Separate the Lice Facts and History from Fiction

• Getting your hair colored does not kill lice; it colors them! Some can survive a chemical straightening processes as well.
• Boys do get lice. Even boys with very short hair or buzz cuts. Shaved heads do not get lice.
• Over 90% of moms and 20% of dads get lice from their kids.
• Hairspray and gel are not lice deterrents. Some essential oils work that way but mint is the safest to use daily.
• Lice like hair whether it is clean or dirty. (Lice like sweet people).
• Lice do not fly or jump. They crawl from one head to another through hair-to-hair contact but rarely through personal items like brushes, hats or helmets.
• You rarely, if ever, get lice from hanging coats together in a coatroom, a cubby or throwing them in a pile on the playground.
• Once a nit is removed from the hair shaft it is no longer dangerous and viable, it is just like a speck of dirt.
• Only 50% of people are itchy from head lice but 100% of people are itchy just talking about lice! People are itchy from lice bites themselves, but not so much from the bugs crawling around. It may take 4 weeks into an infestation to become itchy and people taking antihistamines for allergies may never become itchy at all.
• There is no season for lice. It is a year-round, worldwide problem.
• Lice are not living in your house and re-infesting your family…Lice only lives and reproduces on a human head. Off the head (their food source), adult lice die within 36 hours and they only lay nits (lice eggs) on a human head. Re-infestation is often due to nits left behind.

• When George Washington was 14 he wrote a book on manners. In his book he said, “It is not polite to pick your own lice in public. However, it is polite to pick your friends lice in public.”
• In Cleopatra time’s getting rid of lice was a sign of status. The poor people shaved off all their hair to get rid of lice but wealthy people had wigs made to cover their shaven heads.
• Even Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, had her own golden lice comb.
• Medusa is believed to be a representation of someone infested with head lice.
• 6-12 million Americans get lice each year, while 20 million in Europe get lice. That’s a lot of lice!