lot more relaxed about it. also, doesn’t matter who you are. everyone gets it at one point.
I agree – chemicals don’t kill the eggs so using metal combs most important part. We are proactive though — no piles of jackets when kids get together and periodically vacuum the upholstery in your car if you carpool.
I caught lice at the very end of the school year when I was in third grade. Right after school ended we went on a two week summer vacation and we were on the go constantly. I didn’t know anything was wrong, other than that my head was itchy, so I didn’t say anything to my parents. (I would suggest that parents teach their kids to report scalp itchiness!) We were all too busy having fun so nobody noticed anything. By the time we got home it was a pretty severe case. My pediatrician gave my mom a recipe for some homemade concoction. The main ingredient was mayonnaise and it did NOT work at all… And my hair was SO greasy for weeks afterwards. The ultimate solution was the daily metal comb routine for several days in a row!
In this case, I’m glad that I have all boys… If they ever come home with lice I think I would just shave their heads!
We’ve had one run in with lice (knock on wood) and I used a lice shampoo called Resultz. It’s a less harsh version of lice shampoo. As a preventative measure, I always wash the kids hair with tea tree oil shampoo. That stuff is miraculous!
I’m up here in Canada, where we have this thing called a Robi comb. It zaps live lice as you comb it through hair, making the job a bit easier. I’ve heard a ton of opinions from fellow parents, and the consensus seems to be that lice shampoo is the only way to go in getting rid of the little critters.
OIL!!!! We used both olive and baby oil and soaked the girls hair. I
French braided it after doing some nitpicking and left for 5 days
They slept in shower caps and went to school with oily hair
Worked wonders!! I had 5 children and the laundry and bagging the
Pillows and linens was the hardest part!
We had a terrible run-in with lice last winter. We were all scratching our heads all night and I even went to the doctor with a rash on my neck (apparently I’m allergic to the lice saliva) and she totally missed it! Then–this is the nastiest part–I figured out what I had when I was scratching my head at work and a louse fell out onto my keyboard! I started Googling and found a local lice-removal expert who combed out all my family members (and later my nanny) with olive oil and lice combs in her home salon. She confirmed chemicals don’t work and advised us on how to get rid of them, and luckily, it was a fairly painless process (aside from the endless laundry). Now I get totally paranoid whenever my scalp itches even a little, though.
It was super ironic for me to read this article today because my sister-in-law who is serving a mission for our church in Washington State today just e-mailed home to tell us that she had gotten lice this week! She apparently has been using this new contraption that is a metal fine tooth comb that also zaps the lice? She says its been working really well! I hope she’s right. I got lice in 5th grade at a YMCA summer day camp that I was going to. My mom used the lice shampoo, washed all the things, and sprayed everything in our house and we thought that I was in the clear. When school started a couple weeks later, we noticed that the lice was gone. We actually switched from the name brand lice shampoo at the drugstore to the generic CVS brand and I remember that being the trick that got my lice to go away! Also, props to my dad who took a week off of work from his fencing business to sit at home and comb bugs out of my hair… And now my head feels itchy.
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
I meant to say when school started a couple weeks later we noticed the lice was back, not gone haha.
I love that your dad took time off! That really is the best way to combat it, time and combing through repetitively.
I had the most horrible experience with lice recently, I was 17 and had just started a Rotary Youth exchange to Sweden (I’m from New Zealand). About 3 weeks after moving to Sweden and living with my host family my head started getting itchy. At first I thought it was the cold and that I had a dry scalp as it was the middle of winter, it didn’t get any better though and mortifyingly I had to ask my host mum if she could look through my hair. Yep, you guessed it, I had lice. SOOOO EMBARASSING. She had to comb and wash my hair for me. I can’t think how I possibly got it but thank god it went away quickly. Great start to my exchange!
The combs at Nit Pixies are the best. The combs you have pictured didn’t work for us… It’s all about combs!
“Lice are stressful!” Truth!!
Mayonnaise usually worked in my house. Once my sister had some super lice that wouldn’t go away and my mum ended up using Vaseline. It worked but she had greasy hair for weeks! Whatever method we were using, wrapping the whole head in saran wrap for a few hours was an important step. I think it helped to suffocate them. And i recall a lot of combing too. I’m about to start work as a school teacher so I’m worried about getting lice at some point!
