Head lice thrive on humans as hosts and mostly live on human head and neck. Feeding off of human blood, they try to stay as close to the skin or scalp as possible.
They use their six lags to firmly attach to hair shaft and move around. These legs are the reason their treatment can be somewhat difficult.
The female lice lay eggs, also known as nits whose color ranges from white to gray. If you have natural dark brown hair like me, having your head infested with gray lice is truly a nightmare. I remember hours of tedious headlice treatment my mom performed that I had to endure. White ones are very difficult to detect if a person has blond. They seem to use good camouflage.
If the incubation is successful, they morph into baby nymphs. The louse goes from a nit, to baby nymph to a full-grown louse.
What do head lice look like? Picture of head louse courtesy of Wikipedia
Prevention
Wash your head regularly to minimize the risk. Head lice are not a sign of bad hygiene, but washing the hair and thus the scalp, might just help, so why not?
Shaving your hair off is fine if you are a guy, but what do you do if you are a female? For longer hair, the best "tool" to help you prevent head louse from multiplying is a nit or head louse comb available at any store.
Home remedy for head lice
Lice oil removal
Ingredients
Olive oil serves as a carrier oil, it dilutes the other essential oils keeping them from quick evaporation.
Rosemary and lavender will kill and smother the lice.
Preparation and use
Head lice treatment lotion
The rosemary and lavender essential oils in this lotion kill the nits, and vinegar makes it easier for them to slide down the hair shaft.
Ingredients
Preparation
After this, wash the hair with head louse shampoo using the instructions on the bottle.
Thyme shampoo
Ingredients
When we say thyme, we usually think of food and its wide use in food preparation. However, thyme and essential thyme oil are great antiseptics and disinfectants, and also a great natural insecticide. It shouldn't be used undiluted so you need to this:
Preparation
Head lice tea tree oil remedy
Ingredients
Preparation
Wikipedia.org also suggests blending equal amounts of vinegar and olive oil and adding 20 drops of tea tree oil.
Apply the mixture to damp hair, massage and comb the hair. Wrap the hair in a plastic bag for 3 or more hours. Use this head louse treatment for 10 days or at least repeat in 4 to 5 days.
Looking for a specific recipe, home remedy or ingredient? Type the word and browse through the results.