How To Get Rid Of Lice Naturally?

All children who go to school or childcare should ensure prevention against lice. However, if it is already too late and your child has contracted lice, there are natural remedies to get rid of lice. No one wants to have lice, but even the smallest child can bring them home.

School, childcare and the playground are just a few of the examples where children can contract lice. In this article you will learn how to kill lice safely without using poison.

It’s bad enough that your child brought lice from school, so it’s better not to overload him or her with poison on top of that.

Some lice remedies are still made with toxins that are already banned in agriculture. The majority of these products are also flammable. Almost all of them can cause serious problems if you use them too long or too often or if the child is too young.

If you do buy such a product against lice, be sure to read every word of the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. Another option is to treat the lice naturally. However, read the entire article below before you start treating it.

Kill the lice

Lice can be killed quickly, easily, cheaply and safely with mayonnaise.

• Just buy a new jar of mayonnaise at the grocery store and take a handful of it in your hand. Then rub it all over your child’s head. Don’t forget to apply behind the ears and at the base of the neck.
• Then cover the head with a shower cap or some cling film to prevent the mayonnaise from dripping while it soaks for about two hours. The aim is to suffocate the lice and destroy the eggs.
• Then remove the shower cap and throw it away. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and then wash your child’s hair as well. Shampoo the hair two or more times until it is completely clean.

If you don’t have mayonnaise available, you can also use petroleum jelly and follow the same procedure. Keep in mind that the only way to get petroleum jelly out of your hair is to use baby oil and scrub the hair completely. Then wash your children’s hair at least three times with shampoo and warm water.

Vaseline instead of mayonnaise is also an option

You can also leave the Vaseline on overnight if you want. However, this cannot be done with mayonnaise, as it becomes toxic if not refrigerated and at night your child may scratch their hair and then put their hand in their mouth.

If you don’t rely on mayonnaise or petroleum jelly to suffocate the lice, you can always choose to make your own natural shampoo.

Make your own natural shampoo

• Add five drops of tea tree essential oil, five drops of rosemary essential oil, five drops of lavender oil, five drops of mint oil, and five drops of eucalyptus oil to a base of five tablespoons of olive or coconut oil.
• Then add a little bit of regular shampoo to the mixture. Then apply it on your head.
• Leave it under a towel or shower cap (to prevent it from dripping) for an hour.
• Finally, rinse your hair. Do not use conditioner. You will find that your hair is also very easy to brush after using this oily mixture.

Some important notes:

• A baby or child under the age of 5 could experience slower breathing or, in extreme cases, stop breathing altogether if they come into contact with eucalyptus oil or mint oil.
• The essential oil of mint can make hypertension symptoms worse.
  
• Mint and rosemary can be harmful during pregnancy. Then use the above recipe without these harmful oils.

Remove the eggs

After shampooing your hair, you should clean your head and hair with vinegar. This will loosen the glue holding the eggs to the base of your hair. Rinse with water that is as warm as possible (tolerable for the child).

A lot of the eggs will be gone after you rinse the vinegar treatment from your hair. However, there will usually still be a few eggs left behind. Mayonnaise cannot kill all the eggs either, because the lice are not yet born and are therefore less dependent on oxygen.

So even though all the lice are dead, schools and shelters usually don’t let the kids come back until all the eggs are gone too.

Comb the hair with a normal comb. Then use an extra fine comb that is made for removing eggs and lice. You can buy such a comb at the pharmacy.

Checking the hair

When you think all the lice and eggs are gone, use enough light to check your child’s entire head once it’s completely dry. The eggs are easier to see in dry hair. They are very small, but will sparkle from a certain angle.

The eggs are often also on the shaft of the hair. The newest eggs are right next to the skull; the older ones are about 2 cm away in the hair.

Check the hair in small sections and specifically at the base of the hair, at the level of the neck and behind the ears (although they can be everywhere).

If you find eggs, you can remove them with your fingers or with the comb. You can also pull out any hair that contains eggs. Make sure to place all the eggs and any hair that has been pulled out in a bowl of vinegar or in a bowl of warm water with soap and ammonia.

Rinse again

If you see more than a few eggs, you can treat the hair again with vinegar. To do this, moisten a towel with a mixture of equal parts vinegar and water. Wrap your child’s head in this cloth and let it soak in for an hour. Then let the hair dry and check for eggs again.

Eyebrows and eyelashes

If there are eggs in the eyebrows or eyelashes, you can cover them with petroleum jelly. This will not harm the hairs, but will kill the lice. Repeat this four times a day.

Check again

You will then have to check your child’s hair every day to make sure no eggs have been forgotten that you previously missed or could not see because they were still too small.

If eggs are left behind, new lice will develop and you will have to start all over again. Each louse can lay up to eight new eggs per day.