The fastest home remedies for head lice

If you’ve ever had to deal with head lice, you know how difficult it can be to get rid of them! With so many chemical treatments, you may have overlooked home remedies for head lice, but sometimes these are the most effective. Since lice have become immune to chemicals, sometimes it works better to go the old-fashioned way.

Many parents are finding that one of the quickest home remedies for head lice is to use hand sanitizer. This method is extremely effective: simply soak your child’s hair in the hand sanitizer until it is damp and leave it in. Application time varies depending on who has tried it, but even if you don’t rinse it off, it will dry out and leave your hair shiny and the lice dead. This method also works to loosen nits.

If you don’t feel comfortable putting such a strong alcohol-based product on your child, there are other home remedies for head lice that work as well.

Tea tree oil sprayed on hair regularly is supposed to repel lice, or you can choose to add a few drops to your child’s shampoo. Some shampoos even come with tea tree oil as an ingredient. This treatment is good for prevention, but not for cure.

Once an infestation has occurred, you can try one of these two home remedies to get rid of head lice:

MAYONNAISE

Apply mayonnaise generously to the head and scalp, and wrap with a cover (aluminum foil or cling film). The theory is that this suffocates the lice and they will die. Some people claim that this is extremely effective, and as a bonus, hair is left soft and conditioned.

Vaseline

This treatment is not for the faint of heart, but the theory is the same. It will suffocate the lice, but it’s also a mess to clean your hair. To get rid of Vaseline, repeated shampooing will be needed. Use cornstarch to bind the Vaseline and then wash it off, repeating until the hair is clean again.

Even after you have found the lice home remedies that work for you, you will still have to comb your hair and find all the nits and bugs and remove them. Keep a jar of soapy water nearby and place anything you comb in it. Using a nit comb is the only way to do this effectively.

You will need to make sure to vacuum everything in your house! Try mixing equal parts of salt and borax for a natural insecticide. Sprinkle on carpets and mattresses as a carpet freshener and leave for two days to kill lice.

The most important thing to remember with any home remedy for head lice is that no matter how well it works, you will need to keep checking your child’s hair for several weeks and keep vacuuming! It only takes one mistake to start over, so make sure it’s gone forever.