Best way for my student daughter to treat head lice alone?

[mumma24]

21 year old daughter has just messaged to say she’s caught headlice from someone.
best advice for dealing with it on her own. She’s 100 miles away at uni so I can’t help with combing.
not sure which product to recommend.
she has thick long hair. Just conditioner and nit comb? Nothing that smells or makes hair greasy 😬 thank you

Yes, conditioner and knit comb.

Nitty Gritty comb and conditioner.

Yes, conditioner and a nit comb. I have long thick hair too. It's a PITA having bits with hair like ours, but it is manageable quickly.

I’d be getting some Hedrin

Nittygritty comb is brilliant

We found Vamousse the best treatment when my DDs got nits at school, more effective than Hedrin and only takes one 15 mins treatment. We also had a nitty gritty comb and used it with conditioner afterwards to check hair and keep on top of any reoccurrence.

I also have long curly hair, and it is difficult tbh.

Best approach is to use a treatment, then slather your hair in conditioner, section it, and use a bit comb. Then wash all bedding and hats on a high temperature (or hats you can’t wash I put in a sealed bag for a week or so and reckon any nasties will have died by then).

But remember she must repeat the full treatment and comb after 5 days, it’s inevitable you miss some eggs first time round so you need to get any newly hatched ones before they can breed again!

Olive oil is the best treatment I ever used. On long thick hair it’s really good, as the lice can’t hide they get chocked with the olive oil and can’t move.

put oil on hair liberally, leave for 8 hours, you can put shower cap on. Then comb through hair with nit comb. Do over sink and then once all sections are complete shampoo hair.

now use hair straightener and straighten hair - this will help to kill the eggs laid.

repeat this process in 4/5days over 22 days. The life cycle of an egg is 21 days. So any eggs missed or not killed through heat will hatch and start laying eggs.

the advantage of oil is it leaves your hair in lovely condition, scalp isn’t treated to harsh chemicals and it’s cheaper

100%, get Hedrin (the foam one you leave on overnight). Double shampooing for a while thereafter. Repeat all this a week later in case any eggs were left and hatch.

She probably does need a proper product and it will make her hair a little greasy for a day or two but the trouble with conditioner and comb on her own is that she only needs to miss a couple of the little buggers and she's back to square one. Good luck to her OP

Yes it’s really hard to get them all when on your own as you can’t see the top of your own head! Worth investing in lots of small crocodile clips so you can section hair off, then clip up the bits you’ve done. I comb through a small section twice, then clip it twisted up into a knot on my head and then cover that knot in another glob of conditioner - I think if you don’t do that extra glob then any of the little fuckers that are still alive and moving can just move into your cleared hair.

So the whole process takes forever. And yes absolutely key that you then repeat it after 5 days, and I would prob do it again after another 5.

I used conditioner and comb on myself when I caught them from my daughter. DP would have been useless as help. The important point is to do it daily. I know the instructions are every 3 days but easier to be sure you don’t miss any.

Where there are humans there are head lice.

Bottle of cheap vodka, a roll of cling film and a bottle of thick greasy conditioner. And possibly some coke or whatever mixer she likes.

Pour the vodka all over her hair. You literally want to soak the hair so it's dripping. Then totally wrap hair in cling film and leave it for an hour or two. Drink whatever's left of the vodka in the meantime.

Then and without rinsing cover the hair in conditioner I.e. the whole bottle. Find something good on the telly and comb, comb and comb again, ideally using a comb with metal prongs. Once you've done it once do it again. The vodka kills the headlice and nits and begins to dissolve the glue holding the eggs into the hair. The conditioner makes it easy to comb everything out.

This is the method I used on my waist length hair when I worked in a school and kept on catching them from one of the kids in the class.

I know there is advice to treat again after 7 days, but a week apart does not break the cycle according to my old fashioned school nurse friends.

I always did the girls and me daily. I used conditioner so it was non toxic.

I treated my children and myself without help. Used the full marks 5-min treatment. It does make the hair greasy, but this makes it easy to comb through. You then wash it and the grease goes.

not all conditioners are non toxic

Fair point.

Really surprised no ones mentions getting a Nitwits spray from amazon. It comes with its own comb.

Spray it in, comb it out. Nits and eggs are gone. It just washes out with normal shampoo afterwards - I've had to use it a few times on myself when kids brought nits home from school and it's really easy and I've not noticed greasyness after washing

I treated myself when I had them (didn’t know I had them until I treated myself as a precaution!).

I used Vamousse one week and then Hedrin the following week and that did the trick.

Hedrin mousse is the least yucky to use. Expensive. Really easy. Just be sure to repeat a couple of times. No bother to use it and can go out with it in etc doesnt look awful.

Another vote for Hedrin here. And comb with a Nitty Gritty comb.

On top of all these, I've heard hair straighteners also helps destroy and leftover eggs

The only time DD had nits was following the 2007 floods when our water treatment plant was flooded and we had very little water - hair washing virtually impossible. I eliminated them, combing through her 3x a day. No conditioner or treatment as there wasn't sufficient water to rinse it.

As a teacher often without someone to comb I buy the stuff from Tesco - hedrin then repeat it a few days later. The conditioner method is fine if you can see but on your own it’s not great!

Is headlice common at uni? Like when they start school? Completely off topic but dd is off next year