If you are facing the job of using head lice home remedies to kill head lice, then be serious about the job and make sure you do it right. As a parent, thinking about a commercial shampoo to kill head lice, you may want to rethink whether you want to put those toxic chemicals on your child's head or not.

The noted American Academy of Pediatrics recommends using the Nix shampoo product as the most effective treatment for head lice, but are you aware that if you do, you are putting toxic pesticides on you child's scalp.

Because of the societal disgust that is frequently associated with head lice, many parents knee jerk reaction is to go looking for the fastest way they can find to kill the nasty little parasites. There are some parents though who will take a better thought through course of action by finding alternatives that will not expose their child to the commercial toxins.

For sure, you want and need to get rid of all of the lice and all of their eggs. If the person has known allergies or if you are worried about using possibly toxic chemicals on them, then you will start looking for healthier alternatives.

Probably the most simple and time tested home remedy to avoid the pesticides would be to use a fine tooth nit comb and manually remove the lice and their eggs (called nits) from the person's hair. This combing is time consuming and needs to be done each day for at least two or three days. Even when you use a commercial lice treatment, the time taking process of combing out all the nits and lice still has to be done.

Some people follow a common home remedy that has you put a substance like mayonnaise, Vaseline or Olive Oil all over the hair and left on for at least eight hours to smother lice to death. By leaving this greasy substance is left on overnight under a plastic shower cap (to keep the mess contained) then this remedy works quite well. While this is a messy way of getting the job done it works well. Many experts are of the opinion that it is because by cleaning up the hair afterwards, that process actually removes all the parasites and the eggs at the same time. When using this method, it is advised that you should rinse the hair with Vinegar in order to dissolve the remaining grease and this procedure makes it more difficult for any residual eggs to stick on the strands of hair.

There is a non-pesticide treatment you may want to consider using. It is a medication named Ulesfia. You would need to talk with your doctor about this one because it does require a medical prescription. When using Ulesfia, the hair should be saturated and the medication left on the hair for ten minutes before you wash it out. Whoever uses this product needs to be sure to see that it is applied again in seven days after the first application. This ensures the killing of any freshly hatched nymphs from eggs that may have been remaining. This medication basically works by suffocating lice.

There are also additional home remedies that have been reported to be effective to get rid of lice on the scalp. These would include treatments made from herbs, spices and essential or aromatic oils. Probably the most common of these is the tea tree oil remedy but these methods like other home remedies are claimed effective by many who have used them but most have not been scientifically tested and thus proven to be effective.

To help prevent future infestations, do your homework and learn how to identify adult lice, nymphs (which are young lice) and lice nits in the hair. Also, it is advisable to periodically inspect young children, especially if they have much contact with other children. Armed with knowledge and by doing regular inspections for hair lice, you can avoid the unnecessary inconvenience of treating children for lice when there is no need to do so. Taking preventative measures helps to avoid the problem altogether.

When girls wear their hair up and have gel in it, the chances are for lice to be transferred from one child to another. It is wise to make sure your children are informed about the lice cycle. The transfer of lice from one person to another only happens with direct physical contact. A louse has no wings and does not have the ability to jump from one host to another.

It is best if you teach your children to try and avoid doing things that could cause them to have direct contact with one another other. They should also avoid sharing combs, hair brushes, hats, hair ties, bows or any other item that might have had direct contact with the hair or scalp of another person.

When you teach your children to take these preventative steps, the chances of another attack is brought to a minimum. Through the whole family's education, awareness and good habits of personal interaction, you are practicing the best preventative steps that will help avoid having to deal with this lousy problem in the future.