DIY Lice Prevention Spray That’s Proven to Work!
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Lice is one of those horrible things that you hope you never have to deal with. Thankfully, with this DIY Lice Spray, you can increase your chances of avoiding this nightmarish experience.
And if you end up with lice, this spray should make it a lot easier to get rid of them.
Dealing with lice is not fun as you need to:
- wash EVERYTHING in your home
- comb painstakingly through your affected hair with a fine–toothed comb (you‘ll likely lose a lot of hair in the process)
- wash and/or freeze all bed linens, stuffed animals, helmets, etc., and
- vacuum and possibly deep clean carpets and furniture
No thanks!
Some people even recommend using Bleach and Lysol! Not the best things to apply directly to the skin.
Prevention is definitely the best plan of action when it comes to lice.
You could go around and just be nervous about lice all the time, but when you have something as natural as essential oils that can do the job for you, and they smell good too, why not use them?
We homeschool, so the lice threat is not as big of a problem for us, but we are not immune.
You can use this spray as part of your natural lice treatment plan, but again, using it regularly to prevent lice in the first place is the best option.
Essential Oils for Lice Prevention
Some say these essential oils work to prevent lice because they mask the human scent that lice are attracted to.
Essential oils are also rich in what are called monoterpenes, chemical compounds with various beneficial characteristics, including, in the case of tea tree oil, insecticidal properties. In fact, the two main constituents of tea tree oil, 1,8-cineole and terpinen-4-ol, have demonstrated anticholinesterase activity.
Cholinesterase (ko-li-nes-ter-ace) is one of the many enzymes needed for the proper functioning of the nervous systems of insects (as well as humans and other vertebrates), so when you use these small amounts of oils on small insects, they take action on their nervous system and kill them.
And, there is real evidence that these oils do kill lice.
Studies on Essential Oils Treatment for Lice:
#1: Tea Tree Oil: At 1% concentration, tea tree oil killed 100% of head lice after 30 minutes.
#2: Lavender and Tea Tree Oils: 97.6% of lice were dead using these essential oils, compared to only 25% from using chemical treatments.
#3: Anise and Ylang Ylang Oils: demonstrated 92% success rate against head lice.
Other essential oils that are somewhat effective against lice are:
- Rosemary
- Peppermint, and
- Clove
However, there are limitations in the studies done on those oils, so they might not be very effective.
The tea tree and lavender plus tea tree options are the most effective, plus they use oils that you are more likely to have around the house. Given that the lavender blend smells better, that is likely the one most people would prefer using.
Tea Tree Oil Safety
For children under 10 years, use only a 1% dilution rate to a 2% dilution rate of tea tree oil, and for children 2+, this oil should only be used “as needed”.
For adults, do not use above a 5% dilution rate.
Ingredients
Tea Tree Version
- 1 ounce water (preferably filtered – see How to Make Your Water Safe)
- 1.1 ounce vodka
- 12-20 drops tea tree oil
- 1 Spray Bottle this kind of plastic spray bottle is likely a good option as well.
- (12 drops is the equivalent of a 1% solution, which was 100% effective in the study cited above)
Tea Tree and Lavender Version
- 2 ounces water (preferably filtered)
- 2 ounces vodka
- 10 drops tea tree oil
- 6 drops lavender oil (either Hungarian or Bulgarian)
Instructions
- Blend the above solutions in the spray bottle and spray on hair to coat.
Notes
Don't feel like DIYing Your Own Lice Prevention Spray?
If you just don't have time to make this spray, this lice prevention spray is a natural option that has great reviews, and the company has a great lice shampoo too.
Here's one great testimonial:
I trust the stuff! My daughter's BFF got head lice this past fall. She had stayed the night like a week prior to me finding out. I freaked out, maybe a little too much! So I sprayed her down before school, and made her wash her hair everyday with the lice prevention shampoo. Plus I had her rinse with ACV. Needless to say no lice. We continued to use this through the fall. I really like the smell too!
