Despite frequent hair washing, children are occasionally infested with head lice because they play outdoors and on the floor. Head lice are easily transmitted when children come into close contact with each other. Most parents are reluctant to treat their children's scalps with chemicals, which can also be expensive. Alternatively, head lice can be removed from the scalp using mayonnaise or olive oil.

Head lice breathe through their skin, which is why it is relatively easy to suffocate them with fatty substances. Olive oil and mayonnaise are particularly suitable for treatment as they effectively destroy head lice and do not damage the scalp or hair.

The entire head must be coated with a thick layer of mayonnaise. To suffocate all head lice, the entire area of the head must be covered. Now cover the head with a plastic shower cap and leave the mayonnaise on for six to eight hours. The long exposure time is necessary because the head lice can live for a while without breathing. The shower cap protects the home furnishings from mayonnaise stains. Particularly active children should be treated with mayonnaise before going to bed and leave the grease on all night.

Once it has worked, remove the shower cap and rinse the hair thoroughly several times with a mild shampoo until the mayonnaise has completely disappeared. When rinsing, you can see the lice that have been killed and flushed down the drain. The next step is to remove the head lice eggs from the hair, as these cannot simply be washed out. The child's hair must be combed out well, preferably with a fine-toothed comb or a special lice comb. Rinse again afterwards. The eggs of the head lice must be scraped off the scalp with the comb. It is important to check the scalp for eggs every two to three days after treatment.

At the same time, the child's bed linen and soft toys, where eggs could have been laid, must be washed daily. Unfortunately, to effectively remove head lice, the eggs must be removed from the entire household.
Bed linen, soft toys and other fabrics that may be affected are simply washed in the washing machine and then dried in the tumble dryer. The dry heat of the tumble dryer kills the eggs and disinfects the fabrics. If you do not have a tumble dryer, you should wash the bed linen at 95 degrees.

Head lice can survive for up to two weeks without food. Toys that can harbour head lice and cannot be washed in the washing machine can be placed in a sealable plastic bag for a fortnight and then vacuumed thoroughly.