Dandruff - Saint Charles,IL

I was and still am your 7-year-old daughter. Do not go the commercial shampoo route. They are manufactured toward the "annoying" flakes vs. the major flakes.

I would take her to a dermatologist to rule out psoriasis or other scalp conditions. He/she may prescribe Neutrogena or a prescription.

Again, the women they portray on the commercial with a few flakes on their black shirts, hardly cut it.

Good luck.

P.S. Neutrogena works!

She might need to wash her hair every night with Head & Shoulders.
You can also try dissolving an uncoated aspirin (few drops of water will be enough to help it fall apart) then add that in with the little bit of shampoo she washes her hair with.
Another thing to try is adding an aspirin to 1/4 cup vinegar, add 1 3/4 cup water to make up 2 cups.
After she's washed her hair, she can pour the vinegar rinse through her hair and over her scalp.
Don't rinse it out - squeeze it dry, hen proceed to towel dry.
The vinegar smell disappears when it's dry.
It will make her hair very shiny.
But the aspirin will stay on her scalp and the salicylic acid helps to fight the dandruff.

It might clear up but it's more likely to come and go over and over again.

Try an olive oil treatment. I've de-flaked people this way.

Thoroughly soak her scalp in olive oil. Let it sit for at least an hour, preferably two, so that the oil attaches to the dandruff.

Give her scalp a really good scrub with your fingertips when you wash out the olive oil. You will need to scrub it, not her. You will probably need to wash and rinse three times, to get all the olive oil out.

OR

If you don't want to try that -- it's possible that if your daughter washes her own hair, she's not doing a good job -- not scrubbing her scalp enough with her fingertips, and/or not rinsing properly. In this case just give her a very thorough washing and rinsing yourself. I've done this for my kids when they didn't wash their hair properly.

The other responses you received are really good. Also, when she rinses her hair, make sure she's scrubbing her scalp too. You should rinse your hair and scalp with the same motion that you use to wash. I never used to do this and started getting flaky scalp too. I would just kind of massage my scalp and move my hair around when rinsing instead of scrubbing with my fingertips.

I've never heard of the aspirin wash or vinegar rinse that B suggested. They sound awesome...I love learning new homemade remedies for anything.

Both of my sons get dandruff occasionally. When they do get it we use the Head and Shoulders for two or three washes and it clears up. We only use it when they have dandruff. You need to scrub her scalp with the shampoo, and let it sit on her scalp for about five minutes.

Are you sure it's dandruff & not cradle cap? My 5 yr old sometimes gets a patch of flaky scalp but her's is cradle cap - turns out I was washing her too often which was everyother day. Doc says her scalp isn't producing enough oil & to only wash once a week. Since doing so it has not returned.
Dandruff is bc your scalp is too oily. I though it was bc the scalp was dry but it's not. I've had the problem myself. Some hair stylist suggested that it was shampoo buildup. So you have 3 possibilities here. Good luck.

My daughter had dandruff from a young age too. We had better luck with Selsun Blue, but we also used a Rx shampoo prescribed by her doc and it worked well too. We had so-so luck with T-Gel shampoo. Head and Shoulders was not effective for her either. The good news is that my daughter, now 14, has much less dandruff than when she was younger. She still uses Selsun Blue periodically when the dandruff acts up. Good-luck.