dreaddy family in need of all sorts of advice

thank you, i plan on picking some up as soon as i can get my money converted from 1's and 0's to green stuff... and the kids have already done vinegar,, so alcohol should be ok... at least no worse.

Amanda said:

you need 70 percent rubbing alcohol to sit on your heads under plastic for 15 to 30 minutes ever 3 days for 9 days to get rid of the lice. Along with that you can use neem seed oil to destroy there reproduction. Also change out all the bedding and such. Tea tree oil is supposed to prevent lice so that might be helpful to pick up too. Good luck getting rid of the bugs!

p.s. there are many ways to get rid of lice this is just the most diy. Idk how putting alcohol on a kids head is gunna work out for you.

p.p.s the alcohol burns a little but feels almost good and will clean up any bites they may have taken out.

Yes - what Amanda says about the alcohol AND plastic, lice breath through holes in the sides of the bodies so the plastic needs to be wrapped tight as possible and for no less time than 15 mins. Another great way of killing the lice is ( i know your going to think she's nuts,) but apply loads of conditioner on the roots before you put the plastic bag over, the conditioner blocks the breathing holes in the lice.

Amanda said:

you need 70 percent rubbing alcohol to sit on your heads under plastic for 15 to 30 minutes ever 3 days for 9 days to get rid of the lice. Along with that you can use neem seed oil to destroy there reproduction. Also change out all the bedding and such. Tea tree oil is supposed to prevent lice so that might be helpful to pick up too. Good luck getting rid of the bugs!

p.s. there are many ways to get rid of lice this is just the most diy. Idk how putting alcohol on a kids head is gunna work out for you.

p.p.s the alcohol burns a little but feels almost good and will clean up any bites they may have taken out.

If you need any step by step advice i am a qualified hairdresser whom has left the hairdressing industry because of how fake and money grabbing salons are, now my passion is just forthe most simplistic natural way of carring for dreadlocks.

I stress about the conditioner and plastic bag technique only because its the most natural way to get ridd of lice and it works. Another reason for doing this is because if you need to split up some of your hubbies dreads it will make this MUCH easier and will be easier to remove those bits of elastic bands,as soon as you have done the conditioning treatment you can absolutely wash out all the conditioner straight after the treatment You would have to treat everyone at the exact same time as it only takes a second for a lice to jump to a clean head and its clean hair that lice r attracted to so their eggs stick to the hair cuticle. The same day you do the treatments you would have to change all pillow cases and sheets as theres the eggs that have fallen off in them. I am telling you this with first hand experience with having dreads myself and 2 children, i hate using toxic bought treatments so i don't and lice with dreads is a pain, i know when only 1 lice has jumped into my dreads straight way, so i totally understand both your frustraition and dispair at times. I know conditioner is not supposed to be used when dreading but that is why i say you can wash it all straight out. Try and find out what contact any of your family is having with outsiders whom might be infected, primary schools are the worst place for lice. One imporant thing i have just thought of, you will get lice in a couple of weeks again after your conditioning treatment this is beacause all the eggs would of hatched from the lice that you just got ridd of, so another treatment should do the trick and if any more eggs hatch do it again and then you should be free. Add a couple of drops of T tree oil to the conditioner this will make any lice from anywhere else not want to be near you.

There are other ideas but if i were to tell you all in 1 go this comment would be pages long, i know i have gone on a bit but i do understand what you r all going through and know this will work, any concerns about the conditioner i am only too happy to answer.

It is the schools where the kids get the lice in the first place.

Indiga Silverhawk said:

wow thanks for that. no shit, i want them gone! thats why i said that is my #1 priority... and my kids arent in school, they are home with me. i got them from friends that lied too. so... thanks for looking down your nose at me. i came here for help, not judgement. i get enough of that in real life, don't need it from strangers. to anyone else reading this, if you have nothing constructive to say, don't comment.

amethyst777 said:

Wow... I sure hope you aren't sending your kids to school with lice. Personally I wouldn't worry about anything but getting rid of the bugs! It's just not healthy! Organic, natural, residue, whatever... get rid of the bugs. I'd be quite upset if my kids went to school with your little guys. It's horribly disrespectful to put other's through the whole lice thing. Get some lice shampoo and some lice spray and get the bugs gone. Think about other people PLEASE! You're spreading them around!
I find it odd that you're worried about separating and how to shampoo and well... EVERYTHING else, while there are bugs crawling around in your hair, and I'm absolutely positive that you've passed them on to other people.
You seem really nice and sincere, but have your priorities completely out of whack Please take care of this, for your families health and so other's don't have to deal with it. And forgive me for being so blunt about it. You can ask others here, I'm not a mean or disrespectful person, but my family had lice, and I later found we got it from some dear friends of ours that wouldn't take care of it. We're no longer friends, because I couldn't stand getting lice everytime they came around. Please don't do that to your friends and family. My daughter also had a horrible reaction to the lice shampoo, and my mother an sisters got them from us. It made our lives miserable for quite some time. If you can't think of anything else, at least realize what you may be putting those close to you through....

Good luck and take care and don't hate me...

