Post in collaboration with Po-Lice
“Kirsty Russell here, reporting from the front lines of the ongoing battle with our long-time foes, head lice. After nearly 8 years of battle, we are tired and exhausted. Our troops are reluctant to continue to engage in combat and our morale is low. Despite trying every weapon at our disposal, we’ve been unable to deal a decisive blow to the enemy. They just keep coming back in greater numbers. Fresh reinforcements are needed to continue the fight. Please support our cause!”
Our battle against head lice
It’s not an exaggeration to liken our nearly 8 year battle with head lice with ground warfare. If you have any experience with this relentless foe, you’ll appreciate my battle-weariness.
Sometimes it feels like a fight I just can’t win.
Matilda first caught head lice in daycare when she had just turned 3 and she has been battling them ever since. Her hair is thick and just the right colour to camouflage eggs and budding lice. And if you happen to miss just one egg during treatment, that’s it – they will surely return.
Luckily, Delilah’s hair is much lighter and finer so over time it’s been far easier to detect and effectively treat head lice outbreaks before they’ve taken hold. Yet she’s still be been prone to the odd outbreak, particularly because of the ongoing issues we’ve had with Matilda’s hair.
You can imagine how many treatments, as well as deterrents, we’ve tried over the years. Some have worked better than others but they’ve all shared one thing – the need to coat the hair with product and the requirement to comb out the lice and their eggs.
With Matilda on the autism spectrum, this has involved a lot of sensory overwhelm as she simply cannot stand the feel of a comb through her hair. Even now, as she nears her 11th birthday, she struggles to get through a lice treatment without tears.
Honestly, there have been times when I’ve wished I could shave all their hair off and just get rid of the lice that way!
But, thankfully, there is now another way to ward off lice without recourse to such drastic measures. And it doesn’t involve combing or foul smelling solutions – yay!
About Po-Lice Head Lice Defence
Po-Lice head lice defence provides an innovative, all-natural, pesticide-free, non-toxic and sensory friendly way to defend hair from the ever present threat of head lice. Using plant oils, Po-Lice hair ties work naturally to defend against head lice, each containing a special and effective formula that helps to defend against lice for up to 2 weeks.
Each Po-Lice box contains 8 bands which in total provides up to 16 weeks (4 months) worth of protection. The hair bands come in a variety of colours, including red, blue, brown and purple, so they look like any other hair tie.
We have been trialling the bands in Delilah’s hair since she returned to school a few weeks back. I was determined to do something to defeat head lice after she suffered recurrent episodes during her first term at kindergarten. I really didn’t want to start battling this insidious enemy on two separate fronts, in both my daughters’ hair!
The bands have a natural scent, reminiscent of tea tree oil. It’s by no means an unpleasant smell (Delilah thinks they make her smell beautiful!) but it could overwhelm some kids, particularly those with olfactory sensitivities.
The bands are strong and easy to use and don’t leave any residue – they look and feel like any other hair tie. Without the hint of the natural scent, you would actually be forgiven for mistaking them for a normal hair band.
Effective defence against head lice lasts for two weeks – then it’s time to break out a new hair tie. They come individually wrapped so you can leave them packaged until you need them which I’ve found really convenient.
It’s important not to get the bands wet – this interferes with the formula used on the hair tie – something we unfortunately did on our second day of use. But we were able to break open another band and we have been successful in keeping it dry and clean ever since (Delilah has made sure of that!)
The Verdict
The big question is, of course, whether they are truly effective in defending against lice. I must confess that I do not have a definitive answer to that as yet. As we had to treat the girls for head lice over the holidays, there is a chance that some lice survived our treatments. Unfortunately I have found the odd teeny tiny lice in Delilah’s hair in the weeks since we started using Po-Lice.
This does not mean the bands don’t work – I actually believe they’ve been very effective in minimising any further outbreak in Delilah’s hair. But I cannot categorically say the bands are 100% effective due to the fact we did have an existing infestation to deal with.
I will continue to use the bands and I would recommend them to others. At $29.95 for a pack of 8 (which gives 16 weeks protection) it is an economical way to prevent infestations in your kids’ hair. Considering regular treatments can cost the same amount and more, I think prevention is definitely better than cure.
I’m guessing you will be nodding along vigorously to that last point – NO-ONE wants to deal with head lice!
I also believe there is great potential for Po-Lice to help kids with special needs and sensory sensitivities. The hair bands present an alternate way to prevent head lice, without recourse to a spray, harsh combing or a smelly solution. Based on my own experience, something like this would have saved Matilda and myself many hours of grief over the years…
The only caveat to this recommendation is in cases where your child is highly sensitive to smell – if this applies to you just be aware that the bands do have a light, but distinct, natural smell.
I’m heading back to the trenches now but I’m happy to report there is an alternative out there that may just see you avoid all-out war in future!
You can discover more about Po-Lice on their website.
Disclaimer: I received no monetary compensation for this post however I did receive a pack of 8 Po-Lice hair ties for the purposes of review valued at $29.95. All views shared here are my honest take on the product.