I had to laugh when I saw the lice post, coming right as school starts. Now that we’ve battled lice and I know how incredibly common they are, I can’t believe I managed to get through nearly 8 years of parenthood without having to deal with it! From what I can tell, the public schools in Berkeley are literally crawling with it. It’s the unfortunate backfiring of having a “no policy on lice” policy.
All four of us (husband and me included) had it. My then 2nd grader had it the worst. Our pediatrician told us that Nix does work on the local bugs, and I used it once on my older son because of the level of the infestation (and it definitely did work on the live bugs), but in general it just took A LOT of patience and epic levels of combing.
I have decided that weekly combings will just be a part of our school year or camp routine now – I don’t want to have them sneak up on me like that again. The next time – and I don’t fool myself that there won’t be a next time – I want to catch the little buggers early on. Combing is really the only way to know for sure whether you’ve got it. Visual checks are not reliable to catch the beginning of an infestation, especially if you’ve never had a kid with lice – it’s just really hard to know what you’re looking for, and the infestation can get bad before you realize they have it. Not all kids will itch!
The most helpful thing I found was to use a small kids’ microscope to look at what I found so that I could tell what I was looking at. It saved me a few times worrying about flecks of sand or dirt that were not nits, and actually a few tiny bugs that were not lice.
The hardest thing for us is that we had one kid in a public school where they won’t send kids home even if they’re covered in live lice, and another kid in a private preschool with a no-nit policy, who would send home kids if they found one empty egg sack on his head. The discrepancy made me crazy! It seems like there has to be some kind of happy medium between these two policies.
Other best tools: white vinegar (comb through to help detach eggs from hair strands), Terminator metal lice comb, cheap white conditioner to make combing easier, lots of paper towels to rub comb/conditioner onto, magnifying reading glasses if you’re going to do visual checks (I got ones with built-in LED lights at the drugstore – super-cool!), a few mom friends who will walk you through the process and answer your freaked-out text messages with compassion.
Ten years ago, I loved in Houston with my five children. My youngest was 3 weeks old when my oldest son came home from Cub Scout camp with head lice. (They had hats they shared. Not a good idea for the record.) We were also in the middle of a move to another state and in the process of selling our house. Not a good time to be doing laundry! We drove to the drug store and purchased a chemical kit. Like you said, the plastic comb was useless. I went back to the pharmacy and bought a nice metal comb (I think the brand we have is termi”nit”or). It worked so much better. The chemical shampoo however didn’t work. We tried it again (luckily the baby was bald) and once again I was still pulling live bugs off my children’s heads. It took 8 hours a day to comb through my three daughters’ long hair. I called my pediatrician to ask what to do. She called in a prescription for Lindane. I didn’t question it and used it. Afterward I started to wonder what it was I had put on my children’s (and my!) head. Apparently lindane is banned in most states, and unsafe to use if you are under 100 lbs!! All of my children were under 100 lbs!!! And after all that, it didn’t work! After doing a little research I learned that the southern United States are a great place for a super big because of all of the mosquito spraying. Apparently, during the 60s when we used DDT, there were hardly any cases of head lice. Sounds like a great way to breed a superbug. I called the pediatrician again and she said “Did you try Mayonaise?” Ha! So, I pulled out the best foods, slathered it on my children and covered them in a shower cap and sent them to bed. Our pillow cases were ruined, but in the morning, all of the lice I pulled out of their hair were dead. I repeated a week later. And end of story. We have had a couple of love scares, but I just pull out the comb and give everyone a thorough combing. So learn from my mistakes, and skip the chemicals altogether. I love mayo.
Original formula Listerine (the amber colored one) will kill any live bugs on the head. I had a terrible outbreak and this was the only effective thing for us. Of course I followed up with hours of picking nits out of hair (in the sunshine for my blondies – it’s easier to detect the eggs that way). The best part…it’s cheap. Completely saturate hair and scalp, cover with a shower cap, and leave on the head for about 3 hours (just pop a movie in for the kids while you tear the house apart doing laundry). Wash hair with shampoo only and then get picking! The dead bugs were literally falling off heads with combing. Gross…but awesome!! I followed up with a high heat drying and flat ironing session. the high heat kills any live eggs, although I still went through heads daily for about two weeks. I had the kids do their daily reading while I was picking.
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/
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)