LICE: How to get rid of it

Hello loves!

It's been over a year since I have posted, but I've been keeping up on my YouTube videos. (Go check them out!) I wanted to write a blog post about why I didn't post a video last week. And I am also hoping to start posting on here one to four times a month about things that are more DIY and life related instead of them directly corresponding with my YouTube channel. Today, I want to get down to the nitty [literally] gritty and talk about something we all think is fucking disgusting. That thing my friends is LICE. If you have children, or you're around children most of the day. You're probably going to come into contact with it at some point.

As a little back story, two weeks ago my step-daughter and I were in the car. She was wearing a hat and said her head was itchy. My response was, "Okay... so scratch it?" End of story. Later that night I started to really think about it. Here is essentially the conversation I had in my head...

"Evee said her head was itchy... maybe I should check for lice?" "You don't need to check for lice. The school would notify us if lice was going around." "Yeah.. when you were in elementary school the nurse came around to all the classes and checked every single kid for lice." "You're good... nothing to worry about people."

Call it mother's instinct or what-have-you.. but when her mom called a week later and said she had something to tell us, I knew what she was about to say and I was pissed that I didn't check her when the thought crossed my mind. PISSED. Obviously hubby and I immediately checked each other and lo and behold... I fucking had it. DOUBLE PISSED.  Apparently it had been going around school. Evee's classroom was ground zero...the place where it all started. Apparently this is something they were talking about in class once the news came out that someone had it. The school office had letters printed out ready for each class to tell them it was going around. OUR TEACHER DID NOT SEND OUT THE LETTER TO THE STUDENTS' PARENTS BECAUSE SHE DID NOT WANT THE INITIAL STUDENT THAT INITIALLY HAD IT TO BE EMBARRASSED. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! There was a call the next day to the principal about how this situation was not handled in a tactful manner. 

LICE: any small, wingless insect of the order Anoplura (sucking louse)parasitic on humans and other mammals and having mouth parts adapted for sucking, as Pediculus humanus (body louse or headlouse) and Phthirius pubis (crab louse or pubic louse)

AKA hard as fuck to see because they are teeny tiny and brown. 

NITS: the egg of a parasitic insect, especially of a louse, often attached to a hair or a fiber of clothing.

AKA the biggest assholes because lice shampoo does NOT work on them. 

I have bugs in my hair. Fucking great..

Hubby kindly went to the store to get two lice kits. One for me, and one for him just to be safe. This man is a goddamn warrior. I sat there and cried about it while he washed my hair with the dreadful shampoo. Then we sat in the empty bathtub while he went through my hair strand by strand for 2 hours pulling the nits out of my hair. Then we swapped. He didn't have any nits but when in doubt, pull it out. But be warned, these fuckers are fierce. They can hold their breath for up to 8 hours and some are resistant to lice shampoo.

 1 week later and I am 100% lice free. 


Without further or due, here are my 9 commandments for what to do if you and/or your child has lice.

1.  Lice shampoo, and a nice friend, family member, or S.O. to pick the damn things out of your hair.
2.  Blow dry and straighten your hair EVERY DAY. Terrible for your hair? Yes, but the lice and lice eggs cannot live in extreme heat or cold. Thank you 410 degree CHI straightener for being a boss ass bitch. 
3. WASH EVERYTHING. Strip your bedding, your clothes, your pillows, and spray your bed with lice spray, your car seats, fucking EVERYTHING. My washer and dryer both have a "sanitize" setting so I put everything I thought I could have touched on that cycle. Then we slept on the bare necessities and everything else that was officially clean and lice free went into the guest bedroom where no one was allowed to enter.
4.  Wear your hair up. Please. This is mainly to protect other people and things from coming into contact with your hair. Don't be dumb here people. Wearing your hair down with lice is just a little reckless. Someone goes in for a hug, what do you do? Tell them you can't because you have lice and now you're embarrassed or do you just hug them and hope for the best? You're probably going to hug that person and not think twice about it. Now your hair is touching someone else's hair and you've just exposed that person to the little shits sucking on your scalp. Sharing is isn't always caring.
5.  Anything you can't put in the dryer, freeze it for 12 hours. If you're questioning it, throw it out. It's just stuff. You can always get another one (Shout out to 5 Below for all the cheap hair accessories. You are a life and money saver).
6. Comb through your hair with one of those tiny metal combs EVERY DAMN DAY and also have someone else look through your hair for any nits that were left behind. For me, hubby checked the go-to zones for lice and nits to hide because these were the only places that I really had it. [behind the ears, and from the crown of your head down to your neck]
7. When it doubt, pull it out (this saying could go for a few other things as well...ha). This lice shampoo can really damage your scalp. The amount of dry skin I have on my scalp currently is outrageous, so don't be alarmed if your head is still itching after the lice is gone. The bottle literally says "may make head itchy" (isn't this what we are trying to stop...). If you're questioning something you see in your hair, get it out... Just in case. 
8. Always do the second recommended treatment. I read a couple of posts saying not to do this but a nit takes 7-10 days to turn into lice. If you missed a nit, you're fucked. It might hurt your scalp a bit putting another round of these harsh chemicals on it, but do you really want to wake up a week from now realizing you missed one and have to do it all over again? Probably not. 
9.  If you're really paranoid like me... schedule a hair appointment and ask your hair dresser to scope out your hair for one last look through.

Hopefully you never find yourself in this situation but if you do, you can always come back to this post for all my tips on how to kill the little fuckers. 

Comment down below if you've ever had to deal with this and what worked for you. 

XO - Stacey