Treat Lice with Mayonnaise and Plastic Shower Caps

I have had one occasion to have to deal with this with my children, when one of my kids brought it home with her from school and passed it to two of the other kids. My kindergartener (at the time) had said her head itched and I didn't think too much of it until she said it again a couple days later. So I took a look at her head. ICK! Lice - eggs and hatched buggers running around like her head was a playground.

After my initial creepy crawlie reaction, I got to work (after pulling my hair into a pony tail every day to make sure they didn't have lots of opportunity to jump on my really long strands). I tried SO many things too for my kids. I washed all their bed linens and clothes and put all their stuffed animals in garbage bags (sealed tight). For their hair, I didn't want to try chemicals at first. I tried vinegar, letting it sit on the head for a bit before rinsing. The kids hated that. It didn't work completely. I tried Pepsi, dousing their head with a two liter. The kids hated that too. It didn't work enough either. I did olive oil with tee tree oil, having them sleep in it overnight. Nothing was working!! During all of this, I did the combing the hair with the nit combs. Those silly combs would leave nits behind, though they were picking up the more mature insects. What are they called nit combs for? Then, I did something I didn't want to have to do - went to chemicals. I tried the over-the-counter chemicals with combing. That didn't work. I tried it again after the required time frame (didn't want to fry their skin). Still we had lice. The pediatrician was going to prescribe a prescription strength treatment, but there was one more treatment I wanted to try first before I resorted to prescription strength chemicals on my children.

I went out and bought a tub of mayonnaise and plastic shower caps. I used one of those hair dye brushes and started applying mayo at the root first, making sure to totally cover every strand of hair enough so that none of those little buggers could escape. After going through each section of hair, one small section at a time and covering everything, I worked more mayo down the hair shaft to the ends of their hair. They looked like they had a mayo helmet on their head. I put a shower cap on their head (to protect the bedsheets) and sent them off to bed. The kids didn't like this either as the mayo does smell. If you have a son, he is definitely not going to like the shower cap but too bad. When they woke up, I washed their heads several times and watched the dead lice float away. I suffocated the little buggers good and dead. A week later, I repeated the procedure to catch any newly hatched lice. Finally! Three lice-free children's heads again. We had found a safe way to treat lice without saturating their scalps in chemicals!

The kids were lice-free! After a month of hassle and irritation at trying to rid the kids' heads of lice, something in my fridge worked easily and without putting poison on their heads again! I still checked their heads every week for several weeks after that to make sure. Thankfully, we had gotten them all. No more lice.

I hope to never have to deal with lice again, but if we have the misfortune to have the uninvited guests again, I know a tub of mayo and a shower cap will do the trick. What a relief.

So if your child or grandchild comes home with lice, get out the Miracle Whip and get to work. Make sure you really soak their scalp and every strand in it good - don't skimp and go light. Make the effort worthwhile. The kids will have to put up with the smell overnight but it's better than putting poisons on their head.