Either way, I hope this helps you keep the buggers away.
Have you had lice?
What did you do to get rid of them?
Photo Credit: Naomi Huzovicova
For the money in impaired , and this is an old way but effective. Coat hair with vasaline or cooking oil. Leave in for a couple of hours. Meantime if you have a dryer , put clothes couch covers or whatever material can fit and dry on hottest settings for and hour. Put pillows or toys in freezer. Find a sprayer and fill it with vinagar and salt and spray everything. You’ll have to vacuum everything you sprayed after drying. Long ago my niece brought lice home. Before all these fancy oils we have now. And this is what we did and all three of had lice and it worked. Took all day and was a horrible experience but it worked.
I forgot to put wash hair with Dawn or any dish detergent that takes oil. Then deeply condition your hair. Wait a couple of days like a weekend and then wash and condition hair as normal.
After dealing with treating grandkids with lice & treating my house. It’s opened me up more to the tea tree oil world.
I did not know there were different %’s of tea tree all. I just thought they were all the same. Seriously thinking of buying me a tea tree book as a quick go to on the benefits of tea tree. Do you recommend one?
Ok, back to my lice issue. I have some tea tree oil on hand that I used in my warmers in the house. I checked the SMALL bottle & it doesn’t have a % of the purity of the tea tree oil, but I still used it with your recipe of spraying furniture for the treatment of lice.
What % do you always have on hand?
Where do I purchase the GOOD tea tree oil so I will always have it on hand?
Thanks
Hi Lisa. I would just look for a good overall book on essential oils – is there something you are thinking that a dedicated book would do? I don’t know if there are any really.
Anyhow, this post has a great book at the end of it: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/essential-oils/
As for percentage, aside from companies that disclose that they are blending their oils with a carrier, no company says that their oil isn’t pure.
So I keep only a trusted oil on hand. The post you read has links to the company that I use and this post has more info on it: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
You can trust that their oils are pure and even get test results w/ the batch # on each bottle. Hope that helps!
Hey, thanks for getting back with me. I stumbled upon you by researching about head lice. I love your articles & will be visiting more often so I’ll probably have more questions along the way.
Reason for me wanting a book for tea tree or even other oils is because after dealing with this head lice mess, I’ve learned that tea tree & other oils has a lot of benefits other than just making your home smell good.
Amazed by all the uses of tea tree & want to learn more…
Have a great day
I would personally go with one of the oil books at the bottom of my posts. I think you will like this one: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/essential-oils/
I may have missed it in the reading, is this best applied when hair is wet? Dry?
Hi there. I had a few notes in about using on damp hair but really you could do either. When using morning and night I wouldn’t think you would want to wash hair twice a day :).
Willing to share what the therapeutic blend of oil that you were using and diffusing that doubles as perfume?
I’m sorry for the delay in responding. I was using the Lymph Support from Rocky Mountain Oils. There are some others that I love as well but that one is great.
does the tea tree oil get rid of the nits too
My daughter just got head lice. I have dreadlocks and can not comb anything out. I got checked and no bugs for myself. But, If there are some that were not seen- can I spray tea tree on my head to get rid of them without combing out?
an overnight oil mask is reccomended for dreads in conjunction with a spray to kill them and then repeat after 3 days. But pure tea tree oil is caustic so you should mix it with vinegar about 4 drops per 4 ounces.
Honestly this is my routine!
1. Wet head
2. Pour plain Listerine all over
3. Put treated hair in a plastic bag, clip shut, sit 1-2 hrs.
4. Rinse under water
5. Poor White Vinigar on hair re-bag n clip, 1-2 hours.
6. Rinse under water. Shampoo n condition as normal
7. Begin nit picking/combing.
8. After your done saturate with Olive Oil,
9. Wrap over night, n try n nit pick/comb in the morning.
10. Repeat process till clean.
For Furn/carpet
1.5 cups water in a spray bottle to 1/2-1 tsp tea tree oil.
For Laundry:
I use I cap full of Listerine added to the Wash.
