I asked for your head lice solutions, and reader Blueberry79 came up with one I haven't heard before -- using a face cleanser and a blow-dryer to trap the beasties:
"There is advice on the Web (I think I found it on the Consumer Report site) where you cover your child's head with Cetaphil using a specific pattern, then blow-dry it, which shrink-wraps the lice and nits. We did that three weeks in a row, and alternated it with covering his hair with conditioner and combing carefully with nit and lice combs. In three weeks (the complete life cycle of two generations), they were gone -- no tea tree oil with phytoestrogens, no chemicals, no complaints, really."
If you've got your own lice-busting strategy, please add it to the Readers Respond page and give your fellow parents some choices in bug wrangling.
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What worked for me was Blue Magic Coconut Oil Hair Conditioner. It’s a product you will find in the section of hair products for African American hair. What I did with it was saturate my daughter’s hair in it, then combed it thru her hair thoroughly. Then I used the metal lice comb. We combed for over 1 hr – until she couldn’t take it anymore – and you will not believe what came out of her hair! And this was after 1.5 weeks of using other products…so I was shocked. I then combed her hair up into a pony tail, leaving it on, covering with a shower cap.
It is soooo important to wipe the comb after every swipe thru the hair…keep some paper towels right there.
Did it kill everything? NO – but it was the beginning of the end. Keep repeating for a few days – wash hair and follow with the vinegar rinses. Be diligent. This stuff suffocates the lice and makes the eggs slide out with the comb and your fingers.
I refuse to use those toxic chemicals in my daughter’s hair.
Try this parents/guardians – you won’t be sorry – and it’s cheap too