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Head Lice Prevention Tips

Head Lice Prevention Tips – Your child has lice! Now what? Tips to prevent the onset of head lice. Home care, shampoos, and business recommendations to

eradicate head lice. My children’s school is going through another head lice outbreak. In the past year, several kids in both my daughter’s and son’s classes have been come down with head lice (some kids up to 3 times each within the past 12 months). My daughter brought head lice home from school twice in one year.

If you’ve ever experienced the head lice problem, I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to treat and remove the lice so your house (not just your child’s head) will be lice free. The steps you have to go through to get rid of the lice are numerous and time consuming!

There are many simple head lice prevention tips that can help prevent the onset of lice. Here are some suggestions that I’ve found through research, as well as experience…

HEAD LICE PREVENTION TIPS

  • Have girls wear their hair up. Ideally, a bun is most effective along with a full circle elastic head band that will keep any loose hairs from falling onto the neck.
  • Use Denorex shampoo daily after being exposed to an environment that may have been ridden with head lice. The Denorex shampoo kills the live bugs, not the eggs, so either you catch it before any eggs are laid, or you slow the process down to a quicker ending. I’ve heard T-Gel shampoo works as well.
  • Mix straight Tea Tree Oil with a bottle of spray leave-in conditioner and mist hair with it before sending the kids off to school. Lice do not like the smell so this acts as a nice deterrent.
  • Head lice like clean hair, so feel free to go a few days without washing. Continue to mist hair daily with the tea tree oil spray.
  • Put jackets and hats into the backpacks rather than hanging in a cubby pressed against another jacket.
  • Do hair checks every couple days if you hear of a lice outbreak at school or wherever your kids are social. The sooner you catch it, the easier it is to rid of it. Do what you can to notify your child’s teacher or principal of any impending lice outbreak and hope they take action by sending out notes and warnings to parents.
  • If you are unfortunate enough to get head lice, sometimes the best option is the quickest option. Rapunzel’s Lice Boutique is the only business that uses specific FDA approved equipment to rid of the lice, and guarantees their work. It’s pricey, but so is numerous over the counter kits, constantly vacuuming and doing laundry, missed days off work, and hours and upon hours of your precious time. I sought out Repunzel’s Lice Boutique salon to help with my daughter’s lice problem. You can read more about their services here. I found the convenience of lice elimination to be worth the cost!
  • Run jackets, hats and backpacks in a clothes dryer cycle periodically. Per usual, never let your child share hats or jackets.
  • Use an adhesive lint brush on your child’s backpacks, jackets, home furniture surfaces – they’re havens for head lice! Also keep a lint brush in your purse to brush down movie theater seats, doctors office waiting room chairs, etc.

For more info on head lice prevention tips, visit aap.org.

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