Natural Remedies for Lice

After staying at a friend's home, while I was out of town, my daughter was infested with head lice. By the time I got home, the infestation was huge. She had scratched/clawed her head until it was bleeding and there was blood and skin matted into her hair. I got home at night and the only products I had on hand to treat were coconut and tea tree oil. I poured the entire contents of the tea tree oil onto her head and worked it through her hair until saturated. Then I got my coconut oil and did the same with it. I wrapped her head in a towel and put her to bed. She slept for several hours. When she awoke I went through her hair with a comb and my fingers pulling out bugs. I pulled out more than 60 head lice before I gave up. Most of them were completely dead and the rest were almost dead. We washed her hair with a strong dish soap and applied a good conditioner. After only that one treatment she was completely bug free. I went through her hair with a comb to remove any nits and they combed out very easily. next time your child is infested, try this first, before the harmful chemicals sold on store shelves.

Lice: I have found that olive oil, vinegar & tea tree oil works great. I soaked my daughter's head in Olive oil with a shower cap on it for 2 plus hours as soon as we discovered she had lice. We then used the metal nit combs to comb through her hair. You have to be very thorough doing this. It's best to section off areas of the hair. Using magnifying glasses and working in the best light - the outside sun - is the best way to be thorough about getting the nits. After combing through her hair the first time I then soaked her hair in vinegar for an hour or more with a different shower cap on. Then we combed through her hair again - with the tiny metal toothed combs - very very thoroughly. I rinsed the comb often in a bucket so the nits would be dislodged. Go over and over the sections of hair to get those nits and any left over lice. Most people get the lice but aren't thorough enough about getting the nits. The nits are eggs and they will hatch if you don't get rid of them. The whole cycle can start over if you aren't thorough with nit picking. She then shampooed with her regular shampoo that we put tea tree oil in - about 10 drops in a typical bottle of shampoo. We did the same in her conditioner but added twice as much tea tree oil. While the conditioner was in her hair she combed it through to dislodge any loosened nits/eggs. We continue to use the tea tree products and comb it through her hair periodically to ensure she no longer has lice. We have found this method to be better than using the chemicals.

MAYO and APPLE VINEGAR: all you have to do is smoother mayo in you're hair then let it set for 2 hours wash with no conditioner or shampoo the put apple viniger in it and set for 30 minutes rince and it cures

Lemon juice really works for lice. I poured some on my head and 5-7 lice bugs came out!! lemon juice is the key!

To remove the oils (coconut or other) from hair, I use a 20% dilution of grain alcohol (like vodka, Alcool brand, Clear Spring brand). The 90% alcohols listed here are sold to make fruit preserves. Something like almost 1:5 with distilled water makes the 20% solution.

The solution will not rinse out the oil (unless you use gallons of it). Instead, soak the alcohol solution into the oily hair. Massage to mix with the oil. Oil mixes with alcohol. Alcohol mixes with water. Water mixes with soap. Add your soap or shampoo to the wet, oily hair. Massage to lather.

Once you get a lather going, the entire goop rinses out. I find that it takes me about three times with the alcohol mix and shampoo to remove all the oil. I used about 8 ounces of the alcohol mix on a head of short hair. A thick head of long hair may take more of the mix to remove it.

My daughter used to get lice when she was younger from kids at school. because she had the dish water blonde long hair they seemed to be atracted to, I would spend hours getting them and the eggs out. I used tea tree oil with her shampoo at first once a week, then once a month, then every so often. She never got another outbreak again. ( be sure to just use a couple drops it is very over powering. Hope this helps someone else

Don't use it unless you are desperate but it definitely works in one application. I had long hair and got lice on a trip to India. There were no shampoos for it where I was, local people were just shaving their heads to deal with it. I was determined not to return home with lice (and to keep my hair), so I got talked into washing my hair in kerosene. Be Careful to keep it off your skin, it got on my sunburn --- ouch!

I said not to use it unless you have to because it's bad for your hair.. I had to have my hairdresser put on all kinds of special conditioners to get my hair back to normal.

Have you tried the nitty gritty comb , it was designed by a mum who was also an engineer, it has long teeth with spirals on them , you use on wet hair with conditioner, it just combs lice and nits out really quickly, no nasty chemicals. It was a life saver when my 4 children were little.

That sounds like a very crazy and dangerous idea. I doubt the Germans added diesel to booze. That can literally kill you.

Hi, this always works. You need a couple of bottles of tea tree hair conditioner from chemist- or any conditioner if that's not available but tea tree is the best due to it's smell and it being mildly antiseptic. You need one wide tooth comb to get rid of tangles and a couple of the small lice/ nit combs from the chemist in the White colour as these show up the nits so you can see them coming out. Wash hair as normal then towel dry hair til it is no longer dripping and just slightly damp. Then use the conditioner and use say half the bottle on
The whole head of hair. Use the wide tooth comb to help distribute the conditioner and to get rid of the knots and tangles so that when you use the small nit combs it won't hurt!

Next when you are tangle free and there is still plenty of conditioner left, work through the whole of the hair from root to tip with the small nit comb using the thicker end first to remove the bigger nits, they become immobile in the thick conditioner. Every time wipe the comb on tissue paper and you will see what you have removed and flush this away as some will come out live. You need to do the whole head to remove live ones then use the thinner side of the comb to remove the eggs, again wiping each time to ensure you don't transfer back to scalp/ hair. Use extra conditioner if necessary. Then rinse out the conditioner and dry hair. That's it!