Baking soda is an alkali and any vinigar is an acid so they r opposites on the ph scale, so when mixed booom! They r great for making sand of mud volcanos, you make a small hill out of say mud and then make a hole in it, then sprinkle some baking soda in first then pour in a little vinigar and you will get froth comming out like a baby volcano, the kids will love it. Another idea on rainy days is give the kids some baking soda to play with on the floor, carpet or matts, let them sprinckle it everywhere, its good for the carpet etc, give them some stencels with it, keeps the occupied for hours. Also rice and dried beans or lentals and a bowl so they can seperste them witha sieve
I think usingbaking soda and vinigarto wash your hair would give a nicethorough wash - great idea!
Indiga Silverhawk said:

what is the difference as far as pH between acv and reg vinegar? i have both...
i use reg vinegar to clean everything, bought the acv the other day cuz i kept seeing people say to use that, but haven't washed yet.

Kelsey Cliche! said:

I don't know anything about lice but I have seen a few posts on that around here if you want to do a search.

I do want to note that when you do your baking soda wash, rinse it out completely before applying the apple cider vinegar. The bubbly/foamy reaction is not the kind you want on your scalp. Doing BS then ACV separately helps to restore the PH balance on your scalp. Washing regularly (1-2x a week) will help the dreading process too, as oily/greasy hair is too slippery to knot. Good luck!

I have a lot of friends (some are teachers) who swear by the mayo method. Basically, slathering your whole head up in mayo for hours (wrapped in a towel) and suffocating those buggers. Because mayo is oil based, it is a major pain in the tuckus to wash out though.

Also, there is a new salon in my area that was showcased on tv because it has a brand new way to treat lice - with a machine that basically looks like a super-duper hair dryer. They wouldn't go into trade secrets, but I believe it dehydrates the lice with hot air and kills them that way. You may want to google if that is interesting to you.

One thing I do want to mention, but you most likely already know. Besides treating the linens (sheets, towels, pillows) with hot soapy water and a hot dryer, you have to treat any stuffed or cloth toys the kids have that cannot be washed by traditional methods. I've heard packing them up in garbage bags and leaving them for a couple of weeks in the heat will help kill them.

I do wish you the best of luck and am sending good vibes your way.

I can't comment on the lice because there are people who know more about how to get rid of them than me. But it sounds like you've had a really bad start! Wax, crocheting, interlocking are all bad for dreads. Wax takes a long, long time to get out of dreads; people who've used wax once or twice and have washed two or three times a week since then will still find some wax in their dreads years later. So I'd definitely recommend the Wax-B-Gone, because hair won't truly dread while wax is in it. Crocheting tightens the hair, and tight hair can't really dread, so it'll have to loosen up before it dreads. Basically...don't do anything at all to any of your dreads except wash them and separate them if they want to join together. Obviously if you want them to join together then cool, but thick dreads take longer to dry and can be heavy and/or painful, so they're not for everyone. Besides that, honestly, let them do their thing and they will dread up

thank you so much sweet! that was very helpfui! when we can plan a laundromat trip we will be in good shape to do everything in one day. what about mattresses, couches, etc?

Sweet, said:

If you need any step by step advice i am a qualified hairdresser whom has left the hairdressing industry because of how fake and money grabbing salons are, now my passion is just forthe most simplistic natural way of carring for dreadlocks.

I stress about the conditioner and plastic bag technique only because its the most natural way to get ridd of lice and it works. Another reason for doing this is because if you need to split up some of your hubbies dreads it will make this MUCH easier and will be easier to remove those bits of elastic bands,as soon as you have done the conditioning treatment you can absolutely wash out all the conditioner straight after the treatment You would have to treat everyone at the exact same time as it only takes a second for a lice to jump to a clean head and its clean hair that lice r attracted to so their eggs stick to the hair cuticle. The same day you do the treatments you would have to change all pillow cases and sheets as theres the eggs that have fallen off in them. I am telling you this with first hand experience with having dreads myself and 2 children, i hate using toxic bought treatments so i don't and lice with dreads is a pain, i know when only 1 lice has jumped into my dreads straight way, so i totally understand both your frustraition and dispair at times. I know conditioner is not supposed to be used when dreading but that is why i say you can wash it all straight out. Try and find out what contact any of your family is having with outsiders whom might be infected, primary schools are the worst place for lice. One imporant thing i have just thought of, you will get lice in a couple of weeks again after your conditioning treatment this is beacause all the eggs would of hatched from the lice that you just got ridd of, so another treatment should do the trick and if any more eggs hatch do it again and then you should be free. Add a couple of drops of T tree oil to the conditioner this will make any lice from anywhere else not want to be near you.

There are other ideas but if i were to tell you all in 1 go this comment would be pages long, i know i have gone on a bit but i do understand what you r all going through and know this will work, any concerns about the conditioner i am only too happy to answer.

thanx everyone for your help! i keep hearing this wax b gone mentioned... any idea where i can get it (or something similar) thats not online? not a proponent of banks and/or a credit card holder, so online doesnt really work for me.

It's made by a member of the site, she makes natural, healthy shampoos, locking gels, spray, and the Wax-B-Gone, so you won't be able to buy it in person

Here's the link anyway: http://shop.dreadlockshampoo.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14

If you can't buy it online, one method is to use hot water, dip the dread in it, and squeeze the dread using a paper towel to get the wax out. This can take a long time though, so you'd have to keep at it for a good while. Definitely worth it though, because as soon as the wax starts to leave, you'll notice your dreads truly dreading