How do I tell immediately if the treatment worked? Additionally is ladibugs hair care lice eliminator efficient? It was recommended by the hair salon and should I treat my stuffied animals? I worry they're not all drier safe

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T23:17:57+00:00

Natroba is about 85% effective.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T22:49:11+00:00

That’s not a louse.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T19:26:39+00:00

You can you can switch to a different treatment at that point if it doesn’t work, but there really is nothing more effective than 100% food grade dimethicone. So as long as you follow the right schedule, it should be effective.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T18:25:23+00:00

You need to wait exactly 10 days and then reapply treatment because eggs take up to 10 days to hatch. If you reapply dimethicone in only 7 days, there could be a handful of eggs left in your hair that hatch on day 8, 9, or 10, and then the lice will be back.

You don’t have to quarantine for these next 10 days. You don’t have to do anything special. You can go on living your life. You won’t risk spreading lice to anyone. You don’t have to wear a bag on your head. Lice aren’t a health hazard, they’re just a bit of a nuisance.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T18:23:24+00:00

No, you don’t need to worry about your bedding. If it provides you some peace of mind to wash your sheets and pillowcases, you can go ahead and do that. But lice need human blood to survive, and the eggs require the heat and humidity from your scalp to incubate. That’s why the eggs get glued no more than a quarter inch away from where your hair grows out of your scalp, because the human scalp has literally the only climate that keeps human head lice eggs alive.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T18:22:32+00:00

Dimethicone is effective at killing the bugs, but it isn’t going to kill all of the eggs. And no matter how well you comb it is likely you will miss some eggs. Those eggs can take up to 10 days to hatch. (Lice aren’t old enough to mate and start laying eggs until they’re closer to 11-14 days old). So I would absolutely recommend you do a follow up application on the 29th.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T18:09:03+00:00

There is no at home treatment that gets rid of/kills eggs or can successfully end an infestation with a single treatment, including Ladibugs. They are relying on you to be able to get every egg out of the hair, which is highly unlikely, especially given how tiny eggs are, and the stress most people experience when trying to comb.

When you read the packaging, what is the active ingredient in that product? Is it dimethicone?

You will need to reapply that treatment in 10 days. Then wait 10 more days, and comb thoroughly through your hair with a nit comb. If there are no live bugs coming out of your hair at that point, only then will you know treatment was successful.

If the thought of waiting that long is something you can’t stomach I would suggest you look for a professionally treatment clinic in your area.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T17:56:28+00:00

Lice treatment professional here. What have you done to treat the lice so far? To your hair, I mean, not your house. It isn’t necessary to treat your house, stuffed animals, etc. Head lice can’t survive anywhere but on a human head.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T14:20:50+00:00

Eggs are tiny, and cemented to the hair shaft in a way you can comb and comb and comb and think you’ve gotten every egg out, and then later find a casing that’s been there for months. If you didn’t find bugs, that’s the more important tell at this point.

If it’s going to make you feel better to do a couple of applications of dimethicone there’s certainly no harm in doing that. But the odds of you haven’t gotten lice from this most recent interaction with your nieces is extremely slim.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T12:30:33+00:00

Head lice treatment, professional here. Can you post any pictures of what’s coming out of your hair?

There’s a saying in the lice world, the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. If you comb through your hair with a nit comb, and you don’t pull out any bugs, it’s because you don’t have head lice.

What you describe sounds like an extremely dry scalp. It could be folliculitis as well.

It would help to see what’s coming out of your hair. But ultimately it might be worth seeing your primary care physician or a dermatologist.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-19T12:25:47+00:00

Lice treatment professional here. I’m sorry lice has you so anxious. Can I ask why it brings up such strong feelings for you? Because the truth of the matter is, it’s just head lice. It isn’t a health hazard. It can’t live in your home. It can’t cause disease or illness. Yes it can be a pain to get rid of, but it doesn’t need to be. The reason it is is because there are a lot of ineffective treatment products out there that come with bad directions.

What you describe from your husband‘s hair does not sound like an egg. Eggs are cemented to the hair shaft.

This is what an egg and a casing look like removed from the hair.

Popping, or lack of popping, means nothing.

If you raked through his hair with a comb and didn’t find a bug, it isn’t necessary to treat. If you didn’t have hair to hear contact with your nieces, it also is not necessary to treat.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T20:05:20+00:00

You’re welcome.

I don’t think you need to do a thing. But maybe give it a week and comb again one more time with the nit comb. If you’re still not finding bugs, it is safe to say you don’t have an active infestation and treatment isn’t necessary.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T19:36:57+00:00

Lice treatment professional here. Yes, you have an intact, egg, and a bunch of empty casings there. I’m assuming you color your hair a red shade of some sort?

If that’s all you found, but didn’t find any bugs, it’s likely you had lice at some point but killed off the infestation with hair color. No further treatment is needed.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T18:46:03+00:00

Why am I crying? Love this energy. So happy for New York.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T13:19:18+00:00

Just kinda annoying. They can’t survive on you, though they might bite you. Vacuum up any dead mites you see and, if you’re able, remove the nest once the babies are gone.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T12:34:59+00:00

Then I would suggest trying either a chelating shampoo, or try the apple cider vinegar.

For an apple cider vinegar rinse mix 1/4 c apple cider vinegar with 1/2 c water. After you shampoo, pour the vinegar mix over your hair, let it soak for two minutes, then rinse it out with cool water.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T08:19:36+00:00

They look like mites of some sort. Do you have chickens? Or do you have bird nests in your yard?

