Olive oil is an alternative method to lice shampoo to allow for lice treatment without the use of toxic chemicals. To use olive oil for lice removal, it is important to allow enough time for the oil to smother the lice, as this is how this method works.

The olive oil needs to first saturate the hair down to the root, and all hair needs to be completely coated with the smothering agent. The oil should be left on the hair a minimum of four hours. It would ideally be left on overnight. it is best to have a shower cap over the head, if only to simply keep the oil from staining clothes and furniture.

The oil should be washed out with dish soap. A regular shampoo will not wash the oil completely out of the hair. Once the oil is washed out of the hair, a good lice comb needs to be used to remove all dead lice and nits. This process should also be done if you are using a lice shampoo, so that does not mean that using olive oil makes the process more tedious!

The olive oil works because it smothers the lice, but it does not kill nits in the hair. If you continue to see live lice, then it is important to continue to use a comb to comb out the hair, or you will have another infestation. You may also want to look for an alternative method to use in addition to the oil

There have been reports of this method also being used with mayonnaise, petroleum jelly and hair conditioner. Olive oil however, has been tested in trials at Harvard and they have found that it is effective as a lice treatment, as the lice were smothered after two hours, but if they were removed from the oil after an hour, they were still alive. This was a simple trial, and anecdotal evidence states that using the smothering method works about fifty percent of the time.

The University of Nebraska however, completed studies that lice have been found to live through an olive oil treatment overnight.

It is difficult to determine if the successes the smothering method are due to diligent combing, completely saturating the hair, or by sheer luck.