It happens to the best of us: your child comes home with a head full of lice and you wonder how that happened, because you always take good care of their hair. This experience can be stressful for parents, and ever scary for younger children.
Head lice love a nice warm location, and the hair is a great place for them hide and lay their eggs. When these eggs hatch, the baby lice leave behind nits, the white empty shells that can resemble ugly dandruff.
But more than the embarrassment they bring, head lice can be very annoying and painful, since they obtain their food by biting and sucking out blood. Did you know that lice may bite as often as a thousand times a day? And here is more! The saliva released by lice when biting can, over time, cause dullness in the host, thus the term “nitwit.”
So, what can you do about it? You have a few options: you can give the child a head shaving (which most of us don’t really want to do), go out and buy an over the counter medicine, or something more natural and cheaper. Let’s look at the natural options and see what you can do.
Over the years, essential oils have been used to get rid of lice infestation, especially in children who are very sensitive to over the counter solutions. One excellent essential oil that effectively manages lice is tea tree oil. A number of scientific studies have proven that tea tree oil is indeed an amazing alternative solution comparable to DEET when dealing with lice. In a research study published in 2012, it was found out that tea tree oil is successful in killing both lice and dust mites.
Here’s what you need in order to get rid of lice naturally:
- coconut oil
- tea tree oil
- vinegar
- flea comb
Watch the short video below to see how you can use the ingredients above to treat lice.
How To Prevent Getting Lice
Now that you got rid of those nasty creatures, here’s how you can keep from getting them back.
- Teach your children to never share combs, hats, etc.
- Thoroughly brush their hair night and day. Since lice are not very strong, they cannot survive vigorous brushing.
- Put 5-20 drops of tea tree oil into all bottles of all shampoos used in your household.
- Run bedding with the hottest setting in your drier. Lice will not survive in extreme temperatures.
Using tea tree oil for lice is probably the easiest method to get rid of these unwanted and unwelcome guests, and it’s not only natural, but also cheap!
