Watching the coverage of the Oscars red carpet last Sunday night, I was struck over and over by the same thought. “Celebrities! Stop hugging and getting your heads so close together! Don’t you know that’s how the nits spread?”
I don’t even have children, but a number of my friends who are parents have been fighting the good fight against the demon head lice for months now and the vigilance has rubbed off on me. I even had to go over one evening to “do” the head of one of my pals, because she didn’t trust her husband to get the job done.
How have we not eradicated nits? We have arse implants and double-basket air fryers but no cure for lice? I can’t prove it but I suspect, much like many other things, that it’s the patriarchy’s fault. If husbands were solely tasked with applying the noxious lotions and fiddling with the little combs, I bet nits would have disappeared along with Viagra prescriptions.
As I peruse the internet to find out why lice are so tenacious, my scalp crawling with millions of imagined tiny legs, some alarming words and phrases jump out. “Super lice” have apparently evolved to be resistant to the conventional potions used to try to eradicate an infestation. The substance the female louse uses to attach her eggs to individual hairs can be described as “cement-like”, and is resistant to washing, brushing and styling. A female louse has a “sperm store”, meaning she only has to mate once but can go on producing eggs throughout her entire life cycle. Work, bitch! Smash that glass ceiling, I guess?
It is reassuring to find out that the line about lice preferring clean hair holds strong. It’s always been a comfort. Although my mother claims I only had lice once throughout my entire school career so I’m not sure what that says about my follicular hygiene as a youngster. My mother was a primary school teacher so was likely even more attuned than most to the terror of an infestation. One of my earliest memories is of being dropped off at the local cinema to see Kindergarten Cop and being told, “don’t sit beside anyone who looks like they might have nits.” Oh dear, sweet mother, everyone has nits, all the time, it seems. I also have vivid memories of the eye-watering solution being applied over the kitchen sink and the dreaded fine-tooth comb. Combined with regular worm treatments, it’s not surprising that I was basically a parasite-free zone.
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A friend who has been battling near-constant reinfection for months claims that the more relaxed nature of 2026 classrooms is absolute heaven for lice. Children are less likely to be strictly desk bound and absolutely love rubbing their heads together. They then love to come home to share hairbrushes and wrestle with their siblings for a few hours before heading into mammy and daddy’s bed for some co-sleeping. The lice are flat out visiting the neighbouring noggins to relax in their new surroundings like Cleopatra being fanned with palm fronds. Selfie culture also has a part to play, seemingly, when it comes to the tweens and teens. Nothing says “nit nit hooray” like an extended photo shoot in close quarters.
Another friend, driven to distraction by the little beggars when her children returned to school after the Covid shutdowns, went down the route of head shaving. She also took to bleaching her own hair when she learned that the peroxide was like a nuclear winter for the lice. She’s been a dedicated blonde ever since.
I unearthed some fascinating videos on social media from dedicated nit salons and clinics. These places are hoovering lice out of heads, they’re locking in treatments with special caps, they’re examining the culprits under microscopes, they’re distracting children with multiple iPads. It’s a whole industry. Do I smell a conspiracy? Is Big Nit keeping the life cycle of the louse going so desperate parents will fork out for increasingly extreme methods of treatment? Alas, probably not. The lice just really are that tenacious.
Will we ever be free of them? Probably not. As sure as the sun will rise in the morning, every September will bring the dreaded message from the teacher that reads “Hello, we have a confirmed case of lice in third class. Please check your child’s hair vigilantly and carry out the appropriate treatments.” Seriously, check on your friends with school-age kids. They’re in the trenches with the nit lotion and the little comb, scratching the heads off themselves.