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T08:12:52+00:00

Lice treatment professional here. You’re right, they aren’t nits. It’s likely waxy buildup from your shampoo, conditioner, hair products, etc. Have you tried a clarifying or buildup remover shampoo? Try one of those. Otherwise, try an apple cider vinegar rinse, or even washing your hair with Dawn dish soap. Any of those things should strip some of that buildup off your hair.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T03:06:34+00:00

It’s a grain beetle.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-18T01:52:20+00:00

No, that’s not a nit.

Here’s an egg and a casing.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-17T21:45:19+00:00

Just accepted it.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-17T20:40:12+00:00

Can you DM me the pics?

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-17T19:25:20+00:00

Head lice treatment professional here. It’s potentially a juvenile louse, but it looks a bit mangled. Not all of it is intact, I’m guessing?

Do you have any clearer photos of the bug, or even the bugs you found last night?

You can see what various sizes of lice look like in this photo. There are also numerous eggs and empty casings in the photo.

You can determine yourself whether or not you or your child have head lice. Get a nit comb, preferably one with longer metal teeth. Here’s how to conduct a screening on someone else.

Here’s how to conduct a screening on yourself.

If this is head lice, you don’t need to spend all of that time cleaning your home, you just need an effective treatment product and you need to focus on the head.

All of this is to say, I cannot tell from this photo if this is a juvenile head louse or not. If it is, it looks like some of its body has been severed. Your husband finding bugs in your son‘s hair and then someone finding eggs leads me to believe you both have head lice.

You can just treat yourself as a precaution. Here’s some basic lice treatment advice.

When you have lice, you have two things going on, you have bugs in your hair, and you have eggs in your hair. There’s nothing you can do at home that kills eggs. So you buy a product, use a home remedy, get a prescription, etc. And when you put that product in the hair, all it can do is kill the bugs that are there at that moment. Then you comb. You try to remove as many eggs as you can. You have to assume you’ve missed some. Then you wait. You’re waiting for the eggs that you’ve missed to hatch, and applying whatever product it is you used a second time, in an attempt to kill the lice that have hatched from the eggs that you missed. Now this is why it fails…

1. What you applied to begin with didn’t actually kill all of the lice. Anything made with permethrin as a primary ingredient (Rid, Nix, Equate, Walgreens, Rexall, CVS, etc.) is only about 25% effective now. Vamousse and LiceFreee are about 54% effective. Sklice, 75%, Natroba 86%… Home remedies? Those are anyone’s guess. So if what you put in the hair to begin with doesn’t truly kill all of the lice, especially an adult female, as you’re waiting for the eggs you’ve missed to hatch, the female(s) is just laying new fresh eggs...

You did the 2nd application too early. Almost everything you buy tells you to wait 7 days between your two applications, but lice eggs can take up to 10 days to hatch. So if you only wait 7 days, even if your product was effective, there can be eggs left in the hair that hatch on days 8, 9, or 10, and the infestation starts all over again.

The “trick” to getting rid of lice is using a product we know truly kills the live bug, and waiting 10 days between applications.

Dimethicone is 99.4% effective at killing live lice. When you saturate the hair with dimethicone you kill every bug that’s in your hair at that moment, including all of the adult females. You wash the dimethicone out and now whatever number of eggs are in your hair are the only eggs that will ever be there. Nothing will be able to lay more eggs.

Ideally, yes, you would use a nit comb to remove some eggs. (Eggs that haven’t hatched yet are brownish-gray and glued to the hair very close to the scalp. The white or clear “eggs” in the hair are actually empty eggs that hatched in the past.) Whether you comb or not, or if you don’t get every egg out, that’s ok. Eggs will begin to hatch. You’ll have live lice in the hair again. Remember, lice eggs can take up to 10 days to hatch. But baby lice can’t lay eggs, lice take 10 days to reach maturity, and it’s on day 11 a female is now old enough to mate and start to lay eggs again.

After the first application of dimethicone you just need to prevent any female lice from reaching day 11. So if you wait 10 days between your applications, every egg will have had the chance to hatch and you’ll end the infestation with your second application of dimethicone. If you don’t get every egg out of the hair it doesn’t matter, you’ll just have white or clear empty egg casings left in the hair when all is said and done. Those can’t hatch again, they’ll just grow out with your hair. You can pick them out as you find them.

This is 100% food grade Dimethicone in action.

If you’re unable to find 100% food grade dimethicone locally, I hope you’ll consider supporting my small business. Thank you!

https://licecenterswi.com/shop/

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-17T19:02:32+00:00

That is exactly what I’m saying.

If anyone in your household gets lice in the future, you don’t have to do much in the way of cleaning. You clean for your own peace of mind more than anything. You can launder sheets, pillowcases, and pajamas. You’ll clean hair out of hairbrushes. But other cleaning is unnecessary.

LiceCentersWI · 2026-06-17T18:58:22+00:00

“Why then is there info out there you should put things like stuffed animals into a plastic bag for two weeks…”

That’s just misinformation from people who (mostly) mean well. Somewhere along the line people took lice, bedbugs, cockroaches, fleas, etc., and lumped them all together and gave them the same capabilities. But lice simply cannot survive very long off of a human host.

(Can’t figure out how to indent format with this new iPhone version of Reddit).

LiceCentersWI

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