Natural Head Lice Prevention for Children

As the mother of a large family, and a foster mother of more than fifty children ages five and under, we have been exposed to head lice many times, and have caught it more than once. It's an unpleasant thing to have to deal with, and can make you feel ashamed because of the stigma attached to it.

Since we are exposed to it fairly regularly, I've learned to keep the ingredients we need to deal with it if caught, and even prevent it if we know ahead of time: a bottle of cheap conditioner, and clove oil.

Over the years, I found that the store bought lice shampoos are useless, which frustrated me. The prescription remedy worked perfectly, but was very expensive, and had a long list of very scary side effects risks.

As I searched online for natural remedies, most of them very messy and hard to wash out, it seemed to me that often there was an underlying theme: essential oils. I bought several and gave them a try.

Tea tree oil was the most mentioned one, but it didn't work as well or as quickly as I hoped. I tried rosemary oil, something that is very good for your hair, and again, I found it didn't work overly well. I thought about it a while, and finally decided to use one of the most potent essential oils I knew of: clove oil.

I mixed a big dose of clove oil in a bottle of cheap conditioner. I washed my child's hair and then worked the conditioner in well. I let it set for a few minutes, then combed through the child's hair with a lice comb. Sure enough, all the lice were dead.

Since clove oil is a natural product, I used it every couple of days to be sure we were getting any nits that hatched out. Within two weeks, I felt confident enough the lice were gone to quit using it.

Recently, we were exposed to a child for several days who had quite a raging case of head lice. Knowing that we were very likely to catch it, I went ahead and mixed up the clove oil conditioner, and began to use it on my children and myself right away. It worked, and we didn't get head lice.

So if you have children in day care or public school, or anywhere that they are exposed to a lot of other children often, keep a bottle of clove oil in your medicine cabinet. I've found it's the best lice prevention and treatment you can buy!