Anyone know of any natural method that kills lice and nits with proven results? Also, where do you start?? the kids, the bedding, the furniture, the rugs?
Thank you for all the responses. I actually found a tea tree oil / essential oil shampoo/condition for lice. AFter doing that and combing out the nits, there is an olive oil treatment to continue to smother and keep any from sticking. The worst part is the cleaning / vacuuming and WAY too much laundry. I think Ive slept 6 hours total over the last 2 nights....
Warm olive oil. Smooth it into their hair focusing on the roots, put a shower cap on and leave it in overnight. It smothers the lice and nits to death. Animals etc. can go in plastic bags for a week, and vaccum the rest of the house well, and you'll be done.
Hellmans makes a mayo with olive oil. I used copious amounts on my daughter's hair then put it under a swim cap for overnight. Then as a former respondant said, comb. And comb again. And comb again. Borrow a very very bright lamp to help. The mayo w/ olive oil smothered the lice. The combing removes the nits. You should repeat the mayo treatment at two weeks in case the combing missed a nit and it hatched. Then comb again. Lice is annoying as heck. Best to you.
You can use a combination of baking soda and conditioner. Load the hair up with the combination and begin combing out the nits with a fine tooth comb. The conditioner will smother the lice and the baking soda will create a grit to help get the nits out. The secret is in the combing, you do not need harsh chemicals to get rid of them but you need to comb out every nit or they will hatch. As far as bedding, wash everything in hot water, put stuffed animals in a tightly sealed plastic garbage bag for at least two weeks. I am not sure I think just vacuuming the carpets and furniture should be sufficient. After the hair treatment keep tons of gel and hairspray in their hair and keep it tied in a ponytail. Lice like clean hair not dirty hair so keeping it coated with gel and spray in between combings will keep it under control and do not keep it loose. Good luck lice is more then a pain then harmful. Also wash their coats and jackets. I remember my daughters friends got lice from basketball practice because they piled their coats on top of each other and that was how they got it. Luckily my daughter didn't get it but half her team did.
A relatively new prescription medication caled Ulesfia, without potential neurotoxic side effects, worked well for my children.
Boy! I wish this many people had responded when I asked for advice! We just got over this!I found no comb that worked well enough. I think you have to pull the nits/eggs out with your fingers. I also used conditioning spray mixed w/baking soda. Sprayed on hair. (You can use conditioner, water and baking soda.) It makes the hair feel disgusting, but lice do not like dirty hair. Keep hair in pony tail or braid. Getting ALL the nits is critical!It's just a vicious cycle if you don't! Wash everything in hot water then dry on high heat. If it can't be washed put in the dryer for at least 20 min. If it can't go in the dryer, plastic bags and out side for at least a week. Vaccume all furnature and mattresses daily. Wash all bedding daily. Wash the days clothes every night or seal in plastic till the morning when you wash the sheets. We did this for at least a week. I was serious about wanting this gone! We also used a shampoo called Fairy Tails. It's all natural, and you can find it on line. No one else in our house got lice. (We also used the leave in spray.) It is expencive, about $10 - $12 a bottle, but like I said, we were serious! Good luck!
We just went through this and we used LICEFREEE (3 e's) that we bought from WHOLE FOODS, it's NON-toxic and smells like black licorice....
It seems to have worked! It's only been a week so I don't know if we are out of the clear but I saw about 5 DEAD bugs and we got our all of the dead eggs too ON the night that we did this treatment....and I haven't seen anything in her hair at all within the last week since we did it.
I did almost exactly what Jill O did, except instead of the olive oil, I found a natural treatment online called Licenix. It has peppermint oil in it, I think, and worked wonders. Make sure you get a quality comb (metal) to pick out the nits. Those plastic ones just don't cut it. Good luck!
there are many natural methods if you look up on internet... most important is diligence in combing through for up to 10 days. there are a number of folks who will do the initial comb thru for you to be sure you've gotten most, but in case anything is missed (a single nit!!) you need to keep going. (look up licenders or hair fairies in your area, or search like on craigs list for lice removal many people do from home). you need a good metal lice comb for comb thru.
As for other 'stuff' lice only lives for 2 days off of the body. So start from the top... remove all bedding & wash in hottest allowable water and dry (any potentially infected bed must be addressed). vacuum carpets & sofas where lice may have transferred in snuggle & play. items that cannot be washed have options depending on what they are - some can go in a hot dryer for about 20-30 minutes (think heavy jackets, stuffed animals without melting concern, pillows)... others can just be removed in a plastic bag for at least 2 days, then replaced to where they belong.
i hope this is helpful... i've been through this with my son 3 times (they must love his long clean hair!!), and i'm hoping we're done. until you have lived through it you just cannot imagine the stress level... but now i'm a pro!!! and before that, i knew NOTHING of these critters!!
good luck.
Mayo works in the hair - you need to cover every inch of her head and leave it there for a while to smother the bugs. (Maybe let her watch tv for an hour while it does its magic).
We tried this and it worked perfectly. Saturate the hair with olive oil. Wait 2 (I waited three) hours. Put a plastic shower cap or impromptu one made from a plastic bag (with a young child, better to get a cheap shower cap) to keep the oil from getting on anything. At that point the lice have suffocated. I found them not quite dead after two hours. Then comb out the dead lice, wash the hair (it took me two soapings to get out the olive oil) and then pick out the nits. Even with pesticide treatments, you have to pick out the nits. Then at least twice a day, pick out the nits you may have missed, and comb out any lice that may have hatched. Apparently the lice won't have been able to lay any eggs yet, so you don't have to repeat the oil, but I did after a couple of days. Continue checking the hair for (I think it was) 10 days from the last live louse (I did two full weeks). This comes from a Harvard study and our pre-school teacher who has dealt with pesticide resistant lice in her own house.
I suggest cleaning the house thoroughly, vacuming EVERYTHING. Bag all pillows and stuffed animals for at least two weeks. (Or wash them in hot water). Change all bedding and then for the affected person/people I changed the bedding daily (probably overkill, but I was SERIOUS about getting rid of them in one shot). I also washed any clothing daily until two weeks after. I washed winter (or fall) coats as well, but not daily. Cleaning the inside of the car is important too, especially vacuming the seats.
Good luck.
After that, I have put a drop of tea tree oil in their wet hair after washing, rubbed it around and let it dry (it acts as a repellant). My children go to a school that has problems with lice from Sept.-June and we never had them again.
