This post has been sponsored by Vamousse. All opinions are my own.
As a kid, I had lice more times that I can count. In fact, at one point in my life, I basically had lice on and off for 3 years. I guess you could say, I’m not stranger to the bugs. But with my short, inch-long hair, it’s relatively easy to deal with and always has been.
Then I had a little girl And this little girl’s hair is something else all together.
Just LOOK at that thick, curly hair! And at this point, it’s about a foot longer than that too. So when she came home with lice from elementary school last year, I was less than thrilled. Not because I’m particularly terrified or grossed out by lice (I had lice basically for 3 years, remember?) but, because those curls & tiny lice combs don’t exactly go together.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
While I’m personally desensitized to the whole “eeeeew gross lice!” reaction, I’ve heard so many myths about lice since having kids, and I’m glad that Vamousse is here to help respond to some of those myths and bring clarity to something that can be a stressful and confusing time of childhood – LICE DAYS.
Here’s how to not freak out when lice happens.
Download this infographic & a $2 off Vamousse coupon here.
Knowing more about lice, can help you avoid the freakout when lice comes to your house.
Dealing with lice in curly hair
I’ve found that lice is usually not as big of a deal for boys. When my daughter got lice, my son’s hair was short enough that he didn’t ever get any.
I’ve seen other kids in elementary school completely shave their heads and be done with it.
Not going to happen with my daughters epic, curly hair. She won’t even let me cut it!
1. Remain Calm
It might sound silly but this is first step is CRUCIAL. If you freak out, your kids will freak out.
My daughter is particularly terrified of bugs so we called it “the itchies” until it went away to avoid any bug-related melt downs. By the time someone told her what was really going on, the lice were long gone and she was calm about it. We all made sure to treat it as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world!
2. Make sure you have the right treatments
There are so many lice treatment options out there, and they’re all really intense stuff to be putting on a kid’s head. So how is a mama to choose?
Vamousse has so many options so you can make sure that you are using the right product for the right things. Plus, you can order these things on Amazon or pick them up in Walgreens!
Plus, if you’re already dealing with headlice, Vamousse kills lice, eggs and super lice in just one treatment. Making life a whole lot easier!
I was really excited to see the lice repellant spray & daily defense shampoo in particular. This is perfect to grab when lice are going around school to help avoid lice coming home with your kiddos. And the shampoo is great for daily use to help avoid those outbreaks too!
If it’s too late for that, and you’re reading this because your curly-haired-kiddo already has lice, don’t worry! Vamousse has you covered there too with their treatment kit.
Let me walk you through it.
How to treat lice (especially for curly haired kids)
I’m going to assume you’ve already established that your child does, in fact have lice. The recognition process is another topic for another day!
When you’re ready to treat the lice here’s what you’ll do.
- Grab a Lice Treatment Kit from Vamousse. It will include a lice comb and a spray bottle of Vamousse.
- Wrap a towl around your child’s shoulders & brush the hair thoroughly to detangle. For curly kids, this is a TASK, but it’s an important one. Separating hair into sections might help make the process a little bit easier.
- Apply Vamouse directly to scalp, using a comb to part hair every inch.
- You can literally work the mousse down into a liquid from the scalp to the end of the hair. You want the dry hair to be coming fully wet and filled with the Vamouuse hair product.
- Once hair and scalp is completely covered set a timer for 15 minutes. You don’t want to just “wing it” when it comes to the time limit, make sure you actually wait it out, so that all the bugs have time to die. It’s worth it!
- Comb hair section by section to remove dead lice and nits.
- Unfortunately nits (lice eggs) won’t just fall out of the hair on their own, you have to get them out with the special comb included in the kit mentioned above. And this is truly the hardest part with curly haired kiddos, because they have a lot of twists and turns to make it through on the way off the head.
- If the comb keeps getting stuck in your child’s curly hair, you can make a 50/50 mixture of conditioner and water to smooth hair and make the process easier. This is a must-do if you have curly haired kiddos like me.
- Use a white paper towel to clean the lice comb as you go, so that you get all the lice and nits off the comb before returning it to your child’s hair.
- When this process is complete wash, condition and dry hair like normal.
Phew! That’s a long process, and for curly kids, you’ll definitely want to be sure you have a solid chunk of time set apart for the whole thing.
Pop on a movie and get to combing! There’s no way to make it quicker.
You can also watch how it’s done here:
Bonus tip
Vamousse also provides Lice Elimination powder, which is easily vacuumed up. You can use this to sprinkle on items that can’t be thrown in the washer. If your child lays around on the carpet a lot -this is a must!
Another little tip I’ve learned is that you can throw special stuffed animals that won’t make it in the washing machine, into the freezer! Simply load them up in a ziploc bag and toss it in the freezer for a couple of hours.
We have a particular lovee at our house that my daughter sleeps with because of the smell. However gross it is, we can’t wash it and expect to ever sleep again, so into the freezer it went for a few hours and it was all fresh and lice-free by bedtime.
Are you dealing with lice right now, or simply preventing? Let me know your best tips – so we can all be more prepared going back to school this year!
Be sure to pick up some of the preventative products from Vamousse to start this year out on the right foot!
Compensation was provided by Vamousse via Momtrends. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions of Vamousse or Momtrends.
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