Why You Should Bring A Paintbrush On Your Next Trip To The Beach

When we head to the beach, it often seems like half the beach comes home with us afterward. Sand gets everywhere, dusting the car, filling up our shoes, and then riding those intermediaries until somehow getting inside our homes. Sometimes, it feels like the sand from one beach trip stays with us for years, and the only thing that'll get rid of it is buying new stuff.

Fortunately, taking along a paintbrush to the beach can actually help with this. Others might think you're there to paint a landscape, but keeping a dry paintbrush in your car can be useful for brushing sand off towels, shoes, kids, beach chairs, and whatever else is trying to smuggle that sand into your pristine car and home. The soft, nimble bristles are much more effective than our clumsy fingers at getting that sand off (no matter what color the beach is). Any sized paint brush will do the trick, as long as it's dry, and, you know, doesn't have paint on it.

This isn't to suggest you should only show up to the beach with a single paintbrush and hope for the best. If you're with friends or family, brushing everything clean might take as long as painting a masterpiece. Luckily, there are plenty of other anti-sand methods to keep in mind.

Chief among them is to assume that you're just not going to get all that sand off before getting into the car. To avoid every car ride being itchy forever, line the trunk and seats with old sheets. It'll catch much of the sand falling off your various beach accessories and can be shaken out when you get home (outside, of course).

For extra protection, you can never have too many bags at the beach, from resealable bags to protect your delicate electronics that can't seem to handle a single grain of sand inside to plastic grocery bags for the sandy items that need to be quarantined in bags, lest they infect everything. All of the above are especially useful if there are no showers available, which is why it's also good to bring water bottles for that purpose as well. Add these to your beach packing list, and you should be fine.

Perhaps the most unexpected item to get sand off is baby powder. At first, it seems counter-intuitive, as if you're substituting the annoyance of having sand caked on you with the different irritation that comes with being covered in baby powder. However, baby powder is hydrophilic (like sand), which means it draws in moisture, and since it's more hydrophilic than sand, it can win the Risk-like battle with the sand for control of your skin. With no moisture to cling to, the sand can be more easily brushed off, like with a paintbrush, for instance.

The baby powder can be applied to sand-dense zones on your body — like between your toes — and then brushed off. But there's one other method with baby powder that keeps the powder a bit more in check. You can fill a couple of socks with baby powder, tie them up, and use the powdery socks to brush the sand off you. Will you feel weird filling up socks with baby powder? Probably. But it's certainly less off-putting than itchy sand.