Our home has just under gone it’s first encounter with those pesky little vermin commonly referred to as head lice. My two youngest boys unfortunately we’re the sole targets, luckily however, it was discovered before it got out of hand.
I felt it my civic duty for those of you out there with peanut butter babies or even people who don’t want to use chemicals on their children’s hair to give you a run down on what I’ve used to rid our boys hair of this yuck.
Please note: in our circumstance chemicals did not need to be used (their infestation was largely nits as I was regularly and repeatedly killing off the adults)
Step 1: to rid the boys of the adults I used spearmint listerine, yes spearmint listerine. I saturated the boys hair totally with it, put a disposable shower cap on their heads and let it sit for 4 hours. When the 4 hours were up I rinsed their hair really well, them washed it and conditioned it really good.
Step 2: I made oil slicks out of their hair with olive oil. After getting their hair good and covered in olive oil I combed through it with a flea comb (works the same as a lice comb, the important part is making sure the teeth are close together so the nits detach)
Step 3: after discovering that the first two things worked but the nits just wouldn’t give up I loaded their hair down with conditioner and combed through it with a super fine tooth rat tail comb.
Step 4: at the recommendation of others who have delt with lice before I saturated their hair in mayonnaise, covered it with disposable shower caps and let it sit for about 5 hours.
Please note I DID NOT do all of these treatments in one day. This has been spread out over the course of 4 days (about a treatment a day). However, if we ever encounter this problem again I now know to do a combination of steps 1, 3 and 2 in that order. If the lice or nits are still persistent I would recommend step 1, step 3, step 4 and then step 2.
If the lice don’t respond to any of these treatments I would advise seeking medical advice, again in our case it was just a matter of getting totally rid of the nits without resorting to the use of chemicals.
Also please make sure to wash all bedding and any special toys your kids sleep (such as stuffed animals) with HOT water (if you have a sanitize cycle on your washer use that) spray down the bedding and all furniture with spray made to kill them or white vinegar.
I hope this helps someone else out as much as its helped us.
supermomplus 