I had read somewhere about smothering the head with hair conditioner to combat any lice. Then you just comb through & wash out.
I am not sure how effective it was, but I’ll wager my daughter had the softest, most nourished hair in the classroom.
Head lice have been a nightmare to me and my children for longer than I choose to remember. Many years ago I was so desperate to remove the head lice that had taken residence in the head of each of our children. I subjected each of them to having kerosene on their head for 5 mins.. It worked, it destroyed the head lice, stripped all the oils from their hair and completely melted the two hair brushes I was using. I haven’t resorted to that treatment since. I’ve tried the conditioner and combing through with a nit comb but after 14 days of constantly combing and applying I’d give up. I’ve tried making my own solution of lavender, tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil, nothing seems to work. I think I’ve won but they come back to haunt me. When my children catch head lice so do I. I colour my hair to kill them, unfortunately the girls have to go through the nit treatments. Once is never enough, even the once only treatments need to be used regularly. Any solution that works or deters head lice has my vote.
Ugh! Our eldest has just started school this year and we haven’t had to freak with this yet. I’m hoping as I have 2 boys we won’t have as many problems but I’m told there are no guarantees!
While headlice is a constant war for me as an aide in a special needs class, it isn’t my biggest battle as a parent. I think my biggest battle right now as a parent is trying to parent a teenager who knows everything, doesn’t want to do anything and expects lot. If I survive the teenage years of my children, then the lice will be the lesser problem of the two 😛
My parenting battle is having three girls with the eldest turing into a teen this year. Hormones, pimples, periods, growing hair in odd places, growing pains, bitchiness oh the list goes on…..no wonder my husband is going grey!
Getting the kids to play nicely with each other. They play nicely with their cousins and friends, even sharing with them too. BUT when it’s just the pair of them, here at home, everything is “MINE”, “DON’T TOUCH”, “GET AWAY FROM ME”.
Doesn’t sound huge, but for me it’s a constant battle. And little Miss nearly three, has refined the art of the faux squeal of feigned pain or desperate need for help, when Master six is close enough to her, but hasn’t touched or said boo to her!!!
Yes, they will grow out of it……..and this I repeat to myself, as I expel breath, my mantra as to not go insane 🙂
My granddaughter has been getting head lice for yrs. We have used every product we could lay our hands on but smothering her hair in conditioner ,then using a nit comb combing her long hair then rinsing has worked the best.These bands sound absolutley amazing & would save her from embarrassment & the weekly grind of the conditioner treatment.
worms, little itchy worms that make a child wriggle, squirm, turn upside down and not sleep. All the kiddies have had their turn, everything washed and the little wormies keep reinfecting – everything treated and retreated.
Eating! I have never in my life felt so frustrated and powerless as I do when I’m arguing with a 7 year old about food. Picky isn’t the word, and nothing has seemed to work so far, so it’s a constant battle.
Nits just like you we have hair that appears to attract them and then the treatments even using just conditioner leaves one of my twins with dandruff! I have twin daughters and they both have the most beautiful thick long strawberry blonde hair it isn’t that deep auburn colour and it isn’t bright red it is perfectly in between. They are both ballet dancers which means hair long enough for hair buns! And they both HATE with a passion having their hair washed or brushed even on a daily basis it is like drawing blood to get them to let me do their hair. In fact I can honestly say that both of my daughter’s are actually much better at having blood tests than they are at sitting still and letting me brush their hair or getting them to allow me to wash their hair. Because of the length and thickness of it I need to wash it otherwise they don’t get all the product (hairspray etc) out and off their scalp (did you know that a build up of hairspray turns a scalp black it is gross!) or they don’t wash all of the shampoo and conditioner out which means their hair gets dirty and greasy quickly! Seriously the fact that I had identical twin daughters is a sign of God’s sense of humour! Don’t get me wrong I adore my daughters but my son is far less maintenance and he is smack in the middle of puberty nearly 15 – in fact he came home today asking if we could move to Canberra today because his PE teacher said it was legal to smoke cannabis in the ACT and to grow 1 plant for personal use! Ummmmm, nope would be the answer to that! But I would still rather teach him about saying no to drugs and why they are just not worth it than do my daughters’ hair every day!
Nits with twins who insist on sharing a bed, and won’t let me get a few inches cut off their hair (nearly to the top of their bottoms!) is hell on earth. The combing, the crying (and that is just me at the thought of it!), the washing, and repeat and because of my stupid liver disease I can’t even drink wine to cope with it all!
I NEEEEEEDDDDDD the Po-Lice in my life!
Hey Kristi! I just absolutely loved reading about po-lice product. I mean it seems so convenient and hassle-free. I feel that the idea is great. But for the nits, I believe that the only treatment for getting rid of nits is to use nit comb to deter head lice eggs.
Many of us don’t think that head lice could attack black people due to their hair texture but we were just amazed that recently my black friend’s daughter had this instance of head lice infestation. She has the curly dense hair structure. Her case was the first that I ever heard. I dig some info and tried to write a detailed post on my blog for all the black friends. But I would definitely share this post with my friend.