Home Remedies for Head Lice
Many parents are reluctant to allow possibly toxic chemicals near they're children even when they've been tested for safety. If you're pregnant or nursing you may also want to avoid using chemical based solutions. There are various home remedies that will help you get rid of head lice. These can work if you're prepared to put in the time and effort.
Adding tea tree oil and other essential oils to shampoos or conditioners is sometimes recommended. There's actually no evidence that these do kill the lice and the essential oils can cause skin rashes. If you want to try these remedies then do a spot test on the scalp before treating to ensure there will be not allergic reaction. One recommended mixture is: one cup of conditioner with 25 drops of eucalyptus oil and 15 drops of tea tree oil.
A lot of home remedy methods involve wrapping the hair in gooey stuff. This can be mayonnaise, olive oil, petroleum jelly etc. The general method is the same in all cases - coat the hair, wrap it in cling-film, wait a few hours, then comb out with a nit comb before washing the hair. The idea is to smother the head lice but to do this successfully you'd need to keep the head covered for 18 hours to ensure that all the lice are dead. So if you see a remedy saying leave the olive oil or mayonnaise on the hair for only 30 minutes to 3 hours it simply won't work. Even leaving the smothering agent on for 18 hours won't kill the nits, they are designed to be as indestructible as possible.
As you can imagine applying before going to bed is the best option for the olive oil, mayonnaise etc smothering method. You may find that putting a shower cap on top of the cling film will save messing up the bedding too much.
The main draw backs are that you need cooperative children who won't spend the night trying to unravel the clingfilm. It's very messy to apply and it's a nightmare to wash the stuff out the hair. It'll take several washes to do so and in particular petroleum jelly can take up to a month to fully remove. Also remember that you'll need to repeat the whole process again a week later to kill any hatched nits. If you do decide to use petroleum jelly it is flammable so avoid naked flames!
Rinsing hair through with a vinegar solution is meant to make the nits easier to remove when combing through. The idea is that the acid of the vinegar weakens the glue attaching the nits to the hair shaft. Rinsing your hair with cola before combing is also meant to have the same effect.
If you look at all the home remedies you'll notice they have something in common - COMBING. It's probably the combing that's the most effective part of the treatment and by focusing on the combing you can avoid hours of fiddling about. Read the conditioner and comb method article to find out how to do it.