When it comes to treating head lice, some people swear by chemical treatments and other people highly prefer using home remedies lice treatments.
Home remedies for head lice are most of the time grandma’s recipes, but most of them are proven solutions, sometimes even scientifically. Home remedies have one thing in common: they are natural and will fight both head lice and their eggs.
Why do people often prefer home remedies for treating head lice?
Anti-lice shampoos used to be very effective a few decades ago but are now not so powerful anymore, especially because head lice have developed some resistance in many western countries including United States, Canada, France, United Kingdom.
There are organic shampoos that respect your hair, but when you are treating head lice, repeated shampoos during several months will tend to damage the scalp. Then, most of these shampoos are effective against live lice but not against the eggs they lay.
If you are looking for an alternative to using an OTC lice shampoo on your child’s head, the simplest home remedy would be to just comb his hair or pick the lice and nits out using a lice comb or tweezers. This would have to be done over several days and would thus be very time consuming. But there are good alternatives.
Basically it is important to understand that if you want to be successful in your battle against lice, you’ll need to find the right home remedies for getting rid of head lice and the right home remedies for getting rid of nits. The same remedy will not always work for both head lice and their eggs at the same time.
Home remedies for getting rid of head lice
In order to kill adult head lice, you can use home remedies that contain oil. This can be olive oil, essential oils, or other oily substances such as mayonnaise.
Why can it work? Because oil has properties such as viscosity that will not let lice breathe, and once coated in oil they will die asphyxiated. Of course, like any other home remedy for head lice, oil will not be 100% effective and there is no guarantee it will work for you, but many people have had good results and it may be worth a try.
What about essential oils on their own?
A few drops of lavender essential oil behind the ears make head lice flee… If this solution can work, be careful to not use it as a real treatment though. Its effectiveness will depend on each child, but also on the degree of the current infestation. There are dozens of formulations based on essential oils of many plants, but in practice the majority of these essential oils are only effective if their application is combined with other substances like olive oil and with adequate combing of the hair. There are some essential oils that are effective on their own, this is the case of tea tree oil, but it should be applied with great care.
Home remedies for getting rid of lice eggs
One of the best ways to kill live lice eggs, also called nits, is to dissolve their shell. They will for sure die if they are no longer protected by their exoskeleton. You can use home remedies that contain acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice.
It is also possible to combine these natural substances, usually olive oil with essentials oils.
The big advantage of these home remedies for head lice is that apart from being natural, they can help prevent head lice, which chemical products cannot do.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Easy, inexpensive remedy that completely eliminated lice after 3 treatments. Mix equal parts of 91% rubbing alcohol and white vinegar into a spray bottle. Add 1 drop of tea tree oil for every fluid ounce of mixture. 3-4 ounces will be sufficient to treat a head of long hair. Thoroughly wet hair with mixture, and comb out in sections with metal nit comb. After every few strokes, rinse the comb in a container of water to see what is coming out of the hair and to track progress. Wash and condition hair afterwards with coconut based products. Repeat treatment every other day to break the reproduction cycle until lice are gone.
i have been searching for any way i can,to take control over this.so as i read this treatment i have began to get hopes up! i surely do hope for this to work. i am a single mother of 3,an take care of my 80 year old mother,we are on a low fix income. we live in a appartment with only coin op. laundrey room,to wash all the beddings/towels etc. is a large extra exspence of its own. i can’t keep going in circles with this. so i wish to thank you in advance for shareing your treatment!
sincerly;
audrey
My daughter and i have been battling lice for two months now. We spent hundreds on treatments, but nothing seems to work. BUT i found a way, get some vinegar and cover their hair in it, put a shower cap over their head and let it stay for about 2 hours, but watch out for the vinegar getting in their eyes. Then wash their hair out with Palmolive dish washing liquid, then starting combing, comb comb comb, and comb some more. Once you are sure you got all those nasty bugs out, blow dry and straighten the hair, and just keep repeating every day. Also make sure you wash the bed lining, and pillow cases.