I’m a magnificence editor and I’ve nits!
Spotting a WhatsApp message from my children’s school ping up on my phone, I feel a familiar panic.
No, they weren’t poorly and needed picking up; instead, yet another case of nits had been reported in my son’s Year 1 class. Two days earlier, my daughter’s Year 4 class had also had a case reported.
In fact, headlice are becoming a constant in our lives.
Nits have been ripping around my kids’ primary school like wildfire and hardly a week has gone by without one, or both, of their teachers sending these delightful messages.
Apparently, our little pocket of South East London isn’t alone either — head lice cases are reportedly rising across the globe.
Beauty editor Bethan King, 43, was horrified to find a nit comb crawling with the creatures
‘We’re seeing an increase in headlice cases across the board. Last year was virulent, but this year is even worse,’ attests Dee Wright, founder of lice treatment specialists Hairforce (hairforceclinics.com), which has seven clinics around the country.
Sadly, our household has not escaped unscathed; so far this year, we’ve had lice several times. And yes, when I say ‘we’, I’m including myself.
For while my daughter and son have both had nits three times a piece in the past year, I’ve also had it twice. Which when you’re a 43-year-old beauty editor, for whom trying to perfect personal grooming comes with the territory, is mortifying to say the least.
Yet even keeping my finger on the pulse of the latest hair and beauty trends for a living has failed to protect me from the fact that lice can come back again and again.
When I first noticed several large lice bumbling along my six-year-old son’s parting earlier this year, the last thing I imagined was that I’d somehow got nits myself,
But after asking my husband to painstakingly comb my shoulder-length hair as a precaution, I was horrified when he showed me the nit comb crawling with them.
Embarrassed didn’t cover it; I know nits are a childhood rite of passage, but having them as a grown-up felt like another matter.
Cases of nits have increased around the world, according to Dee Wright, founder of lice treatment specialists Hairforce
I was furious with myself that I’d allowed it to happen. What would people think? And worst of all, how long had they been crawling around in my hair?!
So instead of spending my days researching the latest skincare wonder-ingredients or luxury perfumes, I found myself Googling ‘how to get rid of nits’.
As someone who is lucky enough to get sent a fair amount of haircare products to try for my job, I was stunned by the price of headlice treatments — £15 for a 200ml bottle that might only treat a handful of heads?
Even the most high-end shampoos on the market have a better cost-per-wash, and fancier packaging to boot.
Being plagued by nits very quickly started affecting my day job, too. Like the time I was invited to a press launch for a prestigious haircare brand and offered a blowdry with an A-list stylist so in demand that an appointment is nigh-on impossible for mere mortals.
Ordinarily, I would have crawled over hot coals to have my hair done by this person. So to explain to their management team of glossy twenty-somethings that I was declining because I had nits was an all-time career low.
Of course, they graciously offered to book me another appointment when I was ‘all sorted’… but needless to say, that hasn’t happened — and frankly, I don’t blame them.
Likewise, at the beauty event where I was offered the chance to have a ‘selfie’ taken with a celebrity brand ambassador. I refused — the chance that it might go viral for all the wrong reasons did not escape me. After a myriad of lame excuses, I eventually had to fess up. And believe me, nothing can make a person take several swift steps back faster than telling them you have headlice.
It wasn’t just a problem at work either, the maddening itching keeping me awake at night, doing no favours for my temper.
After thinking I’d successfully treated us all, I couldn’t believe it when I spotted lice in both my daughter’s and son’s hair a few weeks later.
So, we all spent another miserable Friday night sat around with nit shampoo in our hair and towels round our shoulders taking turns to nit comb ourselves and then the kids. And after telling the kids to stop moaning that they didn’t like the way the shampoo felt, or how the nit comb tugged at their hair, I didn’t feel I could complain — even though I felt exactly the same.
A collective ten cases later, I found the best way to banish the blighters is treating everyone with a nit shampoo three times. I found Lyclear Express Treat & Protect Shampoo, £15.99, most effective — spacing each treatment three days apart, using the nit comb daily in between, then every other day for another week afterwards.
Investing in a good quality, very fine, long-toothed nit comb is vital to pick up all the eggs as well as the lice.
Investing in a good quality, very fine, long-toothed nit comb is vital to pick up all the eggs as well as the lice
Dee Wright warns that the free combs that come with most lice treatments aren’t fine enough to do the job properly. She recommends the Nitty Gritty Nit-Free Comb, £13, which she says is one of the best on the market. I’d then finish with Hedrin Protect & Go Spray, £5.13
Yes, it is as laborious as it sounds. Not to mention that regularly using head lice treatments makes your hair feel like straw, so it would be remiss of me here not to recommend investing in a good conditioning hair mask to use afterwards.
Lastly, make sure the critters aren’t lurking anywhere else in your house, be it clothes, the sofa, cushions, hairbrushes or kids’ cuddly toys, which is how I found myself manically vacuuming three sets of bedding.
Now, like many parents around the UK, I’m holding out for the six-week summer holidays to act as a kind of circuit-breaker.
Yet, in the meantime, if you see me with my hair in a greasy bun, I’m not letting my standards slip, I’m doing a headlice treatment.
Likewise, if I’m keeping my distance at a work event, I’m not avoiding you, I’ve probably just got nits.
