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Original poster

do hair straightners kill head lice & eggs?

25 replies

chocoroco · 06/02/2007 15:48

my DD is coming home with these awful lice every few weeks. i have tried every lotion there is. i have used tea tree conditioner etc but the buggers still come back. i have complained to the school as obviously someone isn't checking their kids hair.

could i use straightners as a drastic measure? i will obviously be careful not to burn her scalp. would it kill the lice and eggs???

OP posts:

pesme · 06/02/2007 15:49

no but it would give them a good hair day!

pesme · 06/02/2007 15:50

sorry, you have my sympathy obviously.

McDreamy · 06/02/2007 15:51

I watched an interview the other day with a GP and she said that alot of lotions no longer work as the lice are becoming more and more tolerant but that straightners would kill the lice but not the eggs so you would have to do it a few times combined with combing

ItsMeMellowma · 06/02/2007 15:51

I think they would leave the eggs but I worth a try to get rid of the live ones, perhaps.

JackieNo · 06/02/2007 15:51

I don't think you'd be able to get them close enough to her scalp to kill them without burning her, tbh. Nice idea, and might be worth a go though, just to see if it has any effect. But if other parents aren't getting rid of them, they'll probaby still come back.

McDreamy · 06/02/2007 15:51

should have written resistant not tolerant!!!

Original poster

chocoroco · 06/02/2007 15:54

thanks. might give it a go. i will just have to be very careful.

i have spent a fortune on headlice treatment only for her to come home with the things again. why can't every parent check their kids hair. its not too much to ask.

OP posts:

ItsMeMellowma · 06/02/2007 15:56

Apparently the combs are also very good. I have dss so keep their hair very short, thankfully, can boys get nits??? Yes i suppose they can...

JackieNo · 06/02/2007 15:57

Oh yes - both my DD and my DS have had nits. We've just stuck with the conditioner/Nitty Gritty essential oil stuff and the comb. Seems to work.

Original poster

chocoroco · 06/02/2007 16:00

jackie what nitty gritty oil stuff do you mean? is tea tree oil?

OP posts:

DrumMum · 06/02/2007 16:03

my kids keep getting head lice and I have taken to straightening their hair... try putting a comb close to her root and follow through with the straightening irons and the comb... I don't think they will live if you do small sections and do it slow...
I still de nit with a nit comb every night as well..... so the straightening is really just to make sure....

missingsleep · 06/02/2007 16:05

Electrical nit comb is what I'd advise. It electrocutes the little bastards. Has worked for me on lotion resistant nits.

JackieNo · 06/02/2007 16:07

Chocoroco - it's got tea trea and other things in it - this one - though I bought the 'complete pack' on this page with the oil, the comb and the repellent spray. I have been forgetting to use the repellent spray, and they've come back in the last week.

Original poster

chocoroco · 06/02/2007 16:09

electric nit comb. never heard of it. where can i buy one.

OP posts:

BassMama · 06/02/2007 16:32

Straighteners do work

I had head lice (caught from a girl at my work who also worked in a school) for months tried everything - nothing worked. Went to doc they said the same as McDreamy said - the lice are immune to most of them now.

Anyway, I used to wear my hair curly most days back then, and a few months passes (all the while still liced-up) and i started to straighten my hair with my GHD's again every day. Within a couple of weeks the nits were gone.

The heat seemed to kill the eggs, and obviuosly the lice as well.

Dont worry about getting too close to her head, just do it every day for a week or so and you'll get them all.

I'd keep combing though, it always helps.

missingsleep · 07/02/2007 13:39

You can get electric nit comb from argos - called rio bug zapper. £15 and well worth it.

ForeverBlowingBubbles · 07/02/2007 14:46

I read on another thread somewhere that the best thing to use is HEDRIN. Not tried it myself, but the MNers on there were saying that instead of poisoning the lice like the lotions do, it coats them in something so that they suffocate - therefore they cannot grow immune to it. Sounds great to me and I will be trying it next time my DD has nits.

Personally I think using straighteners on children's heads sounds a bit dodgy! Lice are usually found on the scalp where it is warm, not on the hair where you can get them with straighteners. You really do run the risk of burning your child's head. I straighten my own hair and even though I don't get it close to the roots, I still burn myself sometimes, LOL, so I really wouldn't recommend it for children.

DrumMum · 07/02/2007 15:39

ForeverBlowingBubbles... thats why I mentioned using a comb to protect the scalp.. Hedrin is good... we've used it but it becomes expensive if you have to keep using it..

wurlywurly · 07/02/2007 15:49

we was on a school trip last week and whilst on the coach i turned around to speak to a little girl sat behind me, and you could see nits walking thru her hair and on the strand of hair, it made me feel phyiscally sick. I know its not the little girls fault, i was sat about a foot away from her so they must have been left for sometime to get to size that you can easily see them. When i mentioned it to the teacher, she said that she is not allowed to mention it to the girls parents, but at the same time i know children that were sent home from school before christmas as they were alive with nit and the parents were told to not bring the children back to school until they had been treated.

NotAnOtter · 07/02/2007 15:54

i always straighten nitty hair!surely they cannot live through that

PhilG · 07/02/2007 22:11

Hedrin is good, but if you use it as an adult and you dye your hair, the colour seems to flood out! weird! Hedrin is an oil so next time we get lice I am going to try baby oil and my fien tooth comb. Wurlywurly - that schoolis very naughty sending kids home because of lice - they are not ill! Lice are always in school so sending kids home won't create a firebreak in transmission, just inconvenience parents and stop children from learning for a few days. The life cycle is about 2 weeks so the best the school could do is request that everyone checks and treats hair in a long holiday.Some won't bother, so its all abit useless - take it from me I've been a Headteacher for years!!!

StaceyScott · 17/06/2013 10:02

Nits are a nightmare, and I became fed up with spending heaps of money on ineffective treatments. Now what I do everyday is comb their hair with a nit comb and either gel my boys hair or put mousse on it when they go to school. Buy cheap hair conditioner and when they are in the bath wash their hair and slap conditioner over the hair and go through with a nit comb. It's a little time consuming but it works and it does not cost the earth and my boys have lovely hair ;)

overthinking · 17/06/2013 10:09

I've never used the lotions and potions as friends say they don't work.
Have always relied on my Nana's solution which is olive oil. I put it in the DDs' hair, comb through with the nit comb and rinse out, then shampoo twice. The olive oil makes the lice comatose so they come out too.
The girls like it cos it makes their hair soft!
It's worked every time. I also spray their hair with a mixture of water, lavender and tea tree oil before they go to school. (Tis a 'nitty' school!)

2kidsintow · 24/06/2013 17:28

Lots of cheap conditioner and thorough combing worked for us.
That and waiting for her class to get that bit older so they weren't all over each other when they played. She's gone from bringing them home at least once a week, to not having had them all school year.

Thank goodness.

scarrick87 · 07/03/2016 16:34

Ive caught headlice from my daughter - after getting the actual headlice out I am still left with the hatched eggs - I cant get these out and have been asking the hubby to do it but of course he cant do it properly. Is there anything I can do? I am using the nitty gritty comb every day - also tried conditioner and using it and Hedrin. HELP - I want to get my hair done but cant go to hairdressers. There should be people you can go to to get this sorted lol - would be fab if I could see my own hair haha x

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