I used to take special care of my hairbrushes, painstakingly removing all the hair and that grey fuzz that wraps around the bristles.  If it was an eco-friendly brush with a wooden handle (read:  >$20), I would wash and rinse the bristles alone, taking care not to get the handle wet.

But now, post kid-lice outbreak, I’m the Mad King.  I say, “Burn them all!”

(One day I will have to stop with the Game of Thrones references and that day I will cry.)

If you’ve been through this, you know that nothing else, this side of actual tragedy, brings home life to a complete halt more than finding lice in your kid’s hair.

You might also realize, it is anything but Zero Waste.

The special shampoos (re:  topical pesticides), the special combs, hair clips, toothpicks, tissues, plastic baggies (oh the plastic bags we used!), the 18 loads of laundry and the hours and hours you’ll never get back.

Some imagery:

My girls got head lice from a movie theater and that was pretty unavoidable, but as we approach the fall, here are some tips on how to avoid lice once the kids head back to school:

1.  For the love of God, don’t share hair brushes.

This was our undoing.  The oldest contracted the lice, but since we were on vacation I thought I’d pack light and only brought one brush.  Such…a bad…idea.  I’m not sure what’s worse – delicing your kids or delicing yourself.

2.  While you’re at it, teach your kids not to share hats, barrettes, scarves, coats and even helmets or headphones.

(Of course, then we need to re-teach them, that any helmet is better than no helmet)

3.  Keep long hair up.

Long hair asunder provides lice more paved roads to your scalp.  My kids immediately got severe haircuts because I couldn’t get the nit comb through their tangles, but once it grows back, they are getting braids and buns.  Keep the hair tied back and you reduce the chances of getting lice from head-to-head contact with an infected kid.

Bonus:  by doing their hair every morning, you are also incidentally “checking” for lice.

 4.  Teach your kids to put their coats in their backpacks at school.

See all these coats a-touching?

This can be a louse Meet-N-Greet.  Same goes for coats placed on the back of chairs in preschool and younger grades.

(stock image from this place)

5.  Learn to love Tea Tree oil.

Hippie-types looking for natural prevention might tip a few drops of tea tree oil into the kids’ shampoo or even their detangler.  It’s like offering lice raw broccoli at a potluck.  They take one whiff and avoid that end of the table.

(For those of you looking for just lice prevention tips, and not necessarily Zero Waste techniques, there are kid-safe natural Tea Tree oil shampoos you can buy online.  Though I totally encourage you to recycle the bottles when you’ve used them all up!)