This Trial and Error doesn’t come from any publication I have read, though the person who told me about it said she read it in a parenting magazine, but I have to say, it worked.
As we were packing up to visit a beach in Rhode Island while we were on vacation, the family members we were staying with said “Don’t forget the baby powder!” This was weird to me. Who uses baby powder? I mean, in all my baby care classes, the “professionals” told me NOT to use baby powder. I’ve heard of using baby oil for a glistening tan, but these didn’t seem like the kind of people who would be on the beach to tan, not to mention lathering themselves up with baby oil. They distinctly said baby powder. So of course, I had to ask.
They told me that if you apply baby powder to sandy little legs, the sand falls right off. I was skeptical. They really couldn’t tell me why. Something about the powder maybe taking the moisture out of the sand. Whatever the case, they used the little tip every time they went to the beach.
I completely forgot about it until my two-year-old face-planted herself into a pile of sand. It was in her eyes, up her nose and all over her mouth. She was crying as I brushed it away, probably sloughing her skin off in the process. It wasn’t working. She was trying to rub her eyes with her sandy hands while I was trying to pick it from her nostrils. I asked for the baby powder, put some in my hands and wiped down her face.
Sure enough, the sand just fell off. No grainy residue. No exfoliating procedure of my little girls soft skin.
Later in the afternoon, we used it again to clean up all the little kids before we put them back in the car. I think it saves us from bringing home part of the beach in the little cracks of our car.
Every time i pack for the beach, I’m going to remember my bottle of baby powder!
