I have one daughter who was a walking petri dish. If there was something out there to catch, she did! Everytime. For 3 years there was an epidemic of lice infestations running rampant in her school.

The first few infestations I used the recommended pharmacy products. They were horrid. They smelled so bad and once some had dribbled down the back of her neck, unnoticed, and she had a painful chemical burn as a result.

I’d do the standard routine. Wash, comb, nit pick. Over and OVER. I spent an entire summer picking those eggs off strands of her hair. I also spent countless hours listening to advice on how to fix the problem. From cutting off her gorgeous long blond hair to mayo and vinegar treatments. I came close a few times to trying them. The worst part was that the little buggers became immune to the products. I actually watched them swim contentedly in a puddle of solution on the bathroom counter.

I needed a better solution before we all ended up drooling from toxicity related brain damage. I searched the net and found many of the same wacky types of solutions. None of which I was too eager to try. I finally ran across a posting in a forum that said something about the lice not liking coconut shampoo. I searched  and managed to find coconut cream rinse/conditioner. It didn’t work but it did eventually lead me to the following solution:

Go buy the biggest, cheapest bottle of cream rinse/conditioner you can find. $ store stuff is fine.

Coat the child’s entire head with the conditioner. I mean glop it on, as much as you can put on without it falling on the floor.

Leave it on the child’s head 10 mins and then use a metal lice comb to comb through the hair. Do this for as long as it takes to remove the bulk of the cream rinse. Make sure you empty the comb into paper towel or something that you will immediately throw out. Wash hair as you normally would.

Repeat the procedure every 2 days for the next 8 days. Then every 4 days for 8 days.

Check the child’s head after the last treatment. You may still find a few eggs but since the hatching time of a nit is 8 days, you’ve prevented it from hatching. It will grow out or fall off harmlessly.

Be sure to treat all member of your family and wash all bedding, clothing and headwear. Wash anything that would normally come in contact with a person’s head, that might include stuffed animals. The bugs only live a day away from a human head and the eggs 8 days so you don’t have to go nuts washing everything in site.

Personally, I found the best lice comb to be one like this:

The teeth of the comb are close enough together to “grab” the bugs and some of the larger nits and the fact that they are made of metal makes them harder to break.

The process is very simple because the cream rinse makes the combing easy. It won’t kill the lice nor prevent a re-infestation but the thickness of the cream rinse makes the bugs unable to move quickly. They get stuck in the glob of cream rinse, as you are combing down the length of the hair, making it easier to remove them. Just be sure to repeat the process over the 16 days. This will ensure that any stragglers will be killed since it is 2x the length of their life’s cycle. Also be sure to do it, at minimum, every other day to catch any eggs that are hatching.

Try it. It’s worked for me and it’s worked for people I’ve recommended it to. Our kids don’t need the products sitting on their heads and they sure don’t need to have the patience it takes to sit through a thorough de-lousing the old fashioned way, one nit at a time.

Let me know how it worked out for you if you do try it.