A lice remover has to be, above all else, discreet.
Eliana Ortega wants journalists frantically seeking an interview with her to understand the golden rule of her job.
She's not going to make a TV show out of anyone's lice.
"The journalists who ask me to see me in action removing lice don't understand: the (infested) people don't even want their family to find out, much less the public," says the 36-year-old Ecuadorian.
Privacy is especially indispensable for upper-class people.
Many of them have been his clients.
Entrepreneurs, models and actresses "of great prestige that you see on television" and who
never schedule an appointment in their name to cure lice
, but in the name of nannies and domestic employees.
Eliana Ortega, a 36-year-old immigrant from Ecuador, is the founder and CEO of 'Larger Than Lice,' a company that offers lice treatments in New York.
Courtesy of Eliana Ortega
Lice, says Ortega, are less racist and classist than the very humans who contract them.
They infest rich and poor alike.
Also to the most powerful people in the world and their families.
[What the return of head lice has to do with the COVID-19 pandemic]
"Once I took lice out of a daughter of a former president of the United States and her granddaughters," he says. "Eight years ago I would have passed out, but (I treated them) normally, like any client, with respect and education.
I did not let them know that I was astonished, rather I put myself in the position of expert.
They hired me for a reason, and
while I'm picking lice, I'm the boss.
She can be the president's daughter or whoever
Ella is."
Was it Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Bill Cinton, Ronald Reagan, all with daughters and granddaughters?
The only thing she will say is that she felt well treated, that the former first family was kind and that money and power are like a magnifying glass: "They make what people really are look bigger."
Before dedicating herself professionally to treating human pediculosis — as experts call scalp lice — and founding her own company,
Larger Than Lice
, which has cured more than 10,000 New York families, Eliana Ortega had a hard dream of fulfilling , as dreams tend to be.
Eliana Ortega and her 8-year-old daughter enjoy their first days in New York, after emigrating from Ecuador in 2014. Courtesy of Eliana Ortega.
He wanted to leave his native Quito, Ecuador, and settle in New York, his longed-for city.
Being a single mother, one day in 2014 she took her little savings, her 8-year-old daughter, and bought two one-way tickets.
He made the decision as the writer Fran Lebowitz says that must be made by those who want to live in one of the most challenging cities in the world: one does not move to New York after having everything ready, says Lebowitz.
One moves and, once there, improvises to stay.
Picking lice off the rich
Eliana Ortega—an almost childlike smile, a motherly voice, brown hair dotted with blonde streaks—did exactly that.
For months she had to live with her daughter in a basement studio with one bed and no kitchen.
With rudimentary English, she worked up to three jobs at a time to keep a roof over her head.
She waitressed, cleaned houses and offices, handed out flyers, delivered pizzas and washed dishes.
Eliana Ortega works with a client to remove lice in New York.
Courtesy of Eliana Ortega
Until in the winter of 2015 someone asked him if he wanted to earn $25 an hour.
A head lice treatment company was desperately looking for employees because it was overworked with the outbreak that often follows the holidays and kids back in the classroom.
“It seemed strange to me at first, because I had never heard that removing lice was a job.
When I was a child in Ecuador it was my mom who took them away from me,” she recalls.
Her salary encouraged her to decide.
“My eyes went wide like that (she raises her eyebrows) and I said, 'I'll start now.
Right now'".
Shampoo and 'terminator' comb —a metal comb with very close teeth— in hand, Ortega began to see the interior of some of the most luxurious apartments in Manhattan and other exclusive areas of New York that he had seen in the movies.
Eliana Ortega leaves a subway station in New York, where she says she always had the aspiration to move.
Courtesy of Eliana Ortega.
“I was afraid to walk on the floor of those houses because I had never been in such luxury.
When I came in I was all shy, nervous, I didn't know where to put my things.
I was even embarrassed to ask them to lend me the bathroom, ”she recalls.
“That was at the beginning.
Human beings get used to everything.
He only worked for two months with that company.
In 2015 he went to study a professional course of lice treatments in Florida, returned to New York and founded his own company, which has not stopped having work since then, says Ortega, with the exception of the 2020 hiatus due to the restrictions that brought the coronavirus.
“As long as lice exist”
Human lice is more common in the United States than many may realize.
Although there is no reliable data on how many people get head lice each year in the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that between six and 12 million infections occur annually, mostly in children between three and 11 year old.
Their family members and caregivers are at higher risk of becoming infected.
Maybe the lice hate me, because I kill them.
But I love them, they are my life."
Eliana Ortega, head lice expert
With the relaxation of restrictions after more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the return to sociability in classrooms and workplaces, viruses, germs and lice are making a resurgence.
In addition to his wealthy clients, Ortega has agreements with New York schools to work with infected children and their families.
Despite
measuring just two or three millimeters
, scalp lice, says Ortega, are capable of wreaking havoc greater than could be attributed to such small insects.
She proudly carries the knowledge to relieve the families of the cataclysm, when a massive infection occurs.
"If your children have lice at school, they won't let them come back until they don't. If they have to stay home, that messes up your life. You have to get someone to take care of them or ask for permission at work," he explains.
