Best nit and head lice treatments for 2024

A child constantly scratching an itchy scalp is a clear sign that head lice are doing the rounds - but choosing between an array of treatments can be really confusing.

We surveyed 1,030 parents with children under 12, asking how they rated head lice products for effectiveness, ease of use, smell and value.

Below we reveal the best head lice treatments, information on the most popular brands and where to buy them, plus tips on what head lice look like and how to get rid of them.

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Which are the best head lice and nit treatments?

Only logged-in Which? members can view the head lice treatment test results below. 

If you're not yet a member, you'll see an alphabetically ordered list of the head lice treatments in our survey. Join Which? to get instant access to our survey scores below. 

_{Table notes: Survey of 1,030 UK parents in June 2022 with a child aged up to 12 years. Sample sizes: Boots (205), Full Marks (220), Hedrin (216), Lyclear (197), Nitty Gritty (85), NitWits (60), Puressentiel (33), Superdrug (163), Vamousse (62).}

Popular head lice treatments: brands and prices

Below, we've listed popular brands of nit and head lice treatments used by parents, with information on their range, typical prices and where to buy them. 

Logged-in Which? members can also view how each treatment scored in our parent survey, along with star ratings for effectiveness, ease of use, smell and value for money.

If you're not yet a member, you'll see an alphabetically ordered list of the head lice treatments instead. Join Which? to find out which brand of head lice treatment parents rated the best. 

Prices and availability last checked 21 December 2023.

Acu-Life nit comb

Cheapest price: £5.70 available at Amazon.

Acu-Life produces Lice Cure, which you can buy in the US, but isn't currently available in the UK.

However, the brand also has a range of metal-toothed nit and head lice combs that prove popular with parents. 

The combs weren't included in our survey so we don't have a rating. 

Boots Pharmaceuticals head lice treatment

Cheapest price: £10 for 200ml (£4.50 per 100ml) available at Boots.

Boots' own-brand head lice treatment, which can be used on children from the age of two, claims to kill both head lice and eggs in 15 minutes.

You massage the coconut oil shampoo into hair to produce a lather before rinsing and combing with the nit comb provided.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Boots head lice treatments.

Full Marks

Cheapest price: £12 for 200ml (£6 per 100ml) available at Morrisons.

With a five-minute waiting time, Full Marks solution is one of the speedier treatments. 

It contains cyclomethicone which kills the lice by dehydrating them so they can then be removed with the comb provided, along with any eggs.

Although it claims to be effective in one use, the packaging small print advises repeating the treatment one week and two weeks later if necessary - something we would recommend you do anyway to catch any later lice hatchlings.

The 200ml bottle of Full Marks solution includes a fine metal-toothed comb and is suitable for four treatments. 

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Full Marks head lice treatments.

Hedrin

Cheapest price: £11.20 for 100ml at Tesco. 

Like Full Marks, Hedrin kills the headlice by suffocating them with dimeticone, rather than poisoning them.

In addition to its 4% lotion, Hedrin's other treatments include: 

• Treat & Go Lotion, Spray or Mousse, which is applied to hair, dried then washed out after eight hours. It’s available in different sizes (60ml does about two applications) and prices start at £4.58 for 60ml and go up to as high as £19.99 for 250ml so shop around. 
• Once Spray Gel – a 15-minute gel treatment applied like a shampoo then washed out. Prices start at £9.50 for 100ml. 
• All-in-One Shampoo – this treatment is claimed to work in 10 minutes to kill lice, remove eggs and clean hair, so it's easy to include in a regular bathtime routine. Prices start from £6.46 for 100ml.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Hedrin head lice treatments.

Lyclear 

Cheapest price: £8 for 100ml available at Superdrug.

Lyclear products use a physical action to suffocate and dehydrate both live and unhatched head lice. As well as its lotion, it sells several other treatments.

These include a head lice treatment spray and comb, a 10-minute treatment shampoo, a creme rinse (suitable from six months of age) and a solution for people with sensitive skin. 

Lyclear also has an Extra Strong range, which costs between £8.99 and £15.99. It's available as a shampoo, lotion or spray and the manufacturer claims it offers 72 hours of protection from re-infestation.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Lyclear head lice treatments.

