Two years ago, when I was a whopping eight weeks pregnant with my daughter, I found a deer tick on me. It was by the grace of God I found this tick as it wasn’t any larger than a pin point. In fact, I thought it was a spec of dirt, but to my dismay after picking it off, I saw eight teeny tiny wiggling legs and nearly screamed when I realized it was a tick. I was so skeeved out about the situation that I wrote a blog about it, Don’t Get Ticked Off, warning fellow outdoor lovers just how small deer ticks are.
Ever since that one experience, I’ve been tick paranoid. I read an article at the beginning of the summer with tips and tricks to help avoid ticks bites. As a lover of the outdoors, and someone who lives in an area that seems to be overpopulated with ticks, I was eager to put their tips to the test.
One tip was how to check for ticks after being outside or in the woods, and I can officially blog here today that this tip saved either me or my daughter earlier this week from being bitten. All you need is a lint brush, the sticky adhesive kind. Basically, you roll the lint brush up and down your entire body and it removes anything that may have hitched a ride home with you, including dirt and ticks.
After an over 4 mile hike on the trails behind our house the other night, I pulled out my handy dandy lint brush that my husband often jokingly teases me about, because let’s be honest, I only bought it to check for ticks! Anyhoo, I started rolling it up and down myself and my daughter. When I finished, I looked to see if it removed anything nasty, and to my surprise, it did in fact catch a very small deer tick. I have no idea if it was off of me or my daughter, but either way I’m incredibly thankful the trick worked. I immediately hopped in the shower with my daughter and made my husband get his lint brush roll on.
One of the other tips listed in the article was the use of peppermint oil diluted with Jojoba oil, as the scent is said to help minimize both ticks and mosquito’s from being attracted to you. I actually have and use both of these oils; however, I haven’t tried this tip yet because it’s not recommended to use peppermint oil on kids younger than two, and I’m extra careful with how and when I use that oil around my daughter. At some point though, I will definitely be testing out this tip too.
I would have loved to share a picture with you all of my captured tick, but my husband rolled it up in the adhesive from the lint brush it was caught on and threw it away before I had a chance. But, I promise you all that it absolutely worked, and I’ll definitely continue checking myself and my family for ticks with my trusty lint brush. I hope these tips and tricks are helpful to some of my fellow outdoor lovers in their efforts to ward off ticks, and please feel free to check out the original article where I found them HERE.
PS, men with hairy legs may get a half ass wax jobs using the lint brush – so consider yourself warned! 😉