Herb infestation

As the title says I'm having problems with my indoor herbs. I noticed white 'dust' on the table and then realised it was all over my herbs mostly on the stems but some on the leaves too I believe they are greenfly eggs they are like tiny white seed shaped things one I noticed had wings. I have put them outside to stop infecting my baby hers (planted 2 weeks ago) but these have only been planted a short while and are still fairly fragile. 

Being herbs I want a solution which will not affect the ability to eat and obviously won't kill the plant. I did look online and it suggested washing up liquid in a spray bottle but I'd rather get some more advice before I try this.

I think it's probably mealybugs that are a common pest with plants kept indoors.

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=201

hi there, thank you for the reply. I don't think those are the correct bugs, the one with wings I saw was like a 1mm long thing that looked like a grain of rice with see through wings. The stems don't have clusters of eggs they are little dots all over the place and are all white. If you scroll to aphids the first 2 images are what I have. 

http://www.psykick.de/salvia/en-gallery-problems.html#pest_whitefly

There are many sprays to get rid of white-fly-use one suitable for edible crops-but you may have to give it 2/3 goes as they are very promiscuous-to break the life-cycle

The soap spray does work but in my opinion is not as effective

I think I'll get some pest killer that is suitable. I checked under one of the leaves on my baby plant and it has yellow eggs and the larger ones have black stripes on them. I gave this one a good spray with the soap and got rid of most of them so hopefully it will kill the rest I don't want to use pesticide on baby plants. Thank you both for your responses.

I often get white fly in my greenhouse but have never seen any yellow eggs with black stripes on them.  You did say,phoenix, that there are yellow eggs under one of the leaves and that the herbs have been outdoors. Could  these yellow eggs have been laid by butterflies?  

I have never seen them before. Yes there are little white eggs on the stems and under a couple of the leaves there are yellow eggs and I noticed at least 2 of them have a horizontal black stripe on them. They have been indoors the whole time, I did have a few little black fruit flies in the house and thats about it I would say def not a butterfly as they haven't been outside.

I've controlled whitefly on indoor herbs in the past by filling a washing up bowl with cool but not cold water and a squirt of mild washing up liquid, then, placing my fingers over the top of the pot, turn the pot upside-down and swishing the herbs around in the water for a few mins, then turn the right way up and leave to drain.  Doing this occasionally when the whitefly became visible kept them under control and didn't affect the eating quality of the herbs.  Good luck.

No idea about the eggs though - could they be from something in the compost?