Nitty Gritty

Cheapest price: £12 for 150ml (£8 per 100ml) available at Nitty Gritty.

You can buy this pesticide-free treatment on its own or as part of a kit, which includes a solution, a plastic nit comb and a defence spray.

The solution, which contains essential oils, neem and wheatgerm, is formulated to help your nit comb glide smoothly through hair but without foaming up like a conditioner.

You can buy the Nitty Gritty Complete Nit Kit for £30. The Nitty Gritty nit comb on its own costs from £12.99.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Nitty Gritty head lice treatments.

NitWits

Cheapest price: £11 for 120ml (£9.33 per 100ml) available on Amazon.

This Australian brand is also available in the UK. It's an all-in-one treatment that comes in a spray format. You spray on the treatment, leave it for 20 minutes then rinse out.

NitWits All-in-One Lice Treatment comes with a comb for removing dead lice and eggs.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate NitWits treatments.

Puressentiel herbal treatment

Cheapest price: £17.90 for 100ml available Puressentiel.

Puressentiel anti-lice treatment lotion contains a mix of natural vegetable oils such as coconut and jojoba, as well as lavender, clove, tea tree, geranium essential oils.

It claims to kill head lice, larvae eggs and nits by mechanically obstructing their respiratory openings.

The bottle comes with a lice comb, which you need to use after applying the treatment to remove lice and eggs.

Puressentiel also sells a 2-in-1 treatment shampoo, which costs £24.90 for 150ml. 

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Puressentiel head lice treatments.

Superdrug head lice treatment

Cheapest price: £6 for 120ml (£5 per 100ml) available at Superdrug.

This own-brand head lice treatment is one of the cheaper options and like some of the more expensive head lice treatments like Hedrin, it contains dimeticone, which works by suffocating lice. 

The manufacturer recommends you leave it on for as long as possible (preferably overnight), so it might not be the best choice if you're in a rush.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Superdrug head lice treatments.

Vamousse

Cheapest price: £14 for 160ml (£9 per 100ml) available at Chemist4U.

This brand started off with a mousse-based treatment but has since branched out with a protective lice shampoo as well.

The active ingredients are isopropyl alcohol and isopropyl myristate, and it works by dissolving the lice's protective exoskeleton then dehydrating the lice and eggs – something it claims to do in two hours.

Log in now or join Which? to find out how parents rate Vamousse head lice treatments.

How do I get rid of head lice?

There are three main methods for tackling head lice and nits: the nit comb method, the medicated method and the herbal/natural method.

See below for more on how they work and the pros and cons of each.

Nit comb method

This is one of the cheapest nit treatments (basic nit combs start at around £2) and can be used for both lice detection and getting rid of an infestation. Here's how:

1. Cover the infected hair in conditioner to loosen the lice and make combing easier.
2. Start pulling the comb from the roots all the way to the tips of the hair.
3. After each stroke, check the comb and clean on to a tissue to check for lice, repeating for at least 30 minutes.
4. Do the same process four more times over the following two weeks to ensure all lice (including newly hatched ones) are removed.

It's quite time-consuming and can be tricky for some hair types but it still proved popular in our 2022 survey where 73% of respondents who didn't use a branded head lice treatment said they had used conditioner and a nit comb.

Battery-operated combs can be used on dry hair and claim to kill lice on contact, but there is limited evidence to show they really work so the extra outlay (around £15 rather than around £2 for a basic nit comb) may not be justified.

Pros No resistance concerns, they're reusable plus they avoid insecticides

Cons Fiddly and time-consuming, metal combs can hurt and electric combs aren't proven to be effective

Watch our video of how to comb through hair using a nit comb and conditioner

Medicated method

Some 69% of parents we surveyed in 2022 said they used a head lice solution, with medicated treatments from Boots, Superdrug, Full Marks, Hedrin, Nitwits and Lyclear all making the list. 

One of the benefits of these treatments is that they're often much quicker to use than the combing method – some take only 10 minutes. 

Medicated methods fall into one of two categories - chemical insecticides and physical insecticides.

Chemical insecticides. These poison the lice or paralyse their nervous systems and various trials have shown they work. However, they can lead to louse resistance so shouldn't be used as a preventative measure - plus some smell horrible, like malathion (Derbac-M) which has a garlic aroma.

