CHECK
If you see your child itching their scalp (especially if they are itching behind their ears or nape of the neck) this is definitely the time to do a quick check, even if you have checked recently.
We recommend checking your child weekly for any signs of live head lice or unhatched eggs, it is far easier to treat if you can catch them early before they have hatched and start to breed.
If you can incorporate checking into your child’s daily hair care routine, whilst brushing or styling their hair before school or nursery, even better!
When checking your child’s hair pay particular attention to behind the ears, temples and nape of the neck, these are the main places where head lice like to lay their eggs.
Head lice will lay their eggs very close to the scalp where it’s nice and warm. The live eggs are about the size of a pinhead and brownish in colour. If you are finding white eggs and they are slightly further down the hair shaft, these are the nits – which are the empty egg cases. The eggs will be glued to the hair shaft and you will be unable to slide them down the hair strand with your fingers.
Check out our Lice School page to find out more about what eggs and head lice look like and the lifecycle of head lice.
TREAT
If you find any sign of live head lice, eggs or nits, you now need to treat the problem by doing a thorough combing.
Unlike other products on the market our award-winning Nitty Gritty NitFree comb is the only head lice product which removes not only the smallest head lice as well as the nits – the empty egg cases – but also, most importantly, it even removes the unhatched 'live' head louse eggs.
Firstly, saturate the hair with a head lice treatment or regular hair conditioner (combing dry hair is completely ineffective). If using our Nitty Gritty Aromatherapy Head Lice Solution then leave the solution on the hair for 20 minutes, the solution will help imobilise the head lice so they can’t move around the head while you are combing, it will also loosen up the glue that sticks the eggs to the hair.
If the hair is long enough, section the hair with hairdressing clips or hairbands in to 4 sections and go through each section thoroughly combing from root to tip, removing any lice or eggs from that section before moving onto the next section. Remove any lice or eggs from the comb teeth after each stroke, either in a bowl of water, under a running tap or with tissue.
Remember to pay extra attention to the areas behind the ears, crown, and nape of the neck.
It is important to treat the whole family if any member has head lice, otherwise, you will just pass them back and forth. Remember, not everyone itches when head lice are present.
PREVENT
To minimize your child’s chances of catching head lice make sure you tie their hair up every day for school or nursery, and for other social activities where you know they will be having close head-to-head contact with other children. If their hair is long we recommend tying the hair into tight plaits or a tight bun. We also highly recommend using our Nitty Gritty Conditioning Defence Spray, which you simply spritz onto the child’s hair before school or nursery. It is made up of a carefully chosen blend of ingredients, which smell lovely to us, but not so nice to head lice! Head Lice use their sense of smell to detect the presence of a potential new host, so by disguising the host’s natural smell head lice will stay put rather than migrating over to your child’s hair. Just a few spritz each morning before school or nursery or other social gatherings where you know your child will be in close contact with other children, will keep those pesky lice at bay!
We hope you found this blog post useful, if you did why not share it in your class Whatsapp group, as the more parents that understand the importance of checking and treating head lice correctly the more it will help reduce the spread of head lice in your child's school or pre-school.
For lots more tips and facts about head lice and to watch our informative video on how to effectively comb for head lice check out our Lice School.
This is super helpful, thank you.