"It's daunting in every way, psychologically and financially."
In cities like New York, treatment usually costs at least $800 per infected person, according to Ortega.
On his YouTube channel, he claims that he can make $2,500 in one day removing lice.
Lice are not a pest associated only with calamity.
Thanks to the cement they use to adhere their eggs (the nits) to the scalp, scientists have been able to study the DNA of humans who lived 2,000 years ago, from the heads of mummies.
“Lice have existed for centuries and we humans are never going to be able to eradicate them,” says Ortega. “We disappear first, rather than them.
It's a good thing for me because as long as they exist, this work exists."
What do you do for a living?
In the United States, says Ortega, all conversations with strangers begin with a foundational question, more common than any other: What do you do for a living?
She now speaks about her profession openly, but for some time she responded with euphemisms when asked about her profession.
Larger Than Lice, the lice service company founded by Eliana Ortega, claims to have cured more than 10,000 families in New York.
Courtesy of Eliana Ortega.
“Trying to have friends, a social circle, I was rejected several times.
People liked me but when they asked me what I do for a living and I told them the truth, that I get lice, that's where the friendship ended.
They didn't want to meet me anymore and automatically started scratching their heads
," she recalls.
That was why she concluded that it was not a good idea to be so honest from the beginning with strangers.
It occurred to her that the title "health consultant" would spare her from going into so much detail.
Who would have additional questions about such a nondescript profession?
But that title created other problems.
Consultant of what?
From the health of the scalp, she said.
Then they began to ask her for advice on her dandruff or hair loss.
Then she changed to "entrepreneur".
What do you do for a living?
I am an entrepreneur.
And what is your business?
I work with schools.
You are a professor?
Do not.
“So I said, 'You know what? I get lice and if you want to be my friend, fine, and if not, fine.
And if you don't want to give me a hug, fine.
Lice do not jump.
I don't have lice, just in case."
Having head lice doesn't mean you're dirty — and other myths
Her daughter, now 15, doesn't tell her mother's profession at school to avoid the rejection that comes with head lice myths.
And one of her partners, who thought that lice jump and fly, she had to give him an intensive class to calm him down.
Although lice are ancient insects, the stigma against those who have them and against those who eradicate them is still there.
Ortega wants to make clear what is reality and what is fiction.
Subject hits his wife's hairdresser for allegedly putting infested extensions on him
Feb. 15, 202200:26
Lice are not a disease of dirty or poor people
.
"In fact, they prefer a clean scalp. Those who wash their hair daily and take care of their personal hygiene are more likely to get them."
Lice do not jump or fly
: “People associate human pediculosis with the fleas that animals have.
Fleas do jump because they have back legs to propel themselves.
Instead, lice crawl, crawl, and don't have wings.
It is impossible for them to fly or jump.”
In short: to get them you have to have direct contact with the infested person (sharing pillows, hugging, taking a selfie).
Scalp lice do not transmit HIV or any other disease
.
There are three types of lice that humans can get: scalp lice, public hair lice, and body lice.
The latter can lay eggs on clothing and are the only ones capable of transmitting diseases such as epidemic typhus and some fever-causing bacteria, according to the CDC.
"Keep your lice"
It was a wealthy family with a lavish home on Long Island, Ortega recalls.
He drove 45 minutes in the middle of the night to get there.
The prices of the service had already been discussed, but the clients, white Americans, began to haggle using an argument that Ortega is not unfamiliar with.
"If you're Hispanic, what are you thinking to charge that," they told her. She didn't argue. Instead, she replied that she wouldn't charge them for the long trip.
"Don't pay me," he said, "but keep your lice."
Eliana Ortega shows one of the products she uses for her lice treatments.
Courtesy of Eliana Ortega.
Building a business like
Larger Than Lice
hasn't been all roses, and her Latino immigrant status has led to episodes of discrimination, especially in the
high-end
sector with which she often works, says Ortega.
“Once I was in a house where there were seven children (with lice), plus their mother and sister.
I hadn't eaten since morning, and I would finish one and go on to the other," she says. "I needed a break to eat, but they said no.
This lady wanted to have me like a robot, like a work machine.” When she stopped to rest, she says, they threatened to not pay her.
In his beginnings, Ortega could not afford to turn down clients and often ended up enduring the contempt of racists with a stoic effort.
"Now I choose who I want to work with," he says proudly.
We asked him if his relationship with head lice could be described as a love-hate relationship.
In the end, Ortega exterminates them, but he needs them.
"It's not a love-hate relationship," he replies.
“Maybe they hate me because I kill them, but I don't hate them.
I love them.
I love them, they are my life.
I even have a stuffed animal with lice.”
These days, the expert doesn't have time for much.
In addition to her daily work,
she is preparing a lice treatment course
called the
Larger Than Lice Academy
, which will be available online in May 2022, and with which she seeks to "help Latinos create their own lice service business." .
“Starting a business in a country that is not yours has never been easy and I had to learn the hard way, through trial and error,” he says. “Through my history and my academy, I want to show that Latinos have the blood, the ñeque and everything that is needed to succeed”.