Hope this helps 🙂
Can we not use this recipe on a 3 year old? If it’s ok for 6, other than gettin in eyes I don’t understand why it’s not appropriate in my 3 yr old as well.
Hi there. I updated the post w/ new safety information. Hope it’s helpful!
Hi! Why do you suggest to not use on kids under 6? I’ve tried looking online but I’m not finding much. Thanks in advance!
Hi there. I believe the post has been updated with new information. Thanks for reading!
What are your thoughts on tea tree and lavender oil as hormone disruptors? There have articles supporting both positive and negative sides of this investigation tho both are inconclusive in absolute terms. Thank you.
Hi. I should write a post on this.
1. The products the boys used weren’t listed, nor the concentrations.
2. There were only 3 boys involved.
3. Since we don’t know what they used it’s possible it was contamination in the oil or something else in the products.
4. The test tube could have had xenoestrogens in it.
And more.
I think it’s not an issue based on this and other things that I have read. Thanks for reading!
I was a cosmetologist for 6 years and active in haircare since then. Teatree is a healing oil, and lavender is soothing. I have never heard of any issues, and the amount your mixing here is very low. Just my 2 cents.
I’m wondering how to mix it into mine and my daughters shampoo and conditioner. I have the gurunanda tea tree oil from my local walmart store. We usually use head and shoulders but from everything I’ve read it has to be a gentle shampoo. I’ve combed through my hair and haven’t seen anything. Treated my daughter with the o.t.c. Walmart lice killing shampoo, had prescription from doc about 2 weeks ago. My ex isn’t as diligent as myself but I found two nits last night in her hair. Even went out today to but the robicomb that’s supposed to zap em dead. I’m just looking at how to mix it so we can use it everyday in our shampoo. Also was reading that you have to glass water bottles?? All I have is plastic for spraying my funiture. Can I use plastic?
I don’t think you need glass unless the concentration of the EOs is high which it shouldn’t be in the case of these blends. I would think quality plastic is good enough.
Tea Tree oil absolutely works and it works well! After using RID (which didn’t kill any of the lice AT ALL!) I found turned to my tea tree oil. I put a about 3 cups of conditioner (Dove) into a bowl and mixed a bunch of tea oil in it. I didn’t use the dropper so I’m not sure how much I used. But if I had to guess I’d say it was about 3 tablespoons of tea tree oil so the smell was nice and strong. I then saturated my daughters dry hair with the solution, put a plastic bag over her head and let it sit there for about an hour. Then I rinsed her hair (didn’t wash because I wanted the tea tree oil to continue working in preventing any lice that may have been around our home from getting into her hair again). I then combed her hair out with a good metal lice comb and every single louse I found was dead. But this process should be repeated every 3 or 4 days for about 2 weeks. This also works if you mix it with oils like olive oil. I ran out of conditioner and I didn’t want to use the olive oil again so I’m looking around to see if mixing the tea tree oil with water will also kill them or just prevent them. But there is something in the tea tree oil that works as an insecticide so I don’t see why it would work mixed with oils or conditioner. I’m going to try it today and hope for the best.
did the nits and lice eggs go too
After 3 applications of RID my daughter still had live louse in her hair. I refused to put more chemicals in her hair and stumbled on this recipe years ago. It is now my go to, and in just one application the louse are dead when I comb through with the metal comb.
1 cup of natural shampoo (the first time I used it I didn’t have natural shampoo. It still worked.)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp tea tree oil
Coat scalp and hair. Cover with shower cap for an hour, the rinse/wash. Comb with metal nit comb.
The plastic/glass bottle is only an issue if you are storing oils in them. Some oils-mostly citrus can make the plastic breakdown over time which releases the toxic chemicals IN the plastic into whatever is being stored in the bottle.
We looked up if pets can carry lice, and it said that they do not carry human lice. Is this true?
I read that humans can’t catch pet lice but the converse is not true.
Head lice need human blood to survive, so they cannot be transmitted to pets.