Avoiding Head Lice, Sanitizing and Trying on New Hats

Baseball season started, and you're ready to collect a new set of baseball caps. But do you know where your cap was before you plopped it onto your head?

After the scare from the "Panty check, has someone worn your new department store underwear before you?" in which retail reps were selling used underwear and risking pubic lice, are you taking more caution when buying new items? Do you ever worry about head lice after buying that new baseball cap or top hat?

Recently I returned a set of rollers because they were too big for my shoulder-length hair. The Skokie Walmart location I was in didn't check the hair rollers to see if I'd worn them. I was just asked for a receipt and given my money back. I wondered if this store was that lenient with caps and hats, too, even with this much direct contact with the hair and head.

"You have 90 days with the receipt for a hat, and without the receipt you'll be given store credit," said a Walmart Customer Service representative. "We need the tag on it to identify whether it's from our store."

This location said nothing about whether the store had a strict policy about wearing the cap or hat beforehand.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lice are spread most commonly from direct head-to-head contact and less often from sharing clothes or other clothing belongings that lice or nits crawled into or fell from. The CDC recommends not sharing hats, scarves, coats, sports uniforms, combs, brushes and towels.

Like undergarments, hats are returnable if they are not worn, washed and usually have to be returned within a certain time period. However, it's even easier to spot a washed hat than it is to spot washed panties mainly because the hat bends in the washer and the stiff feel of the cap becomes nonexistent if put into a dryer. Even trying on a cap from a store that isn't very sanitary could lead to head lice risks if the cap was returned recently.

Before getting to the point of using pediculicide, malathion lotion or lindane shampoo to remove head lice, take some precautions before buying and wearing a cap or hat. Check your cap inside and out to make sure you don't see anything on it. Head lice lasts only one to two days without feeding off of blood and must be in the warmth of skin, like that on your head. Without it, lice will die off.

"You can put a sweat band inside of a top hat or use Woolite to clean the hat," said a representative at Hats Plus Ltd., located at 4706 W. Irving Park Rd., in Chicago. "But once you wash it, it'll be softer and its shape is different so you can't return it."

When asked whether a person who sanitizes a hat but decides later that he doesn't want it could return it, the representative said, "No. Once you've sanitized it or worn it, it's yours. But we don't take caps back unless the tags are on them."

So what do you do to avoid all of the people who have tried on the hats and caps before in the store? Even if head lice is clearly visible, wearing the hat of someone with dirty hair isn't something a consumer may be able to see. The same goes for someone with dirty skin on a bald head.

"I'll take Woolite and a toothbrush to clean my personal hats," the Hats Plus Ltd. representative said. "For me, it's easier to clean them this way before I wear them."

For clothing items that are not washable, they can be dry cleaned or stored in a sealed bag for two weeks.