Some people also use things such as petroleum jelly, margarine, peanut butter, hair gel, mayonnaise, or cooking oils (e.g. olive, corn, canola). These do not kill lice.
Super Gel not only kills head lice, but can also prevent lice from latching on to your children's hair in the first place. The gel prevents lice for up to one week, and many parents use it regularly as a kind of lice repellent.
Permethrin lotion 1% is approved by the FDA for the treatment of head lice. Permethrin is safe and effective when used as directed. Permethrin kills live lice but not unhatched eggs. Permethrin may continue to kill newly hatched lice for several days after treatment.
A second treatment must be done in 7-10 days to kill any newly hatched lice. 6. Do not use hair conditioners, detanglers, hair spray or gel for at least a week after treatment.
Hair gels, hairspray, oils or other non-medicated products do not kill lice or their eggs.
Suffocate the Lice
Soak your child's head in olive oil or coconut oil. Cover with a shower cap for at least 2 hours (or preferably overnight). When ready, remove the shower cap, and separate the hair into small sections, then use a metal nit comb to carefully remove the lice and eggs. Rinse the hair well with shampoo.
Use hairspray to stick it to head lice
Hairspray makes it harder for the louse to grab hold. The smell of hairspray and the use of solvents (sad but true) in them can also deter creepy crawlies from finding their way in. Not to mention that if you're tying longer hair back, you've got a double whammy.
Hair products such as hairspray and hair gel don't necessarily help to keep head lice at bay.
No. The two treatments 9 days apart are designed to eliminate all live lice, and any lice that may hatch from eggs that were laid after the first treatment. Many nits are more than ¼ inch from the scalp.
Cover hair with plastic wrap or a shower cap for 5-6 hours or overnight. Young children should be supervised at all times with the plastic wrap use. (The lice die by suffocation and the time recommendation needs to be followed since lice can close their breathing apparatus for up to 4 hours and still live.)
Spinosad (Natroba).
Spinosad is approved for adults and children age 6 months and older. It can be applied to dry hair and rinsed with warm water after 10 minutes. It kills lice and nits and usually doesn't need repeated treatment.
Can someone have nits but no lice? It may be possible to have nits but no lice. If a person cannot find any nymphs or adult lice in the scalp and the nits are more than a quarter of an inch from the scalp, these may be dead and from an old infestation.
Olive Oil smothers and kills active head lice, making nit removal easier and moisturizing the hair and scalp.
First off, here's what not to do: don't shave your or your child's head, or coat it with petroleum jelly or mayonnaise or anything else designed to "suffocate" the parasite. You'll probably end up with greasy, smelly, lice-infested hair.
Adult head lice can survive for 2 days and nits for around 1 week on a hairbrush. Soaking combs or hairbrushes in hot water of at least 130°F (54.4°C) for 5–10 minutes will kill any lice and nits.
Any nits that were left behind after the first treatment will be taken care of in the second and third treatments. If you find a lot of nits after the first treatment, then do the recommended quick comb-outs with the nit comb and KaPOW!
After treatment, your skin may still itch for a week or more. This is because of your body's reaction to the lice. Follow-up care is a key part of your treatment and safety.
It's essential to wash all bedding after a head lice treatment. The heat from a hot water cycle will ensure that no surviving lice can find a host again.
Lice are spread by head-to-head contact, primarily among children. This happens through hugs, sharing hats, combs, brushes, hair accessories, and, increasingly, through selfies and headphones. Kids push their heads together to fit in a phone's viewing field and create a situation ripe for head lice to spread.
Head lice do not have wings or jumping legs, so they cannot fly or jump from head to head. They can only crawl. People catch head lice from direct head-to-head contact with another person who has head lice. This can happen when people play, cuddle or work closely together.
Coconut, tea tree oil, lavender, eucalyptus, rosemary, lemon grass, and peppermint are scents popularly believed to repel lice. Using any coconut scented shampoo and conditioner is an easy way to increase your defense. At 1% concentration, tea tree oil killed 100% of head lice after 30 minutes.
Eucalyptus oil is believed to be an ideal treatment because it kills lice as well as their eggs. One study determined that eucalyptus oil kills 100% of lice and their eggs in just one hour. In addition, it was found that only 3% of children treated with eucalyptus oil needed retreatment.