I found sand in my car three months after a beach trip. Three months. It was embedded in the carpet under the passenger seat, and when I vacuumed it out, I felt a weird sense of betrayal — like the beach had been hiding it there, waiting.

Sand is relentless. It gets into everything and refuses to leave. But there are ways to deal with it that don’t involve accepting a permanent layer of grit in your life.

The baby powder trick

This sounds fake but it works. Baby powder or cornstarch absorbs the moisture that makes sand stick to skin. Sprinkle it on sandy feet, legs, hands — anywhere sand is clinging — and rub. The sand falls right off.

Keep a travel size bottle in your beach bag. Apply before getting back in the car. Your seats will thank you.

Getting sand out of your car

Vacuum first, obviously. But vacuuming alone won’t get sand out of carpet fibers — the grains work their way down to the base. Beat the floor mats against a tree or a wall before you vacuum. You’ll be shocked at how much comes out that the vacuum would have missed.

For sand stuck in the carpet itself, use a stiff brush to agitate the fibers and bring buried sand to the surface, then vacuum. Or use a rubber squeegee — run it across the carpet and it’ll pull sand up to the surface through static. Then vacuum.

Sand in beach towels and clothes

Shake everything out while you’re still at the beach. Seriously — stand upwind and shake each towel hard before it goes in the bag. Most of the sand that ends up in your washing machine could have been shaken out on the sand where it belongs.

At home, shake again outside before anything goes in the washer. Sand in the washing machine is bad for the machine — it settles in the drum and can damage seals over time.

The fitted sheet hack for the beach

This one prevents the problem entirely. Bring a fitted sheet to the beach instead of a flat blanket. Put heavy items — cooler, bag, shoes — in each corner to hold the edges up. The raised sides create a sand-free zone in the middle. When sand does get in, it mostly stays by the edges where the weights are.