We Tested This Viral Sand-Removing Pouch. You Don’t Need It. Just Use an Old Sock. (2024)

The Sandscreen that kept popping up on our social feeds is not the only sand-removing powder you can buy. They all supposedly work similarly: The powder creates a barrier between the sand and skin, which seems to help repel sand (and also makes grains of sand less inclined to re-stick to those areas). But we’ve had our fair share of windswept beach days, and Sandscreen’s pouch packaging added an intriguing convenience factor that appealed to us over loose powders.

The Sandscreen is compact and convenient. The powder-filled cotton sack is about the size of a deck of cards and weighs less than 2 ounces, so it’s small enough to easily stash in your beach bag.

The Sandscreen comes housed in a resealable plastic pouch to protect it from water. While I appreciated the neat storage, it wasn’t very durable. It started to rip after just one use, so you may have to eventually replace it with another waterproof storage option, like a sealable bag or container.

It works well, but it has a strong scent. To use the Sandscreen, you swipe or pat the little bag to release the soft powder over sandy skin (video). Our four staff testers—along with their friends, spouses, and kids—found that the sand did indeed fall away, leaving skin smooth and clean.

“Wiping at the sand doesn’t drag or push it into your skin. It just dusts it away,” says senior staff writer Elissa Sanci, who tested the Sandscreen during a trip to Jamaica.

The talc-free powder is made up of a 10-ingredient mix that includes calcium carbonate (which you may recognize as an antacid), tapioca starch, and calcium silicate (an anticaking agent). It also has a strong fragrance, which the company describes as coconut and vanilla, that a few of our testers found off-putting. I’m very sensitive to scents, and it gave me a headache indoors, but it is less potent on a windy beach.

But it works best on dry skin. The Sandscreen is adept at removing wet sand off dry skin, but not so much at removing sand from wet skin (that requires swiping or patting with a little extra oomph).

Wet skin can also get the pouch wet, which affects performance. “When the pouch got wet, I had to sort of thwack it against my skin to make it work,” says product design director Tabitha Rodrigue, who tested the Sandscreen while on a beach vacation with her family.

It’s pricey, and you have to buy an entirely new pouch when you run out of powder. Each 1.77-ounce Sandscreen pouch costs $25, and the company says it lasts about 50 uses. It does not sell refills.

“Though the pouch has a Velcro closure, it is not our intention for [the] Sandscreen bag to be reused,” says the company’s FAQ. “For convenience and hygiene we always suggest you throw the pouch away when the talc-free powder is gone.”

The Sandscreen led us to test a refillable alternative, the Palksky Sand Remover, a microfiber bag you fill with the powder of your choice (we used cornstarch). But we were less than impressed: The bag dragged sand across our tester’s skin, and the powder didn’t come through the material as easily.

That experience made us fall further down the internet rabbit hole, and we discovered a DIY hack on Reddit that also helps you apply powder without it blowing away: a cornstarch-filled tube sock. So we filled an old sock with a full 14.1-ounce box of Maizena cornstarch and put it to the test.

The Big Weird Sock (henceforth known as BWS) works like the Sandscreen—sometimes better. Three testers who tried both options found that the sock’s larger surface area and more pliable construction made it easier to use than the smaller Sandscreen sack. It efficiently swiped down adult legs and could flex in between toes.

The knit of a typical sock also allowed more sand-repelling powder to dispense than the Sandscreen’s tighter-knit fabric. That’s a blessing and a curse, because it sometimes dispenses too much powder, and you then have to swipe off the excess (it’s not a huge deal, but something to be aware of).

Filling the BWS is a pain. Filling your BWS is best done before you head to the beach—unlike what I did while testing this method, when I made the questionable decision to fill the sock once I’d arrived and set up my chair and towel.

Cornstarch blew everywhere—but, silver lining, I now have a couple of tips for an easier, less messy fill: Roll down the cuff of the sock as far as possible, open its mouth wide, and use a wide-holed funnel (a canning funnel works really well) to gently tap in about a half cup of cornstarch (rather than the full box I dumped in). Unroll the leg and knot it or tie a rubber band around it.

It’s practically free. An old sock plus about $2 worth of cornstarch is an absolute bargain. Compared with the less-than-2-ounce Sandscreen pouch, we estimate that 14 ounces of cornstarch will give you about 350 uses. Plus, since cornstarch is a staple grocery item, it’s likely to be available in stores at your beach destination.

It’s fragrance-free. If you have sensitive skin or are sensitive to fragrance, the BWS beats the Sandscreen, since you know exactly what you’re putting inside.

You might look a little silly using it. Is that a pro? Is that a con? That’s up to you.

Head to head, the BWS—for all its weirdness—trumps the Sandscreen, with similar performance but significant savings.

Both work best on dry skin. Moisture is what makes sand cling to skin, so allow yourself to dry off in the sun a bit before attempting any sand-removal method (even an old-fashioned towel).

Both methods leave powder behind. When you’re swiping powder across your legs, there’s going to be some cleanup, but both cornstarch and the Sandscreen powder brush off easily and completely with hands or a towel.

Both require waterproof storage. While a little dampness is to be expected as you’re swiping off your skin, it’s best to keep these as dry as possible. The Sandscreen comes with a flimsy plastic pouch that you may need to replace with another container. Similarly, you should put your cornstarch-filled sock in a sealable bag or container to prevent it from gathering moisture and turning into Oobleck, my favorite non-Newtonian fluid.

The Sandscreen pouch is labeled “reef-friendly,” but that’s really just marketing speak. “‘Reef-safe’ and ‘reef-friendly’ are unregulated terms, and there are no universally agreed-upon ‘reef-friendly’ ingredients or strong evidence to say they have less impact on coral,” said Craig Downs, PhD, executive director of the Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, via email. “In fact, most of the companies with those claims don’t test the safety of their products on fish and coral.”

While some locations strongly recommend the use of so-called reef-safe gear, “Calling a product ‘reef safe’ is merely a marketing exercise that is designed to appeal to a customer’s environmental conscience,” said Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

For more details on how we consider the term “reef-safe” in our sunscreen testing, you can check out our reef-safe sunscreen guide.

The Sandscreen and the BWS are better than a towel, though you may still prefer the towel. Our testers found both to be more effective at removing sand quickly, especially in tight areas such as between toes, an efficiency that parents of young kids appreciated.

But not everyone thinks the improvement is worth it. Tabitha says she’s sticking to the old water-and-wipe-off method. “Yes, I feel the sand grit against my skin with the towel, but it’s a familiar feeling, and it’s not bothersome,” she says.

I personally prefer a little powder dust over the exfoliating rub of a towel. I for one will continue using the BWS to help reduce the literal and emotional friction of beach day sand removal.

This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Catherine Kast.