Using TeaTree for head lice, but just beware...

After using a treatment shampoo that did not kill the lice on my son, we found that most people had more success using a variety of treatments. So far, vinegar has been the best thing for getting rid of eggs. It DOES NOT destroy the eggs, it dissolves the glue that holds them in hair and allows you to comb them out. We thought our son was fine after a cut, a treatment and many combings. The school nurse even gave him a clean bill of health. Because I was still worried, we treated him by soaking his hair with regular white vinegar, wrapping it in a shower cap for 30 minutes, shampooing with tea tree oil shampoo and then combing his hair with a lice comb. We found 12 more unhatched eggs (the brown kind) during the combing after the vinegar. No one that examined him saw these eggs and they were very small and had not come loose during previous combing. I hope that was really it. I believe vinegar, used with other things, really helps.

My youngest daughter had head lice and I used other products to get rid of the lice but they were still alive. I bought 100% tea tree oil and they're now dead. I now only use tea tree shampoo by Paul Mitchell everyday until I am able to get all the eggs out - so far it's working great.

Thanks for posting your experience with using tea tree oil on head lice. It's unfortunate to read you had some scalp issues with the tea tree oil. What brand of tea tree oil did you use and do you know the concentration? I wonder if your oil had an excessively high concentration of terpines or perhaps your scalp may be sensitive to tea tree oil? Doing a small skin test on the scalp may help determine if one has an allergy or sensitivity to tea tree oil before covering the entire scalp with it. Thanks for sharing this as other people may need to be aware of doing a skin test before using tea tree oil on head lice.