The law requires you to stop the service, and ask the client to leave as head lice is highly contagious. Especially in a salon setting where hair is being touched by hands and tools. You have to sanitize everything at your station, the mat, the chair, your cart.
Head lice are not considered a physical threat to staff or others if recommended practice standards are used. However, hairdressers are within their rights to refuse service as long as it is not on racial or ethnic grounds under the Equal Opportunities Act.
Common questions
Under the Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations there are no restrictions preventing a person with head lice or eggs from using or attending a salon.
You CAN typically say you “suspect” lice and recommend your client sees a doctor who can offer a diagnosis. “You can say that you THINK it's lice and that a doctor could say for sure, but there are treatments at the local pharmacy to fix the issue,” @kayyyhew adds.
Treating Close Contacts:
If lice or nits are seen, they also should be treated. Use the anti-lice shampoo on them as well. Also, anyone with an itchy scalp rash should be treated. Bedmates of children with lice should also be treated.
Don't panic. Except for the itching, lice are harmless. Also, medical researchers have found no link between hygiene and head lice—your client isn't dirty. Remember: lice can only spread by head-to-head contact, so as long as you're not head-butting your client, you're safe.
Once a stylist or barber realizes a client has lice, they will tell them, as politely as possible, they can't continue to cut or work on their hair because of potential contamination from lice to other clients. They will tell them they have to leave the shop until they are no longer contaminated.
HEAD LICE SHOULD NOT CAUSE EMBARRASSMENT
They don't discriminate based on income, race, hygiene or pretty much any other factor. If you have a head of hair with a scalp underneath it, that warm, moist environment, clean or dirty, is just what they're looking for.
Spare yourself. But you should vacuum any cloth furniture that your child's head may have touched in the two days before you realized she had lice. 5. You don't need to throw out your brushes and combs.
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. However, the lice could be in hiding.
Not everyone feels lice moving around on their scalp, but some people do. Dr. Garcia says that most of her patients say they “don't feel anything,” but others may get a creepy, tickling sensation as lice move around their head.
The only way to be sure someone has head lice is by finding live lice. You can do this by combing their hair with a special fine-toothed comb (detection comb). You can buy these online or at pharmacies.
The common braid, a French braid, a fish tail braid, or a crown braid are all excellent hair styles to keep your hair up and out of the way of others. Any braid type that keeps your hair pulled back and contained is perfect for helping to prevent your contact with head lice.
Does Cutting Your Hair Help with Lice? Cutting hair will NOT get rid of lice unless you shave it completely bald to the scalp. But, cutting your child's hair can make it easier to treat and remove lice eggs.
Mimi Stamer, Massachusetts School Nurse Organization:
If you haven't told anyone that your child was recently treated for lice, you need to do so because it is likely that other children may have live lice hatching and the spread may continue if those children aren't treated too.
All infested persons (household members and close contacts) and their bedmates should be treated at the same time. Some pediculicides (medicines that kill lice) have an ovicidal effect (kill eggs). For pediculicides that are only weakly ovicidal or not ovicidal, routine retreatment is recommended.
Children diagnosed with live head lice do not need to be sent home early from school; they can go home at the end of the day, be treated, and return to class after appropriate treatment has begun. Nits may persist after treatment, but successful treatment should kill crawling lice.
Lice are most often spread by head-to-head contact with another person who has lice, such as sleeping in the same bed. Although they do not survive long away from a human host, lice may also be spread by wearing another person's hat or clothing, or by using another person's comb, brush, or bedding.
Place the patient in Contact Isolation until 24 hours after initial treatment. 2. A gown and gloves are required.
Clean all hair items by soaking in a lice treatment product for 10 minutes or cleaning with hot, soapy, or boiling water for 5 minutes. Never share towels, bedding, clothing, hats, and headgear. thoroughly. Insecticide sprays are not recommended because this will expose household members to unnecessary pesticides.
If you leave head lice untreated, the symptoms of lice infestation will worsen. The lice will continue to feed on the scalp, spreading from person to person, and the itching and discomfort will become more severe. As the lice population grows, so will the amount of eggs they lay, raising the risk of reinfestation.
A dead lice egg will be white or grey. As they are empty, they will be flat and dry.