Blow dry their hair completely. This will take a long time but it helps “seal in” and suffocate the live lice. Put a shower cap, head wrap or skull cap on and leave the dried lotion on for at least 8 hours. It's easiest to do this overnight.
Pile hair on head, if needed, and cover with a close-fitting shower cap OR cut plastic bag and wrap around head. Use scotch tape or hair clips to keep on the head. Leave cap or bag on for as long as possible (at least 4 hours BUT works best for 8+hours). Remove all nits as discussed under the Nit Removal Section below.
Go to your drugstore and buy Cetaphil cleanser in the soap department. No prescription is needed. It works by coating the lice and suffocating them. Apply the Cetaphil cleanser throughout the scalp to dry hair.
Cover all of the hair with conditioner, detangle hair with normal comb and separate into sections. Then, using a fine long toothed metal lice comb, comb through the hair in sections. The conditioner does not kill lice but stuns them for about 20 minutes enabling easier removal.
There are recent studies that show that treatment of lice with heat can be quite effective in killing head lice. Products such as Lousebuster are very effective but even a home hairdryer can successfully treat lice.
Hair gels, hairspray, oils or other non-medicated products do not kill lice or their eggs. Cutting your child's hair or shaving their head to get rid of lice won't keep them away. Lice stick to short and just “grown in” hair too.
Do not use a conditioner. It can keep the lice medicine from working. Rinse well with warm water and towel dry. Do not use the towel again until it has been laundered.
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.
Nits are often confused with other things found in the hair such as dandruff, hair spray droplets, and dirt particles. If no live nymphs or adult lice are seen, and the only nits found are more than ¼-inch from the scalp, the infestation is probably old and no longer active and does not need to be treated.
Typically, 10–15 head lice are found. The number of lice often depends on personal hygiene, for example, how often the person bathes, shampoos, or changes and washes his/her clothing.
Avoid sleeping in the same bed as the person with an active lice infestation. Avoid sitting where the person with lice has sat in the past two days. Wash linens and clothing in hot water and dry on high heat. Place stuffed animals, pillows and items that cannot be washed into an airtight bag for two weeks.
It is not usually possible to get rid of lice in one day, as an infestation needs to be treated. However, there are treatments that can help get rid of lice and symptoms caused by lice more quickly. Lice infestations must first be treated by improving the hygiene of the infected person.
View Protect yourself from the damage of chronic inflammation. 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.
Make sure hair stays wet with conditioner during combing. Metal or plastic nit combs are available at your local pharmacy. If the comb tugs the hair, use a wide toothed comb first and more conditioner, then try the nit comb again. combing without conditioner, until no lice are found.
Dandruff can shake right out of your hair but lice eggs don't budge. Lice eggs secrete a glue-like substance and they will not move if you shake your hair or run your fingers through your hair. Nits (lice eggs) must be individually pulled off with your nails or a lice comb.
In fact, it is best to not shampoo again for 2 days, in order to give the medicine time to work. The medicine will kill the live lice bugs, generally within 12 hours. Comb your child's hair. This is the MOST important step!
Comb dead and any remaining live lice out of the hair using a fine–toothed nit comb. If, after 8–12 hours of treatment, no dead lice are found and lice seem as active as before, the medicine may not be working.
If you do not comb out all the remaining nits, they will hatch and restart the cycle in 7-10 days from that point. That's why we recommend 3 treatments over a 12-day period of time. This stops the life cycle of lice. These are nits at different stages and a louse.
If nits are yellow, tan, or brown, it means the lice haven't hatched yet. If the nits are white or clear, the lice have hatched and just the egg remains. Lice eggs hatch within 1 to 2 weeks after they're laid.
Just like with mattresses, lice can only live on any bedding—whether it's sheets, pillows, or comforters—for 1-2 days. Without a human scalp as a source for food (blood) for longer than 1-2 days, lice cannot survive.
Lice on pillowcases can be killed by heating the pillowcase by immersion in water at > 60 degrees C, by a hot wash, or by 15 min in a hot clothes dryer.
Smothering agents: There are several common home products that may kill lice by depriving them of air and smothering them. These products include petroleum jelly (Vaseline), olive oil, butter, or mayonnaise. Any of these products may be applied to the scalp and hair, covered with a shower cap, and left on overnight.
But unfortunately, the nits will not simply fall out your hair. The lice themselves take 7 to 11 days to hatch, so after that what is attached to the hair is the empty eggshell or the dead nit. These will stay attached to the hair and as the hair grows you will find them further and further down the hair shaft.
Generally, if no live crawling insects are seen three weeks after the treatment, it's safe to assume that they are gone. Nits would have hatched by that time if they were alive. Nits and their shells may remain in the hair for some time but won't be viable.
Lice and nits can be removed by wet combing. You should try this method first. You can buy a special fine-toothed comb (detection comb) online or from pharmacies to remove head lice and nits.