Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We have not had an issue with lice since we started using Fairly Tales Shampoo. After multiple outbreaks in my kids school, I did a ton of research on dealing with lice and lice prevention. If you are at your wits end and are about the line your family up and shear them like a heard of sheep, read on.... Here is what I have found to work for me: Personal Experience - My kids are now 8 & 10.   I have dealt with lice twice – once when my daughter was 5 (with one recurrence two weeks later) and once when she was 7. The second time around I learned a new tactic that prevented a recurrence (daily combing with a lice comb for three weeks).  Last school year I added daily doses of prevention spray  to the mix.  I also added tea tree oil to everything! Both my kids are sick of the smell of tea tree oil!   Lice do not care about what kind of house we live in, our economic status, our level of cleanliness etc...  In fact, lice actually prefer clean hair because they can move around more freely.  While we can't prevent being exposed to lice, there are some simple and effective steps we can take to prevent constant outbreaks and recurrences in our families and classrooms.   1. Get a Professional Steel Lice & Nit Comb  Most professionals use and recommend the Nit Free Terminator Lice Comb (Available on Amazon). There are others available, but it is the top rated nit and lice comb out there. 2. Use Your Lice Comb Weekly & All-Year Regardless If You See Lice or Nits. According to lice professionals, this is the most important prevention technique we can ever do because it is extremely easy to miss lice and nits, especially if an outbreak is in the early stages. If your child has been around someone with lice or there is a known outbreak at school, bump up your combings to two or three times a week to catch early infestations (Note: when I say combings, I am always referring to using a steel nit & lice comb). If your child is prone to getting lice and there are known outbreaks, bump up the combings to daily until the outbreaks have totally cleared. If your child has just been treated for lice, it is extremely important to:   - Do daily combings for at least two weeks following treatment. One of the reasons for this is lice leave behind a “sent” that attracts more lice. Also, if you have missed any nits, you will have a new case of lice all over again and daily combing catches things early. Re-infestation is extremely common for several weeks after an initial treatment is done.  -After two weeks, if nits and/or lice are not found during combings for at least two consecutive days, you can go down to two or three times a week and then once a week for maintenance if no re-infestations occur within the month.  Use prevention products such as the Fairy Tales Line, Licelogic ( both on Amazon) You can also make your own prevention spray by adding tea tree oil (5 drops to 1 ounce) to your kids shampoo, conditioner, detangler and hairspray. Spray your kids hair right before school or any event where they will be around other children.  Have girls wear their hair up in a bun or in a tight braid during a known outbreak. Speak to your kids about the importance of not sharing brushes, hats or other hair accessories. Increase your prevention tactics (combing, treatment shampoo, spray etc...) right after kids return to school from any break (summer, Christmas, spring etc..) Ramp up your prevention efforts after travel, vacation, sleepovers, camps, visits from cousins or any new group your kids are exposed to. More Information On Combing Spending ones time and energy actually doing a careful and thorough combing is a far better method than doing weekly head-checks alone. It is very important to learn how to use the lice comb correctly so it is effective at removing all the nits and lice. A short video that I found helpful is by a company called Lice Control. The most important thing to remember about effective combing is to divide the hair into small sections and comb each section from all directions. This means you comb it from the top down, from the bottom up, from right to left and left to right. Make sure the tips of the comb stays on the scalp across the entire section before you pull the hair through the comb. Head Checks Note: Again, I want to make the point that it is important to know how to do a thorough head check, but current thinking is that combing with a lice comb is far more important than just checking. That said, it is still important to know how to do thorough head-checks. When a child is sent home with lice, many parents will say that they just did a lice check and are shocked to learn the lice are in full party mode on their child's hear. The truth is, they probably missed the early signs several days before.  Unless a child has an advanced case of lice, the chances of actually seeing lice or nits in a 30-second head check is rare. A careful lice-check takes several minutes or more depending on the length and thickness of the hair. Because of this, it is not feasible for teachers to take time out the the school schedule to do thorough lice checks. Typically teachers will do checks if there is a known outbreak in the classroom, but parents need to be the ones taking prevention seriously as there is only so much a school can do. The best place to do do a head-check is outside in bright sunlight. If that is not possible, use a spotlight. I usually have my daughter put her head down on a table, part her hair down the middle and divide it into sections. Then, using a rat-tail comb I go through each section, examining one paper-thin row at at time. This will take me 5 to 10 minutes, but she has long, thick hair. My son has short, fine hair so it takes me just a couple minutes to go through his hair. On average, a careful lice-check can be done in just a few minutes if you know what you are looking for. Nits - are attached to one side of a single piece of hair near the scalp. They are about the size of a poppy seed (or smaller) and are oval in shape. They range in color from white (already hatched) to yellow, tan, brown or dark brown. It is very easy to mistake sand, dirt, dry skin or other things caught in the hair for nits. Remember that nits are always "glued" to a single piece of hair, therefore will not easily move. Lice – are about the size of a sesame seed but can vary in color and be various shades (light or dark) tan, yellow, brown or reddish. They also vary in size depending where there are in their life-cycle. The pesticide-based products (like Rid & Nix) are no longer effective. The professionals now use enzyme based products for their initial treatment (available with all the product lines I mentioned above). Some people have found treatments with coconut or olive oil mixed with tea tree oil to be very effective at killing the lice (not the nits). This method involves saturating your child's hair with the mixture, working it through the hair, covering it with a plastic cap and sleeping in it. The most important part of treating lice (regardless of your initial treatment method) is to learn to use your lice comb correctly and comb every day for two to three weeks. If you are not diligent with combing, you will most likely have constant recurrences . This is an area where five minutes of prevention every day can save hours of dealing with an infestation. --