Natural Head Lice Treatment with Coconut Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar

April 17, 2012

Natural Head Lice Treatment with Coconut Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar

Getting lice in the family is truly horrifying & if you don’t get rid of them ASAP, they will get into everything & literally take over. Not fun. The really important thing is to find an effective treatment that doesn”t require putting harsh chemicals onto your head, which then get absorbed into your body. Yuck. So, here is a tried & tested effective remedy to wipe out those critters in one foul swoop!

You will need: A jar of coconut oil & a bottle of apple cider vinegar.

First, rinse your hair with the vinegar, don’t wash it out, leave it in until it dries. The vinegar dissolves the ‘glue’ which sticks the eggs to your hair follicles. When the vinegar has dried, pour coconut oil into your hair, making sure you get complete coverage. Cover your hair with a shower cap or hair wrap & leave it in for the whole day, as it will take a few hours for the coconut oil to smother & kill the lice. Comb your hair to get as many of the eggs & lice out as possible and then shampoo as normal. You only have to do this once, it really works & no chemicals! Oh, & the coconut oil makes your hair beautiful & shiny, so your getting a lush hair treatment at the same time! 🙂

Original Source.

A study done in 2010 in the UK and reported in the European Journal of Pediatrics tested the effectiveness of a coconut and anise spray against head lice as opposed to permethrin lotion. Permethrin lotion, the most commonly prescribed pediculicide for treating head lice, is reportedly losing its effectiveness in many places around the world in curing head lice. The study found that the coconut and anise spray was “significantly more successful” than the permethin lotion in curing head louse infestation.

Burgess IF, Brunton ER, Burgess NA. “Clinical trial showing superiority of a coconut and anise spray over permethrin 0.43% lotion for head louse infestation” European Journal Pediatrics. 2010 Jan;169(1):55-62

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Published on April 17, 2012

Tags: apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, head lice, lice|

20 Comments

jodi August 7, 2015 at 2:58 pm - Reply

You can use this treatment and nit combs but I have found that a very warm or hot hair dryer works the absolute best.  My daughter kept picking it up from some where.  The hot hair dryer dries the nits and bugs out. They died from the heat. Wash your hair then dry it thoroughly for about 15 or 20 minutes until all the hair is dry. Make sure you feel the heat and your hair is warm but don’t burn yourself. The bugs literally fell out of her hair.

Rachelle August 21, 2015 at 1:27 pm - Reply

Do you dry the hair after you have washed the coconut oil and vinegar out to? Or while it is still in the hair? Thanks.

Denise August 1, 2015 at 5:43 pm - Reply

Coconut oil is awesome, but nothing will work for real until you get rid of the nits the old fashioned way: by combing or picking them out. Hence the term nit picking!  That is the key…if you’ve been battling for months, you need to get yourself a high quality lice comb and spend an hour a night combing and picking nits, little bits of hair at a time.

Shannon July 19, 2015 at 12:44 am - Reply

I taught art to middle school (6-8) in Southwest Detroit, a.k.a. Mexican Town. Many Families in this area were new to the United States. Several people were living under one roof. Lice was a huge problem in the school. I got it so many times and was very tired of putting the horrible chemicals on my head. I researched to see if there was a natural cure. AHA! Glorious Coconut Oil! I would wash my hair, put on a ton of coconut oil, put on a shower cap and leave it on over night. In the a.m. I would wash it out, a little difficult, but sooo worth it. Then I would get a container of red apple cider vinegar and one of water. While my hair was wet, I would use a lice combs ( you can buy them) and dip it in the vinegar, brush through the hair, look for the bugs, nits, then rinse in the water. I would do that through all my hair. I put some kind of oil in my hair to resist more lice from latching on and put it in a bun and rushed off too work. It totally worked and was chemical free. ♥ Shannon

Radmila Pavković July 7, 2015 at 4:05 am - Reply

Wish I knew this two years ago when my daughter brought them from kindergarten . I was pregnant at the time but I had to wash my hair with Supitox shampoo just in case . When my baby was born , he had a stange rash all over his body and when I told doctor about the treatment he said that it caused that rash . The rash past few days later but it’s good to know this for the future references , hope never needed again . I read few days ago that you can also put mayonese or olive oil , put shower cap on and let it stay overnight >

vickie June 17, 2015 at 6:09 pm - Reply
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can you use regular vinegar?
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Dana Marlene Bayless June 1, 2015 at 8:29 am - Reply

This does really work, me and my kids suffered from head lice for a month, it was so hard to get those little boogers out! But I found this recipe on a teacher’s website and whalaa! They were gone. I recommend this any day over that store bought nasty chemical infested lice treatment. The coconut oil and apple cider vinegar is the way to go!

joanne cook April 11, 2015 at 5:14 am - Reply

Definetly the way to go…OlI have five girls and rest of church have up to twelve in their families. So we ve been thru horrors and nghtmares. Why kill your hair when u can wake up with beautiful hair. Great for all natural body uses and healthiest for diet too..thankyou jesus ptL!!