Try and do everone in your house on same day and tell anyone you have been in contact with to do the same. Repeat again after a couple of days and then again after 1 week. Then take more vitamin c as I think all that nit biting lowers the immune system! Good luck. This works. Every time my daughters had them we got rid of them in this way. X

Here's how I always got rid of nits in my daughters hair. Go to the chemist and buy a couple of bottles of tea tree hair conditioner or, failing that peppermint and a couple of White plastic nit combs. Wash your child's hair in shampoo as normal and then towel dry it. Next load the hair up with tea tree conditioner and comb through with a wide tooth comb to ensure no tangles( very important! ) next use the wider part of the nit comb from root to end and wipe on a tissue every time - you will see large adult insects, and little eggs stuck in conditioner on paper, continue right through hair, paying extra attention around ears and back of neck. Then rinse conditioner out as normal. If you found lots of nits then repeat this process next night other wise leave it a couple of days then repeat. This treatment works every time and takes around 30 min depending on thickness and length of hair. Good luck

My daughter got lice and she has long curly hair, I used baby oil. It killed them washed everything and dried on high heat. It worked! I would get a bottle of the oil and some plastic hair wraps to keep the oil off other things. Drench hair and comb out bugs and nits. Wash out then I put more on head and left it on for a day. I was crawly and did me too. LOL

eucalyptis oil, tea tree oil, extra virgin olive oil, dawn dish soap

Finally cured after trying EVERYTHING!!! Just when I thought they were gone... The nits that I had missed started hatching. I immediately bought a bottle of tea tree oil for $11.00, eucalyptis oil for $4.00 at a store having to do with a red arrow aiming at something ha ha! (don't know if I can say on here... And they were not next to eachother I had to do some shelf hunting), also some extra virgin olive oil from a dollar store (warning: I heard if your child or yourself has had a history of epilepsy/seizures it is not good to use eucalyptus oil as it can bring out the seizures) for my 3 year old I used 3/4 tsp tea tree oil, 3/4 tsp eucalyptus oil, 2 tablespoons olive oil, then I mixed it with squirts of shampoo and mixed until syrup like. For my 5 year old and myself I used 1 tsp tree oil, 1 tsp eucalyptus, and 2 tablespoons olive oil and extra squirts of shampoo... I have long hair!!! I used a spray bottle to barely dampen their hair enough just so that it would create suds when I put the mixture on. I didn't want to get in their eyes so I "spooned" it into their hair in sections making sure I rubbed it very close to the roots/scalp (I didn't have any shower caps so I just rubber banded their hair up) let sit for 1 hour no less!! I draped towels on my couches so they wouldn't stain them and let them watch a movie for 1 hour and rinsed with water, after that I put dawn dishsoap in their hair and rinsed I immediately started seeing dead lice fall out... Combed out hair and removed all the bug bodies I could see more bodies as I was blow drying/combing out their hair.. I did see nits but they were all dead so keep pulling out nits just in case!! Been lice free for a whole week!!! When you rinse this stuff out make sure you put a washcloth over their eyes so it won't go in... Also keep eucalyptus oil out of reach of children it is extremely poisonus!! Good luck!!! :) you can even repeat just in case after 7 days.

My daughter and I have been fighting to get rid of her head lice for 2 months. I tried rid, nix, 2 different prescriptions, tea tree oil, and mayonaise. None of it worked. Those buggers were resistant to everything! I then remembered how well the garlic oil cleared up my bunnies mites, so I tried it in her hair for almost 15 hours and the next day was her first day nit free in 2 months!! She and I both agree that it was the easiest and only treatment that worked!

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. Blow dry hair on high heat. Repeat treatment every other day to break the reproduction cycle until lice are gone.

I used about 4 drops of peppermint oil used in candy flavorings and coconut conditioner- mix together coat head really well, cover with shower cap for about 30 minutes. The peppermint and coconut oils kill lice on contact and after you rinse it out, the nits comb right out with ease.

48 hours and no itching, no bugs. Going to do it for 2 hours with shower cap tomorrow just to be ultra safe but looks like listerine worked for us! Finally, a solution.

I had called our ped after nix and rid did not work completely (found one bug and still had occasional itching, ugghh! ). They told me to do the mayonaisse overnight, but we had plans to do a family zoo trip the next day. After internet research , thought I would try the listerine first and then do teh mayonaisse the next night when we would have more time in the morning to wash it out. I left the listerine in all night though, had the shower cap on her from 10pm -3am. Washed her hair as usual in am and cannot find anything in her hair, no itching, much easier than mayonaisse and not a scratch the entire day. So will see what tonight brings, if no itching may just repeat the listerine again to be certain.... just seems much easier to wash out and much easier for younger child to tolerate than the thick, mayo.

I just wanted to follow up on my previous post. Although I do continue to check for nits from time to time, both my Granddaughter and I are now free from headlice. I alternated treatments between mayonaise, a generic OTC lice treatment containing pyrethrin, and olive oil. Assuming that her head contained lice of several hatch dates, I treated us both whenever I caught her scratching, which turned out to be 4 times a week. A friend suggested that the lice might be hatcing and alive in my carpet, surviving on skin cells they found there. I began to think of a newly hatched louse as being light as a speck of dust and easily transported and so I turned off the air and did a more thorough vacuum of every bit of the carpet and upholstry along with hot-mopping the flooring. Early on, I had ordered a good quality metal comb and I boiled it and all hair implements after every use. I hope someone finds this helpful.