How can you tell the difference between nit eggs and dandruff?

[Theromanempire]

Last weekend, we had a nit infestation and both DC had them - think we luckily caught it in the early stages as there were only a couple of fully grown lice, the rest were minute brown specks which I understand are unhatched eggs?

Anyway, just done another treatment on the DC and DS1 (who had lots of white bits in his hair last week which I assumed were empty eggs) has nothing in his hair apart from lots of white bits - so no lice or brown specks. I am starting to think this is dandruff rather than empty eggs but is there an easy way to tell?

Dandruff is odd sized the eggs are pretty uniform.

Eggs will be stuck to the hair, you literally have to run the hair through your nails to get them off. They also have a very distinctive shape which you can only really see once you've picked them off the hair, oval with what looks like a bit of hair sticking out the end. I would get picking and examine what you get out! Bear in mind they won't all be live eggs though, some will be husks which have already hatched and, depending on what you used, the treatment will have killed some. As long as you do the repeat treatment properly you should break the cycle though so don't worry.

Dandruff will be more easily pulled off the strand of hair and is whiter than an egg.

The bits did seem to be random sizes and shapes (but generally quite small) and came off easily but I was using a nitty gritty comb which I assume would remove anything easily anyway?

Maybe I will buy him some anti dandruff shampoo and see if that clears it up.

All the nit treatments seem to dry DD's scalp out so some of it could well be dandruff. The dead eggs/husks will pretty much stay stuck until you remove them with nails/nitty gritty though, so I would guess it's probably a mix of both you can see.