Why a Head Lice Comb is More Effective Than Shampoo

You may be surprised to find out that the most effective tool in combating head lice is the same as it was centuries ago: the lowly and astonishingly effective head lice comb. No one wants to find out that their child has brought home head lice, yet millions of children do each year, leaving parents to wonder what they should do next. In the mid-20th century, it became commonplace to use pesticides in over-the-counter (OTC) products to kill lice. However, people are increasingly realizing that these products simply don't work. They can also be very dangerous, especially on children.

Why pesticides don't work

There are several reasons why putting a lice-killing shampoo on your kid's head simply doesn't work. The eggs or "nits" of lice are, like many other insect eggs, very tough. They are literally glued to the hair follicle to resist being washed away and the tough casing doesn't allow in the pesticides found in over-the-counter lice treatments. Even when they do hatch, lice don't actually have a fully-developed nervous system for up to four days after hatching. Without nerves to kill, insecticides that work by altering neurotransmitter function do nothing.

Even more worrisome is the emergence of pesticide resistant lice in recent years. When all but the resistant individuals of a lice population are killed by any product, only the survivors will be left to breed a largely resistant replacement population. Even with a single application of the most commonly used lice-killing shampoos, you may simply be selecting out all the lice that will make future pesticide applications useless. This is most especially true since nearly all OTC lice-control products contain the same family of active ingredients.

Pesticide toxicity concerns

For starters, the most common active ingredient in these shampoos is pyrethrum (aka pyrethrins) and the synthetic pyrethroids. The former is found in small concentrations in the chrysanthemum and was once chemically isolated as a pest deterrent. Crushed and treated mums have been used for centuries in historical Persia. Since the early 20th century, this compound has been commercially found in its highly toxic, synthesized form, though both are known to cause nerve damage and developmental difficulties in relatively small doses (as compared with body mass).

There are many segments of the population that should not have such lice killing products put on their heads or even be in the same room with them. Such groups include pregnant women, children under two, people with asthma, immunosuppression and sensitive individuals with allergies to pesticides and other chemicals.

The real natural solution

There are any number of home remedies that use various products, food items and other preparations that can't possibly be good for your hair. What each of them has in common is the use of a comb to get the nits and lice out. It remains a fact that the only way to really reliably get rid of lice is to manually remove them. And, the best way to do this is to use a high-quality, metal head lice comb to pull the adults and nits off each hair strand — not that plastic nit-comb that comes with many of the OTC shampoos.