Kay March 6, 2015 at 2:12 am - Reply

I used vinegar as soon as I read that it would work.  When I was a kid, it was common to rinse your hair in vinegar every week after a shampoo.  When two of my daughters came home with 
Iice, i washed their hair and then pit vinegar in for about 15 minutes full strength.  I found two dead adults and the nits disappeared.  The kids said their heads were not itching at all.  I am going to the vinegar treatment once a week like we did when Imwas a child!

Patricia Bartlett February 8, 2015 at 1:01 am - Reply

Do you use full strength vinegar, and do you apply the vinegar to dry or wet hair?

Misty February 6, 2015 at 7:03 pm - Reply

I will be trying this method on my daughter since she have been dealing with head lice for months….NOTHING has worked. I really hope this method works because I am tired of buying the lice shampoo and fighting my daughter every time I have to comb her hair which takes about an hour. Can’t wait to try it out and hopefully be done with those nasty little critters!!

Amber February 5, 2015 at 3:08 pm - Reply

Can’t wait to try ! One question …the coconut oil do you get the oil that is still in liquid form or the kind that’s solid until used?

Admin February 7, 2015 at 4:03 pm - Reply

All coconut oil is solid below 76 degrees, and liquid above that temperature. There is a product called “liquid coconut oil” that remains liquid even in your refrigerator, but it is not true coconut oil, since lauric acid has been removed. http://coconutoil.com/is-liquid-coconut-oil-that-stays-liquid-in-your-refrigerator-real-coconut-oil/

Carol April 3, 2015 at 4:48 pm - Reply

It doesn’t matter if the oil is solid or not as it melts quite quickly with a little heat.

Tracy Byrd January 16, 2015 at 6:54 pm - Reply

Can the coconut oil be added to a bottle of shampoo as a preventative against head lice?

Jodie May 15, 2015 at 10:27 pm - Reply

Tea tree oil is a good prevention method just pop some in a bottle of shampoo

CC February 10, 2014 at 8:27 am - Reply

This is great!  I am so terrify with lice but unfortunately kids do get it.  My daughter got it before the weekend, and I started her with over the counter treatment but I just don’t trust it and also the chemical is not good for her.  So I use this and just once, she has been lice free for 48 hours.  Everyone at home use this with her and we were having a party with the coconut oil.  I woke up with beautiful shinning hair!  I would like to add three notes, 1. if you have little kids like my son (age 3), he will not let me pour vinegar on his hair, I ending up using a spray bottle and it works very well too, and I can message it all over this hair.  2. Make sure to get metal comb, not plastic, they don’t work. 3. Make sure to comb before washing, it’s amazing EVERYTHING just come right out.  Live or dead, those suckers cannot hold on to the oil hair anymore!

Mamato4 November 5, 2013 at 8:07 pm - Reply

We’ve been fighting lice in our house for the past 4 weeks. We’ve tried RIT, coconut shampoo infused with tea tree oil, spraying the mattresses, vacuuming till I was blue in the face, we threw out pillows, and then when they came back we started throwing the pillows in the dryer on high heat for 90 minutes at a time. Nothing was working! We tried this tonight, and I have to say that the eggs came out so much easier and we were able to find more dead bugs. I’m hoping that this is our cure!

Paula October 20, 2013 at 1:51 pm - Reply

Used this treatment for my 18 month old daughter and it worked so great. It was hard trying to keep a shower cap on but we let in sit the whole day. The lice and eggs came out with ease. No chemicals was the best part!!!

aurora September 10, 2013 at 8:24 am - Reply

was hoping never to have this….. but unfortunately my daughter came home with a head full of lice. I was surprised how many, it was horrifying! Anyway we did the apple-cider and she slept with a shower cap and coconut oil. Combed out all the dead ones and the eggs. So far so good. So happy not to use chemicals.