Physical insecticides.  These kill lice by physically coating them in liquid to drown or dehydrate them. The upside is that they tend to be odourless, you're avoiding insecticides and louse resistence to them is unlikely. However, be prepared to treat again after a week to tackle newly hatched lice because some products kill live lice but not the eggs.

Herbal/natural method

Natural and herbal remedies include tea tree oil and green-tea shampoo as well as over-the-counter products like Puressentiel and Nitty Gritty.

In our 2022 survey, two in five parents who used an alternative to traditional branded treatments chose herbal treatments and a nit comb.

However, head lice management guidance from NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) says that essential oil-based and herbal treatments are not recommended due to the lack of good-quality evidence on their safety and efficacy.

If you prefer not to use a medicated product, we recommend using conditioner and a nit comb.

Pros Resistance is less likely than with some methods and they are easy to apply

Cons There's little clinical research into efficacy of treatments, the potential side-effects aren't known and they can be strong-smelling

If your child is feeling under the weather, use one of our best digital thermometers to quickly and easily take their temperature.

How should I treat head lice in mixed-race and Afro hair?

Dee Wright, founder of The Hairforce, a professional head lice removal company, suggests the following for treating mixed-race and Afro hair:

• Part rather than detangle hair. Part down the middle rather than attempting to detangle the entire head of hair and use lots of conditioner because these types of hair are highly absorbent.
• Work with sections. After creating a middle parting, work with smaller sections to make it more manageable. For very curly or Afro hair, Dee recommends dividing the hair into 12 sections – six either side – before starting to comb.
• Detangle. As soon as it's detangled, plait it to keep it under control and out of your way.
• Nit combing. Once you've detangled and plaited them all, unplait one at a time, apply conditioner and start nit-combing. When you finish nit-combing that section, replait it and move on to the next plait.

African and Afro-Caribbean hair

African and Afro-Caribbean hair has a flattened-oval hair shaft, while mixed-race and Caucasian hair has a more circular hair shaft. 

The head lice indigenous to Caucasian hair aren't adapted to the flattened-oval hair shaft, so the lice aren't able to take up home as effectively in African or Afro-Caribbean hair.

Dreadlocks

The density of dreadlocks makes it impossible to nit comb, which means you can't comb the nits out and the eggs will hatch, leading to repeated infestations. 

The dreadlocks need to have grown down to at least five to six inches (13 to 15cm) from the head so you can tackle both scalp and roots, where fresh eggs are found, but because you can't nit comb it may be best to seek the help of professional lice removal experts.

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What head lice treatment can I use when pregnant?

The best method to use if you have head lice when you're expecting is nit combing with conditioner because it avoids chemicals.

If you still can't eradicate them, speak to your doctor or pharmacist about what to do next.

What do head lice look like?

Head lice are small brown insects but before you spot these you may notice white specks in your child's hair - these are the empty egg cases (also known as 'nits').

Our gallery makes for grim viewing, but it's worth taking a look to discover exactly what to look for and how to spot nits and head lice.

Our 2022 survey reveals the most common first signs of head lice according to parents:

• Itching – 64%
• Head lice– 17%
• Nits (lice eggs) – 12%
• Sores on the scalp, neck or shoulder from scratching – 7%

Is your child itching but there's no sign of head lice? Find out more about different childhood rashes.

What causes head lice?

Head lice are generally picked up by head-to-head contact, which is why they can be so easily transmitted among children as they huddle together when playing or at school. It takes a mere 30 seconds for a single louse to transfer from one scalp to another.

Head lice are most common in children aged four to 11, are more common in girls than boys, and infestations are often seen at the start of the school year.

Lice can't be caught from animals, and although in theory you could pick up eggs from a pillowcase, hat or head scarf, it's very rare as lice can't live for very long if they're not on a host.

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How to avoid head lice and nits

Despite the fact that you can buy repellent sprays that claim to prevent head lice infestation, the NHS says there's nothing you can do to prevent head lice.

Rather it's a case of helping to stop them spread by wet or dry combing regularly to detect nits and lice early. 

Also, there's no need for children to stay off school if they have lice: just keep on top of wet combing and, if needed, use a medicated solution to tackle it.

See our round-up of the best head lice treatments.